{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_11959/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_11959","id":"gutenberg_11959","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11959","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: British Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christian biography -- England","Quakers -- England -- Biography","Southall, Eliza Allen, 1823-1851"],"text":"A BRIEF MEMOIR\n\nWITH PORTIONS OF THE\n\nDIARY,\n\nLETTERS, AND OTHER REMAINS,\n\nOF\n\nELIZA SOUTHALL,\n\nLATE OF BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND.\n\n1869.\n\n  \"For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.\"--PHIL. 1. 21.\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nThe first edition of this volume appeared in England in 1855, where\nit was printed for private circulation only. Many expressions of the\ninterest that has been felt in its perusal, and of the value that has\nbeen attached to the record it contains, have reached the editor\nand the family of the departed. Several applications to allow its\npublication in America have also been received; and, after serious\nconsideration, the editor feels that he ought not to withhold his\nconsent.\n\nIn order that it may be more interesting and worthy of the\nlargely-extended circulation that it is now likely to obtain,\nadditions have been made, and particulars inserted, which a greater\nlapse of time from the occurrence of the events narrated, seems now\nto permit. A slight thread of biographical notice has also been\nintroduced.\n\nBut it is not to this part, which merely serves to render the volume\nmore complete, by enabling the reader to understand the circumstances\nby which the writer of the Diary was surrounded, but to the Diary\nitself, that the editor desires to commend attention, believing that\nthose who enjoy to trace the operations and effects of Divine grace on\nthe heart will find much that is interesting and valuable therein,\nand that the young may reap instruction and encouragement from the\nspiritual history of one who early and earnestly sought the Lord.\n\nWILLIAM SOUTHALL, JR.\n\nEDGBASTON, BIRMINGHAM, 2d mo. 12th, 1861.\n\n\n\n\nBRIEF MEMOIR\n\nOF\n\nELIZA SOUTHALL.\n\n\nEliza Southall, wife of William Southall, Jr., of Birmingham, England,\nand daughter of John and Eliza Allen, was born at Liskeard, on the 9th\nof 6th month, 1823.\n\nAs she felt a strong attachment to the scenes of her childhood, and\nan interest in the people among whom she spent the greater part of her\nshort life,--an attachment which is evinced many times in the course\nof her memoranda,--it may interest the American reader to know that\nLiskeard is an ancient but small town in Cornwall. The country around\nis broken up into hill and dale, sloping down to the sea a few miles\ndistant, the rocky shores of which are dotted with fishing-villages;\nin an opposite direction it swells into granite hills, in which\nare numerous mines of copper and lead. There is a good deal of\nintelligence, and also of religious feeling, to be met with among both\nthe miners and fishermen, Cornwall having been the scene of a great\nrevival in religion in the time of John Wesley, the effects of which\nhave not been suffered to pass away. A meeting of Friends has been\nheld at Liskeard from an early period in the history of the Society;\nbut, as in many other country places in England, the numbers seem\ngradually to diminish, various attractions drawing the members to the\nlarger towns. Launceston Castle, so well known in connection with the\nsufferings of George Fox, is a few miles distant.\n\nThe family-circle, until broken a few years before her own marriage\nby that of an elder sister, consisted, in addition to her parents, of\nfive daughters, two of whom were older and two younger than Eliza. Her\nfather was long known and deservedly esteemed by Friends in England,\nand her mother is an approved minister. John Allen was a man of\nsound judgment and of liberal and enlightened views, ever desirous\nof upholding the truth, but at the same time ready to listen to the\narguments of those who might differ from him in opinion. Moderate and\ncautious in counsel and conduct, firm, yet a peacemaker, he was truly\na father in the Church. For many years he took an active part in\nthe deliberations of the Yearly Meeting, and was often employed in\nservices connected with the Society. He was known to many Friends on\nthe American continent, from having visited that country in 1845 by\nappointment of the London Yearly Meeting. He was the author of a work\nentitled \"State Churches and the Kingdom of Christ,\" and of several\npamphlets on religious subjects. He died in 1859.\n\nJohn Allen retired from business at an early age; and a prominent\nreason for his doing so was that he might devote himself more fully to\nthe education of his daughters, which was conducted almost entirely at\nhome. Having a decided taste for the ancient classics, he considered\nthat so good a foundation of a sound education ought not to be\nneglected. The same might be said of the older history and literature\nof his own country, including its poetry, in which he was well read;\nbut he fully encouraged his pupils to become acquainted also with\nthe better productions of the day, to the tone of which their younger\nminds were more easily adapted. Nor was education confined to direct\ninstruction in the school-room. In a little memoir of John Allen,\npublished in the \"Annual Monitor,\" we read, \"In the domestic circle,\nthe tender, watchful care and sympathy of the parent were blended\nwith the constant stimulus to self-improvement of the teacher; and the\nreadiness to sacrifice personal ease and convenience, in order that\nhe might enter into the pursuits and amusements of his children, was\nunited with an unremitting endeavor to maintain a high standard of\nmoral and religious feeling. Thus by example as well as by precept did\nhe evince his deep concern for their best welfare. As years passed on,\nhis cordial sympathy with their interests, and his anxiety as far as\npossible to share his own with them, gave an additional power to his\ninfluence, not easily estimated.\" Such were the simple and natural\nmeans of education employed. The aim was true enlargement of mind; and\nthe desire was carefully instilled that the knowledge acquired\nshould be valued for its own sake, not as a possession to be used for\ndisplay. At the same time, care was taken not to destroy the balance\nbetween the intellect and the affections, so that, whilst the growth\nof the mental powers was encouraged, domestic and social duties\nshould not suffer, and habits of self-reliance should be formed. From\nearliest childhood the great principles of Christianity were instilled\ninto the opening minds of the children; and when the reflective powers\nhad come into operation, their reasonings were watched and guided into\nsafe paths. In this object, as in all the pursuits of her children,\nwas the loving influence of a watchful mother gently felt. Thus by\nthe united love and example of the parents were the affections of the\nchildren directed to a risen Saviour; and it is the aim of this volume\nto show, principally from records penned by her own hand, how one\nbeloved daughter grew in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord, until\nit pleased Him to take her to Himself.