She was particularly impressed by the preaching and influence of William Savery, whose home in London was at her father's house.

In some memoranda of this period, she remarks, "Frequently in the meetings appointed by him, I was greatly wrought upon by his living ministry;" and notwithstanding that she subsequently wandered far from the way of peace, there is good ground to believe that the remembrance of those truths which had penetrated her heart through the instrumentality of this gospel messenger, was never altogether effaced.
Being naturally endowed with a lively imagination and a taste for literature, she sought to suppress the upbraidings of conscience in intellectual pursuits, and employed much time in the composition of verses that were merely a transcript of visionary and romantic ideas, afterwards published under the title of "Poetical Tales." This volume obtained but a limited circulation; for, soon after it had issued from the press, the conviction that it had been an unhallowed and unprofitable exercise of her understanding was so impressed upon her spirit, that, although the sacrifice was considerable, she caused all the unsold copies to be destroyed.

It is interesting to observe how, in later years, this talent for metrical rhythm, which had been so misapplied, became consecrated, as were all her faculties, to the promotion of piety and virtue.
During the long period in which her mental energies were thus misdirected, a cloud of darkness enveloped her spirit.

She had, when about nineteen years of age, imbibed sceptical views in reference to the truths of revealed religion; and as she seldom read the Holy Scriptures, and was almost a stranger to their sacred contents, her imagination pictured an easier way to escape from the power and the consequences of sin than in that self-renunciation which the Gospel enjoins.

In some memoranda of her experience, she says, in reference to the snares by which her mind was entangled:--"I was led to a love of metaphysical studies, and fancied I discovered, with clearness, that human vice, and consequently human misery, sprang from ignorance of the nature of virtue, and that if mankind would become instructed they would become good; and that it was only necessary to behold virtue in its native beauty, to love it and to practise it.