I felt greatly indebted
to John, yet I complained of his interference to my mother, and
the old officious sinner got no thanks for his pains.
As I am writing only from recollection, so I remember of nothing
farther in these early days, in the least worthy of being recorded.
That I was a great, a transcendent sinner, I confess. But still I had
hopes of forgiveness, because I never sinned from principle, but
accident; and then I always tried to repent of these sins by the
slump, for individually it was impossible; and, though not always
successful in my endeavours, I could not help that, the grace of
repentance being withheld from me, I regarded myself as in no
degree accountable for the failure. Moreover, there were many of
the most deadly sins into which I never fell, for I dreaded those
mentioned in the Revelations as excluding sins, so that I guarded
against them continually. In particular, I brought myself to
despise, if not to abhor, the beauty of women, looking on it as the
greatest snare to which mankind was subjected, and though
young men and maidens, and even old women (my mother
among the rest), taxed me with being an unnatural wretch, I
gloried in my acquisition; and, to this day, am thankful for having
escaped the most dangerous of all snares.
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