\n\nEliza Southall possessed a mind of no common order; and hers was\na character in which simplicity and strength, originality and\nrefinement, were beautifully blended: diffident and retiring, she was\nbest appreciated where she was known most intimately.\n\nIn very early life she manifested an unusual degree of mental power.\nWhen quite a little child, her earnest pursuit of knowledge was\nremarkable: she delighted in her lessons, and chose for her own\nreading a class of books far beyond the common taste of children.\n\nHer ardent, impulsive nature was, to a beautiful degree, tempered and\nsoftened by a depth of tenderness and intensity of feeling, together\nwith a warmth of affection, which bound her very closely in sympathy,\neven as a child, with those around her.\n\nThese sweet traits of natural character were so early blended with the\nunmistakable evidences of the fruit of divine grace in her heart, that\nit would be difficult to point to any time in her earliest childhood\nwhen there was not an earnest strife against evil, some sweet proof of\nthe power of overcoming grace, and some manifestation of love to her\nSaviour.\n\nHer own words sweetly describe her feelings in recalling this\nperiod:--\"When I look back to the years of my early childhood, I\ncannot remember the time when the Lord did not strive with me; neither\ncan I remember any precise time of my first covenant. It was the\ngentle drawing of the cords of his love; it was the sweet impress of\nhis hand; it was the breathing in silence of a wind that bloweth where\nit listeth.\"\n\nThe following instances of the serious thoughtfulness of her early\nchildhood are fresh in her mother's recollection. On one of her\nsisters first going to meeting, Eliza, who was younger, much wished\nto accompany her; saying, \"I know, mamma, that R---- and I can have\nmeetings at home; but I do want to go.\" Being told that her going must\ndepend upon her sister's behavior, Eliza ran to her, and putting her\narms round her neck, said, most earnestly, \"Do, dear R----, be a good\ngirl and behave well.\" The dear child's desire to attend meeting was\nsoon gratified; and that morning she selected, to commit to memory,\nJane Taylor's appropriate hymn on attending public worship, especially\nnoticing the stanza--\n\n  \"The triflers, too, His eye can see,\n    Who only _seem_ to take a part;\n  They move the lip, and bend the knee,\n    But do not seek Him with the heart,\"--\n\nsaying, earnestly, \"Oh, I hope I shall not be like those!\"\n\nAt another time, whilst amusing herself with her toys, she asked,\n\"Mamma, what is it that makes me feel _so sorry_ when I have done\nwrong? _Directly_, mamma: what is it?\" On her mother's explaining that\nit was the Holy Spirit put into her heart by her heavenly Father, she\nreplied, \"But how very whispering it is, mamma! Nobody else can hear\nit.\" \"Yes, my dear,\" said her mother; \"and thou mayst sometimes hear\nit compared to a 'still small voice, and then thou wilt know what\nis meant.\" She answered, \"Yes, mamma,\" and then continued to amuse\nherself as before.\n\nThe first remembrance of Eliza retained by one of her younger sisters\nis that of sitting opposite to her in the nursery-window while she\nendeavored, in a simple manner, to explain to her the source and\nobject of her being. To the same sister she afterwards addressed\nsome affectionate lines of infantile poetry urging the same subject,\ncommencing,--\n\n  \"Look, precious child, to Jesus Christ.\"\n\nThe missionary spirit which filled her young heart was also evinced\nby her desire to possess a donkey, that she might distribute Bibles in\nthe country places round about; and this was afterwards spoken of as\nthe ambition of her childhood.\n\nTogether with the cheerful sweetness of her disposition, there was\nan unusual pensiveness, a tender care for others, which was most\nendearing, and often touching to witness. One day, perceiving her\nmother much affected on receiving intelligence of the decease of a\nvalued friend and minister at a distance from home, Eliza evinced her\nsympathy by laying on the table before her some beautiful lines on\nthe death of Howard. On her mother asking if she thought the cases\nsimilar, she said, \"Not quite, mamma: J---- T---- was not without\nfriends.\"\n\nSo earnest was her anxiety for the good of herself and her sisters,\nthat, when any thing wrong had been done, her feelings of distress\nseemed equally excited, whether for their sakes or her own. After\nany little trouble of this sort, her mother often observed her\nretire alone, and, when she returned to the family-group, a beaming\nexpression on her countenance would show where she had laid her\nsorrows. Sometimes in her play-hours she would endeavor to prepare\nher two younger sisters for the lessons which they would receive from\ntheir father, and, when the time came for her to join in giving them\nregular instruction, she entered into it with zest and interest.\n\nMany hours were spent during the summer in the little plots of ground\nallotted to herself and sisters out of a small plantation skirting\na meadow near the house, and many others in reading under the old\nelm-trees which cast their shade over the garden-walk.\n\nThe spare moments during her domestic occupations which she was\nanxious not to neglect were often beguiled by learning pieces of\npoetry, a book being generally open at her side while thus employed.\n\nEarnestness of purpose and unwearied energy were characteristics\nof her mind. Whatever she undertook was done thoroughly and with\nan untiring industry, which often claimed the watchful care of her\nparents from the fear lest she should overtax her strength. It was\nevidently difficult to her to avoid an unsuitable strain on her\nphysical powers, whatever might be the nature of her pursuit,--whether\nher own private reading or other intellectual occupation. At one\nperiod her time and energies were closely occupied for some months\nin the formation of very elaborate charts, by which she endeavored to\nimpress historical and scientific subjects on her mind. The collection\nand examination of objects illustrating the different branches\nof natural history was also a very favorite pursuit, in which she\ndelighted to join her sisters. But the reader will best understand how\ncompletely any pursuit in which she became deeply interested took hold\nupon her, from her own account of her experiences respecting poetry.\n\nWhile deeply feeling her responsibility for the right use of all\nthe talents intrusted to her care, and earnestly engaged in their\ncultivation, she was equally conscious of the claims of social duty,\nand as solicitous to fulfil them, seeking in every way to contribute\nto the happiness of those around her, whether among the poor or among\nthe friends and relatives of her own circle.\n\nHer journal, while it exhibits an intense earnestness in analyzing the\nstate of her own mind, and perhaps rather too much proneness to dwell\nmorbidly upon it, also evinces the tender joy and peace with which she\nwas often blessed by the manifested presence of her Lord. It unfolds\nan advancement in Christian experience to which her conduct bore\nliving testimony, and proves that in humble reliance on the hope set\nbefore her in the gospel, with growing distrust of herself, her faith\nincreased in God her Saviour, and through his grace she was enabled\nto maintain the struggle with her soul's enemies, following on to know\nthe Lord.