Mary Miles FRIENDS' MISCELLANY: BEING A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS AND FRAGMENTS, BIOGRAPHICAL, RELIGIOUS, EPISTOLARY, NARRATIVE, DESIGNED FOR THE PROMOTION OF PIETY AND VIRTUE, TO PRESERVE IN INDIVIDUALS, AND TO RESCUE FROM OBLIVION THOSE MANUSCRIPTS LEFT BY THEM, WHICH MAY BE USEFUL TO SURVIVORS. The memory of the just is blessed.-Prov. x. 7. John, vi. 12. EDITED BY JOHN & ISAAC COMLY, BYBERRY. VOL. V. PHILADELPHIA: PRINTED FOR THE EDITORS BY J. RICHARDS, 1834. CONTENTS OF VOL. V. Page. Account of the Life and Sufferings of Elizabeth Ashbridge, Testimony concerning Elizabeth Ashbridge, Last Expressions of Deborah Stewart, Religious Exercises and Travels of Elizabeth Twining, Address of an Observer, to Friends' children, Biographical account of Mary Griffin, John Baldwin's Diary, or Journal of time, FRIENDS' MISCELLANY. No. 1.] TWELFTH MONTH, 1833. [VOL. V. SOME ACCOUNT Of the Life, Sufferings and Exercises of Elizabeth Ashbridge. My life having been attended with many uncom mon occurrences, I have thought proper to make some remarks on the dealings of Divine Goodness with me. I have often had cause, with David, to say, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted." And I most earnestly desire that they who read the following lines may take warning, and shun the evils into which I have been drawn. I was born at Middlewich, in Cheshire, in the year 1713, of honest parents, Thomas and Mary Sampson. My father was a doctor of physic, or surgeon, and bore a good character, but he was not so strictly religious as my mother, who was a pattern of virtue to me. I was my father's only child; but my mother had a son and a daughter by a former husband. Soon after I was born, my father went to sea, and, following his profession of a surgeon, made many long voyages. He continued in his sea-faring course of life till I was twelve years old: so that the care of the early part of my education devolved upon my mother, who discharged her duty therein by endeavouring to instil into my mind, in my tender age, the principles of virtue;-for which, I have since had cause to be thankful that I was blest with VOL. V.-1 |