ABSTRACT
A notable feature of Oliver Cromwell's letter of 25 October 1646 to his daughter Bridget Ireton is the cheerful spirit in which he reports to Bridget the mental distress of her sister Elizabeth Claypole. Some twenty years later, when she wrote about that crisis in her engaging autobiography Experiences in the Life of Mary Penington (Written by Herself), she declares that she had taken up vain and carnal activities because she had tried so hard to seek the Lord. Mary Penington left in her Experiences the history of her interior life, a record of how she got into this desperate condition, and how she emerged from it: "a true, though brief account, of many passages from my childhood to the time it was written. Penington's life shows how inward-looking Puritan piety could lead to a growing dissatisfaction with the "duties" defined by organized congregations until the zealous church member by degrees becomes a Seeker.