\n\nThus it was, as she sought preparation for a more enlarged sphere of\nusefulness on earth, her spirit ripened for the perfect service of\nheaven; and six weeks after she left her father's house a bride, the\nsummons was received to join that countless multitude who \"have washed\ntheir robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb; therefore\nare they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his\ntemple.\"\n\n\n\n\nDIARY.\n\n\nThe diary which was kept by the beloved object of this memoir, and\nthe extracts from which form the principal part of this volume, is\ncontained in several volumes of closely-written manuscript, and,\ntaken as a whole, is a most interesting record of mental and spiritual\ngrowth. At times it was continued with almost daily regularity, but\nat others, either from the pressure of occupations or from various\ncauses, considerable intervals occur in which nothing was written.\nIt has been the endeavor of the editor to make such selections as may\npreserve a faithful picture of the whole. There is almost of necessity\na certain amount of repetition, as in seasons of depression, when\nfaith and hope seemed to be much obscured, or, on the other hand, when\ncheerful thankfulness and joy of heart were her portion; and in such\nplaces it did not seem right to curtail her words too much. Many\nentries referred too closely to personal and family matters to be\nsuitable for publication, and the uneventful character of her life\ndoes not leave room to supply in their stead much in the way of\nnarrative; but it will be remembered that it is the heavenward journey\nthat it is desired to trace, not simply _towards_ the land \"very\nfar off,\" but that pilgrimage _during which_, though on earth, the\nbeliever in Jesus is at times privileged to partake of the joys of\nheaven.\n\nThe first volume of the series is entitled, by its author, \"Mementos\nof Mercy to the Chief of Sinners.\" Some lines written on her\nfourteenth birthday--about the period, of its commencement--may\nappropriately introduce the extracts.\n\n  _6th Mo. 9th_, 1837.--\n\n  Can it be true that one more link\n    In that mysterious chain,\n  Which joins the two eternities,\n    I shall not see again?\n\n  Eternity! that awful thing\n    Thought tries in vain to scan;\n  How far beyond the loftiest powers\n    Of little, finite man!\n\n  E'en daring fancy's fearless flight\n    In vain would grasp the whole,\n  And then, \"How short man's mortal life!\"\n    Exclaims the wondering soul.\n\n  A bubble on the ocean's breast,\n    A glow-worm's feeble ray,\n  That loses all its brilliancy\n    Beneath the orb of day.\n\n  Can it be joyful, then, to find\n    That life is hastening fast?\n  Can it be joyful to reflect,\n    This year may be our last?\n\n  Look on the firmament above,\n    From south to northern pole:\n  Can we find there a resting-place\n    For the immortal soul?\n\n         *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n  Where can we search to find its home?\n    The still small voice in thee\n  Answers, as from the eternal throne,\n    \"My own shall dwell with me.\"\n\n  And I have one year less to seek\n    An interest on high;\n  Am one year nearer to the time\n    When I myself must die!\n\n  And when that awful time will come,\n    No human tongue can say;\n  But, oh! how startling is the thought\n    That it may be to-day!\n\n  How shall my guilty spirit meet\n    The great, all-searching eye?\n  Conscious of my deficiencies,\n    As in the dust I lie.\n\n  How shall I join the ransom'd throng\n    Around the throne that stand,\n  And cast their crowns before thy feet,\n    Lord of the saintly band?\n\n  _12th Mo. 6th_, 1836. There are seasons in which\n  I am favored to feel a quiet resignation, to spend\n  and be spent in the service of Him who, even in\n  my youthful days, has been pleased to visit me with\n  the overshadowing of His mercy and love, and to require\n  me to give up all my dearest secret idols, and\n  every thing which exalts self against the government\n  of the Prince of Peace.\n\n  _4th Mo. 3d_, 1837. Almost in despair of ever\n  being what I ought to be. I feel so poor in every\n  good thing, and so amazingly rich in every bad thing.\n  Still this little spark of love that remains, seems to\n  hope in Him \"who will not quench the smoking flax.\"\n\n  _6th Mo. 4th_. I have cause to be very watchful.\n  Satan is at hand: temptations abound, and it is no\n  easy matter to keep in the right way. To have my\n  affections crucified to the world is my desire. The\n  way to the celestial city, is not only through the\n  valley of humiliation, but also through the valley\n  of the shadow of death.\n\n  _6th Mo. 11th_. Many things have lately occurred\n  which have flattered my vanity. I have received\n  compliments and commendations: old Adam likes\n  these things, and persuades me that I am somebody,\n  and may well feel complacency. How needful is\n  watchfulness! may the true light discover to me the\n  snares that are set on every side.\n\n  _7th Mo. 2d_. May I be enabled to give myself up\n  as clay into the Potter's hand, without mixing up\n  any thing of my own contriving; and in the silence\n  of all flesh, wait to have the true seed watered and\n  nourished by heavenly dew.\n\n  _8th Mo. 2d_. I feel humbled at the sight of my\n  many backslidings and deficiencies. Oh, may He,\n  \"who is touched with a feeling of our infirmities,\" in\n  just judgment, remember mercy. If He does not,\n  there can be no hope for me; but oh! I trust He\n  will. \"Let not Thy hand spare, nor Thine eye pity,\n  till Thou hast made me what thou wouldst have me\n  to be.\"\n\n  _8th Mo. 20th_. Utterly unworthy! Oh, my\n  Father! if there be any right beginning, if there\n  be the least spark of good within me, carry it on:\n  oh, increase it, that I may become as a plant of thy\n  right hand planting, that I may become a sheep of\n  thy fold. Assist me to present myself before thee\n  in true silence, that I may wait upon thee in truth,\n  and worship thee in the silence of all flesh, and\n  know \"all my treasure, all my springs, in Thee.\"\n\n  _10th Mo. 13th_. We have just been favored with\n  a visit from J.P., which has been to me a great\n  comfort. At our Monthly Meeting he addressed\n  the young; and it seemed as though he spoke the\n  very thoughts of my heart; and the sweet supplication\n  offered on their behalf that they might be\n  preserved from the snares of the delusive world,\n  may it be answered.\n\n  _4th Mo. 15th_, 1838. I want to give up every\n  thing, every thought, every affection, in short, my\n  whole self, to my offered Saviour. Then would His\n  kingdom come, and His will be done. Instead of\n  the thorn would come up the fir-tree, and instead\n  of the brier the myrtle-tree. How precious, how\n  holy, how peaceful, that kingdom! Oh! if I may\n  yet hope; if mercy is left, I beseech Thee, hear and\n  behold me, and bring me \"out of the miry clay, and\n  set my feet upon the rock.\"\n\n  _5th Mo. 26th_, 1839. A beautiful First-day.