Personal reflections, in Finney's own words, about, among other things, his relationship with God, his baptism in the Holy Ghost, Heaven & Hell, perfect peace & blessedness, and his inward struggles with the death of his first wife.
From the bitter persecution of Diocletian (303–305), a heroine emerged. Agnes embodied the two ultimate devotions of Christianity: virginity and martyrdom. Since church fathers often spoke in glowing, almost worshipful, terms of both virgins and martyrs, it was natural that they would hail this young girl, martyred in about 304 A.D. The early-5th-century poet Prudentius takes up the story: