SARAH MARTIN, The Prison Visitor, OF GREAT YARMOUTH. WITH EXTRACTS FROM HER WRITINGS AND A NEW EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS. LONDON: THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY; Instituted 1799. DEPOSITORIES, 56, PATERNOSTER ROW, 65, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD, AND 164, PICCADILLY; AND SOLD BY THE BOOKSELLERS. THE LIFE OF SARAH MARTIN. My father was a village tradesman. I was born in June, 1791; an only child, deprived of my parents at an early age, and brought up under the care of a widowed grandmother, who had from her youth been a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, a meek and lowly Christian, bending to the grave after a long life of much affliction, desiring to depart, yet, as it were, lingering for my sake. I have heard her say, and I myself retain an indistinct recollection, that when a child I felt interest in her instructions, and heard her speak of my Saviour with pleasure. These impressions, however, soon disappeared, and at twelve years old, I discovered an indescribable aversion to the Bible, and a bitter prejudice against spiritual truth, and the gospel of Christ, in every form that met me. At this period, I learned from a school-girl the way of obtaining novels and romances at a cheap rate, from an old circulating library, and, for about two years, I read much trash of this sort with uncommon avidity; when, on becoming |