\n  Every thing sweet and lovely; fulfilling the purpose\n  of its creation as far as man is not concerned. Birds\n  and insects formed for happiness, are now completely\n  happy. But ah! they were formed to give glory to\n  God, by testifying to man His goodness. Ten thousand\n  voices call upon me to employ the nobler\n  talents intrusted for the same purpose. Nearly\n  sixteen years have I been warned, and sweetly\n  called upon to awake out of sleep: \"What meanest\n  thou, O sleeper? arise, and call upon thy God!\"\n  How shall I account, in the last day, for these\n  things? It is often startling to think how time is\n  advancing, and how ill the day's work keeps pace\n  with the day. For even now, poor drowsy creature\n  that I am, it is but occasional sensibility, with the\n  intervals buried in vain dreams; and even at such\n  times, my poor warped affections, and busy imaginations,\n  crowded with a multitude of images, refuse to\n  yield to the command, \"Be still, and know that I\n  am God.\" I have, indeed, found that in whatever\n  circumstances I may he placed, I can never be really\n  happy without the religion of the heart; without\n  making the Lord my habitation; and oh, may it be\n  mine, through Christ's humbling and sanctifying\n  operations, to know every corner of my heart made\n  fit for the dwelling-place of Him who is with the\n  meek and contrite ones. Then shall the remaining\n  days of my pilgrimage be occupied in the energetic\n  employment of those talents which must otherwise\n  rise up for my condemnation in the last day.\n\n  _6th Mo. 2d_. It is not for me to say any more\n  \"thus far will I go, but no farther,\" either in the\n  narrow or the broad way. In the former, we cannot\n  refuse to proceed without receding; in the latter, if\n  we will take any steps, it is impossible to restrain\n  ourselves. Besetting sins, though apparently opposite\n  ones, sad stumbling-blocks in the way of the\n  cross, are unrestrained activity of thought and\n  indolence: the former proceeds from earthly-mindedness;\n  and the latter as a sure consequence from\n  the want of heavenly-mindedness. Oh that by\n  keeping very close to Jesus, my wandering heart\n  may receive the impression of His hand, that the\n  new creation may indeed be witnessed, wherein\n  Jerusalem is a rejoicing and her people a joy;\n  then may I find that quiet habitation which nothing\n  ever gave me out of the fold of Christ.\n\n  _6th Mo. 9th_. Alas! how shall I account for the\n  sixteen years which have, this day, completed\n  their course upon my head? What shall I render\n  unto the Lord for all his benefits? Shall I not,\n  from this time, cry unto Him, \"My Father, thou\n  art the guide of my youth\"? But, for the year that\n  is passed, what can I say? I will lay my hand on\n  my mouth and acknowledge that it has been squandered.\n  Yes, so far as it has not been employed about\n  my Father's business. But, alas! it has been\n  crammed with selfishness; though now and then\n  He, whom I trust I yet desire to serve, has made me\n  sensibly feel how precious is every small dedication\n  to Himself.\n\n  _6th Mo. 16th_. The consideration of the peculiar\n  doctrines of Friends having been lately rather\n  forced on my attention, let me record my increased\n  conviction of the privilege of an education within\n  the borders of the Society; of the great value and\n  importance of its spiritual profession, and the awful\n  responsibility of its members to walk so as to adorn\n  its doctrines, and shine as lights in the world.\n\nWarmly as she was attached to these principles, she ever rejoiced in\nthe conviction that all the followers of Christ are one in Him, and\nthat, by whatever name designated, those who have attained to the\nclosest communion with Him are the nearest to one another; and when\ndifferences in sentiment were the topic of conversation, she would\nsometimes rejoin in an earnest tone, the \"commandment is exceeding\nbroad.\"\n\n  _2d Mo. 2d_, 1840. Time passes on, and what progress\n  do I make, either in usefulness in the earth,\n  or preparation for heaven? Self-indulgence is the\n  bane of godliness, and is, alas! mine.' This world's\n  goods are snares, and are, alas! snares to me.\n  Coward that my heart is, when pride is piqued, I\n  have not resolution to conquer my own spirit.\n  Pride, indolence, and worldly-mindedness are bringing\n  me into closer and closer bondage: the first\n  keeps me from true worship by preventing me from\n  seeking the help and teaching of the one Spirit;\n  the second, by making me yield without effort or\n  resistance to the uncontrolled imaginations which\n  the third presents. And now do these lines witness\n  that, having been called to an everlasting salvation,\n  God, the chief good, having manifested His name\n  unto the least of His little ones, my soul and body\n  are for Him, _belong_ to Him, to be moulded and\n  fashioned according to His will; and that if I\n  frustrate His purpose, His glorious holiness and\n  free grace are unsullied and everlastingly worthy.\n\n  _7th Mo. 12th_. If I acknowledge my own state,\n  it is one cumbered with \"many things.\" Alas!\n  amid them how little space is there for the love of\n  God! I have remembered the days when untold\n  and inexpressible experiences were mine; when a\n  child's tears and prayers were seen and heard before\n  the throne! The stragglings of grace and nature\n  have been great since then. I can look back to\n  years of struggles and deliverances, years of revoltings\n  and of mercies. It is like \"threshing mountains\"\n  to meddle with the strongholds of sin; but\n  mountains, I sometimes hope, will be made to \"skip\n  like rams.\"\n\n  _10th Mo. 5th_. How long have I been like the\n  \"merchantman seeking goodly pearls\"! Ever since\n  reason dawned I have longed for a goodly pearl;\n  though dazzled and deceived by many an empty\n  trifle, I cannot plead as an excuse that I could not\n  find the pearl. I have seen it at times, and felt how\n  untold was the price, and thought I was ready to\n  sell all and buy it, sometimes believed that all was\n  sold; but why, ah, why was my pledge so often\n  redeemed? I have been indeed like a simple one,\n  who, having found a \"pearl of great price,\" cast it\n  from him for an empty, unsatisfying show.\n\n  _1st Mo. 17th_, 1841. Very precious as have been\n  the privileges vouchsafed the last two days, I can\n  this morning speak of nothing as my present condition,\n  but the extreme of weakness and poverty. On\n  6th day evening R.B. addressed us in such a way\n  as proved to me that the Divine word is a discerner\n  of the thoughts and intents of the heart. The\n  chief purport was the necessity of a willingness to\n  learn daily of the great Teacher meekness and\n  lowliness and faithfulness in the occupation of the\n  talents intrusted; \"for where much is given, much\n  will be required.\" Yesterday his parting \"salutation\n  of brotherly love\" was such as cannot be effaced\n  from my memory; and oh, I pray that it may not\n  from my heart. And now my prayer, my desire,\n  must be for a renewed dedication. The separation,\n  as R.B. said, from the right hand and the right eye\n  must be made: the sacrifice which is acceptable will\n  always cost something.