(Gleanings from the Inner Life of Ruth Bryan
 --written at the age of seventeen)

I seem to have some feeling about Divine things;
but, alas! this afternoon am as stupid as usual.
Nothing, nothing will break this hard heart! Oh,
that I may be directed by the Spirit of truth to
the right way of happiness!

I fear that I am not affected as I ought, and have
only a faint desire to become a Christian--and that
merely to escape hell. Lord, have mercy upon me!
Lead aright! Break this hard, hard heart! You, Lord,
know what I would have--even the forgiveness
of my sins.

During service I was as cold as a stone! Oh, when
will this vile heart be melted and subdued by divine
grace? I have no faith, no humility, no sense of sin, no
confidence in the promises, no fear of the threatened
punishments; nor anything that I ought to have!

Oh, what a picture!

O Lord, break this heart into ten thousand pieces!
Oh! I would sooner suffer all horrors and terrors
imaginable, and be saved at last--than be in my
present dreadful and stupid state. Break--break,
oh, break my heart, and make me give it entirely
to You, O blessed Savior!