Sarah Lynes Grubb

In the first half of the nineteenth century, great numbers of those who claimed membership in the Society of Friends in England were departing from the principals and practices of the early Quakers, and particularly from a total dependence upon the Spirit of God for all acceptable ministry, worship, and inward transformation. Sarah Lynes Grubb (1773-1842) was called to the work of the ministry when only seventeen years of age, and for fifty-two years was used by the Lord as a powerful prophetic voice to a backsliding people, often calling them back from a formal, intellectual, and lifeless Christianity, to the power and purity that was so conspicuous in the early days of the society. At thirty-two years of age, she destroyed some journals which she had previously kept, because of a growing concern that “no honor might be given to the creature.” But a large selection of her letters were collected by her children after her death, and are here published for the benefit of all who aspire to walk, as she did, on the ancient path.