\n\n  _3d Mo. 8th_. Oh, may I become altogether a babe\n  and a fool before myself, and, if it must be, before\n  others! God has been very graciously dealing with\n  me.\n\n  _3d Mo. 19th_. Words must be much more\n  guarded, as well as thoughts. This morning I am\n  comforted with a precious feeling: \"I will take care\n  of thee.\"\n\n  _3d Mo. 27th_. How does my heart long, this\n  evening, that the one Saviour may be made unto\n  me \"wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and\n  redemption!\" Teach me to keep silence, O God!\n  to mind my own business and be faithful to it; to\n  deny my own will and wisdom; give me the spirit\n  of true Christian love, that my whole life may be in\n  the atmosphere of love!\n\n  _3d Mo. 28th_. * * * To cease from my own\n  works, surely in a very small degree, I can experimentally\n  say, \"this is the only true rest.\" This\n  blessed experience seems to me the height of enjoyment\n  to the truly redeemed. Oh, a little foretaste\n  of this sabbath has been granted, when I have\n  seemed to behold with my own eye, and to feel for\n  myself in moments too precious to be forgotten, the\n  waves of tumult hushed into a, more than earthly\n  calm by Him who alone can say, \"Peace, be still.\"\n  My tossing spirit has never found such a calm in\n  any thing this world can give.\n\nDuring her first attendance of the Yearly Meeting in London, in 1841,\nshe wrote the following affectionate lines in a letter to her sisters\nat home:--\n\n  LONDON THOUGHTS.\n\n\n  The crowds that past me ceaseless rush\n    Stay not to glance at me,\n  As falling waters headlong gush\n    Into their native sea.\n\n  But hearts there are that brightly burn,\n    And light each kindling eye,\n  And home to them my thoughts return,\n    Swift as the sunbeams fly.\n\n         *       *       *       *       *\n\n  To home, to home my spirit hastes;\n    For why? my treasure's there;\n  'Tis there her native joys she tastes,\n    And breathes her native air.\n\n  Oh, sweetest of all precious things,\n    When this wide world we roam,\n  When meets us on its balmy wings\n    A messenger from home!\n\n  From home, where hearts are warm and true,\n    And love's lamp brightly burns,\n  And sparkles Hermon's pearly dew\n    On childhood's crystal urns.\n\n  Oh, sweet to mark the speaking lines\n    Traced by a sister's hand,\n  And feel the love that firmly twines\n    Around our household band!\n\nTo one of her sisters:--\n\n  LONDON, 6th Month, 1841.\n\n  * * * * I lay still half hour, and read over\n  thy tenderly interesting and affecting sheet, and poured\n  out my full heart; but what can I say? How I do long\n  to be with you, and see, if it might be, once more, our\n  beloved uncle! But perhaps before this the conflict may\n  be over, the victory won, the everlasting city gained,\n  none of whose inhabitants can say, \"I am sick.\" And\n  if so, dare we murmur or wish to recall the loved one\n  from that home? Oh for that childlike and humble\n  submission which is befitting the children of a Father\n  of mercies, and the followers of Him who can and will\n  do all things well!\n\nAfter the Yearly Meeting, she thus writes in her Journal:--\n\n  _6th Mo. 12th_. Many and great have been the\n  favors dispensed within the last five weeks. The\n  attendance of the Yearly Meeting has been the\n  occasion of many and solemn warnings and advices,\n  and, I trust, the reception of some real instruction.\n  But, truly, I have found that in every situation, the\n  great enemy can lay his snares; and if one more\n  than another has taken with me, it has been to lead\n  me to look outward for teaching, and to depend too\n  much upon it, neglecting that one inward adoration\n  for the want of which no outward ministry can atone.\n  But I hope the enemy has not gained more than\n  limited advantages of this kind, and perhaps even\n  the discovery of these has had the effect of making\n  me more distrustful of self. And, now, oh that the\n  everlasting covenant might be ordered in _all_ things\n  and sure, and He only, who is King of Kings and\n  Lord of Lords, be exalted over all, in my heart; and\n  the blessed experience thus described, be more fully\n  realized: \"He that hath entered into his rest hath\n  ceased from his own works as God did from his.\"\n\n  _6th Mo. 21st_. Very early this morning the long\n  struggle with death terminated, and the spirit of our\n  beloved Uncle E. was released from its worn tenement.\n  The stony nature in my heart seems truly\n  wounded. May it not be as the wounded air, soon\n  to lose the trace. My heavenly Father's tender\n  regard I have, indeed, felt this evening; but I tremble\n  for the evil that remains in me. May I be blessed\n  with the continued care of the good Shepherd, that\n  I may be preserved as by the crook of His love.\n  And now, seeing that much is forgiven me, may I\n  love much. I feel that my Saviour's regard is of\n  far more value than any earthly thing; and oh\n  that my eye may be kept singly waiting for Him!\n\nThe decease of her uncle was soon followed by that of his youngest\nson, Joseph E. In reference to his death, she remarks:--\n\n  _7th Mo. 22d_. He, in whose sight the death of\n  His saints is precious, has again visited with the\n  solemn call our family circle, and summoned away\n  the sweetest, purest, and most heavenly of the group.\n  Our dear cousin Joseph last night entered that\n  \"rest which remains for the people of God;\" rest\n  for which he had been panting the whole of the day,\n  and to which he was enabled to look forward as his\n  \"happy home.\"\n\n  _7th Mo. 28th_. Yesterday was one long to be remembered.\n  The last sad offices were paid to him\n  whom we so much loved; and oh that the mantle\n  of the watchful, lowly disciple might descend abundantly\n  upon us! Yet it is only by keeping near to\n  the divine power, that I can receive any thing good;\n  and, though yet far away, oh, may I look towards His\n  holy habitation who is graciously offering me a home\n  where there is \"bread enough and to spare.\"\n\n  _4th Mo. 3d_, 1842. He who has been for years\n  striving with me, has lately, I think I may say, manifested\n  to me the light of His countenance, and\n  enabled me at seasons to commit the toiling, roving\n  mind into His hand. This morning, however, I feel\n  as if I could find no safe centre. Oh that I were\n  gathered out of the false rest, and from all false\n  dependence, to God Himself, the only true helper,\n  and leader, and guide! How precious to recognize,\n  in the light that dawned yesterday and the day before,\n  the same glory, and power, and beauty, which\n  were once my chief joy! But oh, I desire not to be\n  satisfied with attaining again to former experience;\n  but to give all diligence in pressing forward to the\n  mark for the prize, even forgetting things that are\n  behind.\n\n  _10th Mo_. Mercies and favors of which I am totally\n  unworthy have been graciously bestowed this morning,\n  and, may I hope, a small capacity granted to\n  enter into the sanctuary and pray. This week I\n  have been unwatchful,--too much cumbered; yet,\n  oh, I hope and trust, at times, my chains are breaking,\n  and though I must believe the bitterness will\n  come in time, the gospel of salvation is beginning\n  to be tasted in its sweetness, completeness, and joy.