Series 6 > McCulloch examinations of the Cambuslang revival (1742) > Volume 6

34
EXAMINATIONS OF PERSONS UNDER SPIRITUAL CONCERN II
[83/—] D. E. A Married Woman aged 38 years.1
It was observ’d of me, by some serious people []2 about me, that I gave
many signs of what they took to be, Early Piety, or at least of some good
inclinations of that kind. This some of them have said, they notic’d when
I was but about 4 years of age. But my own Memory serves me only to go
back to some things that looked that way, when I was about 7 years: about
which time I felt Love to Christ, his Ordinances & People, working in my
heart. From 7 to 9, I usd to pray daylie. Morning and Evening, & to retire
from my play-fellows to pray by my Self, & tho I could but say little when I
went to my Knees, yet I was usually much in a praying frame. About 9 years
11,1 fell under much slavish fear. In the Morning Satan would have hurried
me away to my worldly Work, telling me, it would lay behind if I would go
to pray: & at night, threatning to devour me & carry me away with him to
Hell, if I offered to go to pray in any place by my Self. So that under these
Slavish fears and cares of the world I refrained from Secret Prayer for these
two years [ ] ,3 After that time, I got more Love to Christ, & my Slavish fears
wore off, and, I fell to pray in Secret again.
[84/-] When I was about 13, about Whitsunday betwixt my leaving the
Service I had been at in one family & going to another, I one day in the fields,
turnd exceeding hungry, & knew not what to do for relief: but I took up a
handful of Earth & lookt to it, & was going to eat it, at which instant that
word came into my mind, man should The Lord is able of these Stones to
raise up children to Abraham, upon which I was made to believe that er’e I
was suffered to perish for hunger, God was able to turn that handful of Earth
into Bread to me [ ] ;4 and at that thought [ ]5 the Hunger went off me; And
ever after that time to this (Apr. 25.1745) I have had it to remark, That I was
never hungry but I knew not where to get food, or I was not so hungry, but
I could wait patiently & easily till I got it. From this time for about 2 years &
a half, that is, till I was about 15 years & a half, I had a Sweet & pleasant time
of the Love of God shed abroad in my heart, one Promise of the Covenant
still coming in with great Sweetness into my Soul after another.
After this for about 4 years & a half, that is, till I came to be about 21 years
of Age, I fell under great Temptations, and was haunted almost continually
1 Partial account with no record of respondent’s name.
2 Insertion [‘friends’]: McCulloch.
3 Insertion [‘tho still at my work I was every now & then putting up Petitions to God’]:
McCulloch.
4 Insertion [‘or provide for me some other way.’]: McCulloch.
5 Insertion [‘I laid down the handful of Earth’]: McCulloch.