the child said, There
is three come to me; she meant three passages of her catechism that came
to her mind.
After the child had said this, she retired again into her closet, and
her mother went over to her brother's, who was next neighbor; and when
she came back, the child, being come out of the closet, meets her mother
with this cheerful speech; I can find God now! referring to what she had
before complained of, that she could not find God. Then the child spoke
again and said, I love God! Her mother asked her, how well she loved
God, whether she loved God better than her father and mother. She said,
Yes. Then she asked her, whether she loved God better than her little
sister Rachel. She answered, Yes, better than any thing! Then her elder
sister, referring to her saying she could find God now, asked her, where
she could find God. She answered, In heaven. Why, said she, have you
been in heaven? No, said the child. By this it seems not to have been
any imagination of any thing seen with bodily eyes, that she called God,
when she said, I can find God now. Her mother asked her, whether she was
afraid of going to hell, and if that had made her cry? She answered,
Yes, I was; but now I shan't. Her mother asked her, whether she thought
that God had given her salvation: she answered, Yes. Her mother asked
her. When? She answered, Today. She appeared all that afternoon
exceeding cheerful and joyful. One of the neighbors asked her, how she
felt herself. She answered, I feel better than I did. The neighbor asked
her, what made her feel better. She answered, God makes me. That
evening, as she lay a-bed, she called one of her little cousins to her,
who was present in the room, as having something to say to him; and when
he came,
.
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