\n\n  _1st Mo._ 1843. I desire that the privilege of this\n  day attending the Quarterly Meeting at Plymouth,\n  may be long held in grateful remembrance; that the\n  language, \"I have heard of Thee by the hearing of\n  the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee; wherefore I\n  abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes,\" may\n  be my increasing experience. Conscious that the\n  state of my heart, long wavering between two opinions,\n  has of late been fearfully in danger of fixing\n  to the wrong one of these, I would ask of Him who\n  seeth in secret, and who is, I trust, at this very moment\n  renewing a measure of the contrition, which,\n  amid all my desires for it, did but gleam upon me\n  this morning, to do in me a thorough work, to remain\n  henceforth and ever.\n\n  _2d Mo. 12th_. About four weeks since, we had\n  a precious visit from B.S., and it has been a sacrifice\n  to me to make no record of his striking communications;\n  but I have been fearful, lest in any measure\n  the weight and freshness of these things should\n  vanish in words; and I have never felt at liberty to\n  do so.\n\nIn this year, she wrote but little in her Journal, and it appears\nto have been a time of spiritual proving; yet one in which she\nexperienced that it was good for her \"to trust in the name of the\nLord, and to stay herself upon her God.\"\n\n  _6th Mo. 16th_, 1844. One week ago was the\n  twenty-first anniversary of my birthday. In some\n  sense, I can say,--\n\n  \"The past is bright, like those dear hills,\n    So far behind my bark;\n  The future, like the gathering night,\n    Is ominous and dark.\n\n  \"One gaze again--one long, last gaze;\n    Childhood, adieu to thee;\n  The breeze hath hurried me away,\n    On a dark, stormy sea.\"\n\n  Deeply and more deeply, day by day, does my understanding\n  find the deceitfulness of my heart. Well\n  do I remember the feelings of determination, with\n  which I resolved, two years since, that this period\n  should not find me halting between two opinions,--that\n  ere _this_ day I would be a Christian indeed.\n  And looking back upon my alternating feelings, ever\n  since reason was mine, upon the innumerable resolutions\n  to do good, which have been as staves of reed,\n  I must want common perception not to assent to the\n  truth, that \"the heart is deceitful above all things,\n  and desperately wicked: who can know it?\" But,\n  oh, it is not this only, which my intellectual conscience\n  is burdened with: when I look at the visitations\n  of divine grace which have been my unmerited,\n  unasked-for, privilege, through which I can but feel\n  that in days past, a standing was placed in my power\n  to attain, which, probably, now I shall never approach,\n  the question does present with an awful importance,\n  \"How much owest thou unto thy Lord?\"\n  Seeing we know not, nor can know, the value of an\n  offer of salvation, till salvation is finally lost or won;\n  seeing that such an offer is purchased only by the\n  shedding of a Saviour's blood, how incomprehensibly\n  heavy, yet how true, the charge, \"Ye have crucified\n  to yourselves the son of God afresh.\" I know well\n  that of many now pardoned, for sins far deeper in\n  the eyes of men than any I have committed, it might\n  be said that _little_ is forgiven them in comparison of\n  the load of debt that hangs over my head; and I\n  have sometimes thought, that the comparison of\n  _debtors_ was selected by the Saviour, purposely to\n  show that guilt in the sight of God is chiefly incurred\n  by the neglect of His own spiritual gifts, not\n  in proportion merely to the abstract morality of man's\n  conduct. It is certainly what we have received\n  that will be required at our hands: and oh, in the\n  sight of the Judge of all the earth, how much do I\n  owe unto my Lord! This day, though I was not in\n  darkness about it, seems almost to have overtaken me\n  unawares. I was not ready for it, though I knew so\n  well when it would come; and, oh, for that day which\n  I know not how near it may be, when the account\n  is to be finally made up--how, how shall I prepare?\n  With all the blessings, and invitations, and helps,\n  which the good God has given me, I am _deeply,\n  deeply_ involved. How, then, can I dream of clearing\n  off these debts, when there can be no doubt that\n  I shall daily incur more? Alas, I am too much disposed\n  to keep a _meum_ and _tuum_ with heaven itself\n  in more senses than one. * * * As to setting out\n  anew on a _carte blanche_, I cannot. There lies the\n  deeply-stained record against me: \"_I_ called,\" and,\n  oh, how deep the meaning, \"Ye did not answer.\"\n  Yes, my heart did: but to answer, \"I go, sir,\" does\n  but add to the condemnation that \"I went not.\"\n\n  _6th Mo. 23d._ This morning, I believe, the spirit\n  was, in measure, willing, though the \"flesh was\n  weak.\" I have thought of the lines--\n\n    \"When first thou didst thy all commit\n    To Him upon the mercy-seat,\n    He gave thee warrant from that hour\n    To trust his wisdom, love, and power.\"\n\n  My desire is to know that _my_ all is committed, and\n  then, I do believe, He _will_ be known to be faithful\n  that hath promised. The care of our salvation is\n  not ours; our weak understandings cannot even\n  fathom the means whereby it is effected; but this\n  we do know, that it indispensably requires to be\n  \"wrought out with fear and trembling.\" The Saviour\n  will be _ours_, only on condition of our being\n  _his_. Religion must not be an acquirement, but a\n  transformation; and surely that spirit, which could\n  not make itself, and which, when made by God, has\n  but degraded itself, is unable to \"create itself anew\n  in Christ Jesus unto good works.\" No, fear and\n  trembling are the only part, and that but negative,\n  which the spirit of man can have in working out its\n  own salvation; but when led by the good spirit into\n  this true fear, when given to wait, and held waiting\n  at the feet of Jesus, it is made able, gradually, to _receive_\n  the essential gospel of salvation; and so long\n  only is it in the way of salvation as it is sensible\n  of its constant dependence on the one Saviour of\n  men.\n\n  May Friends, above all, while distinctly maintaining\n  the doctrine of the influence of the Spirit on\n  the heart, be deeply and _personally_ sensible that\n  there is but _one_ Saviour, even Jesus Christ, who\n  came into the world to save sinners, of whom, as we\n  are led to true repentance, I believe each one will be\n  ready to think \"I am chief.\" The distinguishing\n  practices of Friends, as to dress, language, etc. are\n  in no manner valuable, but when they spring from\n  the _root_ of essential Christianity. This is certainly\n  the great thing. \"Cleanse first the inside of the cup\n  and platter.\"\n\n  I have been grieved to fear that some would resolve\n  the vast meaning of \"a religious life and conversation\n  consistent with our Christian profession\" into\n  little more than \"plainness of speech, behavior,\n  and apparel:\" then I do think it becomes a mere idol.\n  The tithe of \"mint, anise, and cummin\" is preferred\n  to the weightier matters of the law. But I am going\n  from the point of my own condition in the warmth\n  of my feelings, which have been deeply troubled at\n  these things of late.