called his family to prayer; and this was also the last time that he
ever fell, so severely at least, upon me.

Soon after this my elder sister, who in all the time of these
exercises of mine had been at London, returned home, much troubled
to find me a Quaker, a name of reproach and great contempt then, and
she, being at London, had received, I suppose, the worst character
of them. Yet though she disliked the people, her affectionate
regard for me made her rather pity than despise me, and the more
when she understood what hard usage I had met with.

The rest of the winter I spent in a lonesome solitary life, having
none to converse with, none to unbosom myself unto, none to ask
counsel of, none to seek relief from, but the Lord alone, who yet
was more than all. And yet the company and society of faithful and
judicious friends would, I thought, have been very welcome as well
as helpful to me in my spiritual travail, in which I thought I made
slow progress, my soul breathing after further attainments, the
sense of which drew from me the following lines:


The winter tree
Resembles me,
Whose sap lies in its root:
The spring draws nigh;
As it, so I
Shall bud, I hope, and shoot.


At length it pleased the Lord to move Isaac Penington and his wife