\n\n  _11th Mo. 18th_. I believe it is one and the same\n  fallen nature which, at one time, is holding me captive\n  to the world; at another, filling me with impatience\n  and anxiety about my spiritual progress; at\n  another, with self-confidence, and at another, with\n  despondency. Oh, the enemy knows my many weak\n  sides; but I do hope and trust the Lord will take\n  care of me. \"Past, present, future, calmly leave to\n  Him who will do all things well.\" If the root be\n  but kept living and growing, then I need not be\n  anxious about the branches; but, above all, the root\n  must be the husbandman's exclusive care.\n\n  _11th Mo. 30th_. I believe I sincerely desire that\n  no spurious self-satisfaction may be mistaken for the\n  peace of God, that no activity in works of self-righteousness\n  may be mistaken for doing the day's work\n  in the day. Oh, who can tell the snares that surround\n  me? Yet I have been comforted this morning,\n  in thinking of the declaration, \"His mercies are over-all\n  his works;\" which I believe may be very especially\n  applied to the work of His Spirit in the soul of man.\n  Over this He does watch, and to this He does dispense,\n  day by day, His merciful protection from surrounding\n  dangers; \"I the Lord do keep it, I will\n  water it every moment; lest any hurt it, I will keep\n  it night and day.\" Oh, the blessedness of a well-founded,\n  watchful, humble trust in this keeping!\n\n  _12th Mo. 27th_. The mean self-indulgence of sleeping\n  late has come over me again, though I found, a\n  week or two since, after a firm resolve, the difficulty\n  vanish. This morning I had no time for retirement\n  before breakfast; and, should circumstances ever become\n  less under my control, this habit may prevent\n  my having any morning oblation. The weakness and\n  sinfulness of my heart have been making me almost\n  tremble at the thought of another year: how shall I\n  meet its thousand dangers and not fall? In religious\n  communications in our house, I am apt to look for\n  any intimation that I could appropriate of a shortened\n  pilgrimage; but very little of the sort has occurred:\n  indeed, I expect my selfish wish will not be gratified,\n  of escaping early from this toilsome world; but how\n  rash and ungrateful are such thoughts! how much\n  better all these things are in my Father's hands! Oh,\n  if I may be there too in the form of passive clay,\n  and receive all His tutoring and refining, this will be\n  enough: and should my future way be full of sorrows,\n  heaven will bring me sweeter rest at last; when the\n  whole work is done, when the robes are quite washed,\n  when the fight is quite fought, and the death died;\n  when the eternal life, which shall blossom above, is\n  brought into actual health here, and real fellowship\n  is made with my last hour.\n\n  _1st Mo. 10th_, 1845. I am inclined to set down\n  the events of my little world for the past week; that\n  in days to come, should it prove that I have been\n  following \"cunningly devised fables,\" I may beware\n  of such entanglements again; and that if they be\n  found a guidance from above, their contemptibleness\n  and seeming folly may be shown to be in wisdom. I\n  have, from my childhood, delighted in poetry: if\n  lonely, it was my companion; if sad, my comfort;\n  if glad, it gave a voice to my joy. Of late, I have\n  enjoyed writing pieces of a religious nature, though\n  I must confess the excitement, the possession which\n  the act of composition made of my mind, did not\n  always favor the experience of what I sought to express.\n  Two pieces of this kind I asked my father to\n  send to the _Friend_: he liked them, but proposed my\n  adding something to one. I had had a sweet little\n  season by myself just before: then, sliding from feeling\n  to composition, I thought of it all the rest of the\n  evening, and when I went to bed, stayed some time\n  writing four lines for the conclusion; after I was in\n  bed, my heart was full of it, and I composed four\n  lines more to precede them, with which I fell asleep.\n  In the morning I resolved not to think of them till\n  I had had my silent devotions; they came upon me\n  while I was dressing, and, having forgotten one line,\n  I stayed long making a substitute: then I retired to\n  read, and, if possible, to pray, but it was not possible\n  in that condition: I did but sit squaring and polishing\n  my lines; and having finished them to my heart's\n  content, I gave them to my father about the middle\n  of the day, conscious, I could not but be, that they\n  had \"passed as a cloud between the mental eye of\n  faith and things unseen.\" Every time they passed\n  through my mind, they seemed to sound my condemnation.\n  My evening retirement was dark and\n  sad; I felt as if any thing but this I could give up\n  for my Saviour's love; \"all things are lawful, but all\n  things are not expedient;\" and yet the taste and the\n  power were given me, with all things else, by God.\n  I had used them too in a right cause, but then the\n  talent of grace is far better. Which should be sacrificed?\n  Why sacrifice either? I could not deny that\n  it seemed impossible to keep both. But it might be\n  made useful, if well employed. \"To obey is better\n  than sacrifice.\" Now they _are_ written, they might\n  just as well be printed; but the printing will probably\n  be the most hazardous part. I shall be sure to write\n  more, and nourish vanity: or else the sight of them\n  will cause remorse rather than pleasure. If I should\n  lose my soul through poetry? For the life of self\n  seems bound up in it; and \"whosoever loveth his\n  life shall lose it.\" But perhaps it would be a needless\n  piece of austerity; it would be a great struggle;\n  it would be like binding myself for the future, not\n  to enjoy my treasured pleasure. The sacrifice which\n  is acceptable will always cost something. So I prevailed\n  upon myself to write a note, and lay it before\n  my father, asking him not to send them, trembling\n  lest he should dislike my changeableness, or I should\n  change again and repent it. My father said nothing,\n  but gave me back the lines when we were all together,\n  which was a mountain got over. I thought to have\n  had more peace after; but till this First-day I have\n  been very desolate, though, I believe, daily desiring\n  to seek my God above all; and thinking, sometimes,\n  that that for which I had made a sacrifice became\n  thereby dearer.\n\nAfter this striking and instructive account, which shows how zealously\nshe endeavored to guard against any too absorbing influence, however\ngood and allowable in itself the thing might be, it seems not amiss to\nremark that Eliza's taste for poetry was keen and discriminating; and\nthat her love of external nature, and more especially her deeper and\nholier feelings, found appropriate expression in verse. If some of\nthese effusions show a want of careful finish, it must be remembered\nthat they were not written for publication, but for the sake of\nembodying the feeling of the occasion, in that form which naturally\npresented itself.\n\nThe pieces alluded to in the foregoing extracts are the following:--\n\n  \"WHAT I DO THOU KNOWEST NOT NOW.\"\n\n\n  Hast thou long thy Lord's abiding\n    Vainly sought 'mid shadows dim?\n  Lo! His purpose wisely hiding,\n    Thee He seeks to worship him.\n\n  Shades of night, thy strain'd eye scorning,\n    Have they; long enwrapp'd the skies?\n  He, whose word commands the morning,\n    Soon shall bid the day-spring rise!\n\n  Are ten thousand fears desiring\n    To engulf their helpless prey?\n  One faint hope, his grace inspiring,\n    Is a mightier thing than they.\n\n  Has the foe his dark dominion,\n    As upon thy Saviour, tried?--\n  As to Him with hastening pinion,\n    Lo! the angels at thy side.\n\n  Is thy spirit all unfeeling,\n    Save to sin that grieves thee there?\n  Thee He'll make, his face revealing,\n    Joyful in His house of prayer!\n\n  Hast thou seen thy building falter\n    Can thy God thy griefs despise?\n  'Mid the ruins dark, an altar\n    Fashion'd by His hands, shall rise.\n\n  Thee, to some lone mountain sending,\n    Only with the wood supplied;\n  He, thy God, thy worship tending,\n    Will Himself a lamb provide.\n\n  Has He made it vain thy toiling\n    Fine-spun raiment to prepare?\n  'Twas to give--thy labors spoiling--\n    Better robes than monarchs wear.\n\n  From thy barn and storehouse treasure\n    Did He take thy hoarded pelf?\n  Yes: to feed thee was His pleasure,\n    Like the winged fowls--_Himself_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n  \"WHAT PROFIT HATH A MAN OF ALL HIS LABOR\n  THAT HE TAKETH UNDER THE SUN?\"\n\n\n  Must we forever train the vineyard sproutings,\n    And plough in hope of harvests yet to come,\n  Nor ever join the gladsome vintage shoutings,\n    And sing the happy song of harvest-home?\n\n  Must we forever the rough stones be heaping,\n    And building temple walls for evermore?\n  Comes there no blessed day for Sabbath-keeping,\n    No time within the temple to adore?\n\n  In faith's long contest have life's quenchless fountains\n    Bade calm defiance to the hostile sword?\n  But when, all beautiful upon the mountains,\n    Shall come the herald of our peace restored?\n\n  Must we forever urge the brain with learning,\n    And add to moral, intellectual woes?\n  Nor hold in peace the spoils we have been earning,\n    And find in wisdom's self the mind's repose?\n\n  Long have we watch'd, and risen late and early,\n    Rising to toil, and watching but to weep;\n  When will the blessing come like dewdrops pearly,\n    \"On heaven's beloved ones even while they sleep?\"\n\n  Since life began, our life has been beginning,\n    That ever-nascent future's treacherous vow;\n  When shall we find, the weary contest winning\n    A present treasure, an enduring _now_?\n\n  Ten thousand nameless earthly aims pursuing,\n    Hope we in vain the recompense to see,\n  And must our total life expire in _doing_,\n    And never find us leisure time _to be_?\n\n  Has not our life a germ of real perfection,\n    As holds the tiny seed the forest's pride?\n  And shall its ask'd and promised resurrection\n    In dreams of disappointed hope subside?\n\n  Yes, all is hopeless, man with vain endeavor,\n    May climb earth's rugged heights, but climb to fall;\n  Ever perfecting, yet imperfect ever,\n    Earth has no rest for man--if earth be all.\n\n  Yet oft there dwell, in temples frail and mortal,\n    Souls that partake immortal life the while;\n  Nor wait till death unbar heaven's pearly portal,\n    For heaven's own essence, their Redeemer's smile.\n\n  _--12th Month_, 1844.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nFrom the Journal relating to daily affairs, at this time, kept\ndistinct from her spiritual diary, the following, and a few other\nextracts, have been taken. Never suspecting that this would see the\nlight, she left it in an unfinished state. Had it been reconsidered,\nportions of it would probably have been altered; but it sufficiently\nshows her desire to understand the agencies of intellectual action,\nand the philosophy of knowing and acquiring. She recognizes the\nimportance of systematic knowledge, questions the purpose and use\nof every attainment, and manifests throughout a desire that all\nthe operations of the intelligence may subserve a nobler aim than\nknowledge in itself possesses:--\n\n  _5th Mo. 16th_. That life is a real, earnest thing,\n  and to be employed for our own and others' real and\n  earnest good, is a fact which I desire may be more\n  deeply engraven on my heart. It is certainly a\n  matter of spiritual duty, to look well to the outward\n  state of our own house. There are already many\n  revolutions in my mental history, passed beyond the\n  reach of any thing but regrets. As a child, play\n  was not my chief pleasure, but a sort of mingled\n  play and constructiveness; then reading and learning;\n  I well remember the coming on of the desire\n  to _know_. In a tale, false or true, I had by no\n  means, the common share of pleasure--Smith's Key\n  to Reading was more to my taste. Poetry I have\n  ever loved. History I am very dull at; a chain of\n  events is far more difficult to follow, than a chain of\n  ideas--causality comes more to my aid than eventuality.\n  Well, the age of learning came: in it I\n  learned this, that, and the other; but, alas! order,\n  the faculty in which I am so deficient, was wanting,\n  I had not an appointed place for each fact or idea:\n  so they were lost as they fell into the confused mass.\n  I am full of dim apprehensions on almost all subjects,\n  but _know little_ of any. However, it may be\n  that this favors new combinations of things. I\n  would rather have all my ideas in a mass, than have\n  them in separate locked boxes, where they must each\n  remain isolated; but it were better they were on\n  open shelves, and that I had power to take them\n  down, and combine at will. The age of combining\n  has come; I feel sensibly the diminution of the\n  power of acquiring: I can do little in that, but\n  lament that I have acquired so little; but I seem\n  rebuked in myself at the incessant wish to gain--gain\n  for what? I must _do_ something with what, I\n  gain; for, as I said before, I have nowhere to put it\n  away. I love languages,--above all, the expressive\n  German; but I know too little to make it expressive\n  for myself. But my own mother-tongue, though\n  my tongue is so deficient to use thee, canst thou\n  afford no other outlet to the struggling ideas that are\n  within; may I not write? I did write poetry sometimes:\n  is it presumptuous to call it poetry? It was\n  certainly the poetry of my heart; the pieces entitled\n  \"The Complaint,\" and \"What profit hath a man,\n  etc.\" were certainly poetry to me. But the fate of\n  my poetry is written before. Perhaps it was a\n  groundless fear; but still it has given it the death-blow.\n  But may I write prose? I will tell that by-and-by.\n  This has brought down my history in this\n  respect till now:--\n\n      The constructive playing age,\n      The learning age,\n      The combining age,\n    So far the intellect.\n\n  * * * I am conscientious naturally, rather\n  than adhesive or benevolent. This natural conscientiousness,\n  independent of spirituals, has been like\n  a goad in my side all my life, and its demands, I\n  think, heighten. It is evidently independent of religion,\n  because it is independent of the love of God\n  and of man. For instance, I form to myself an\n  idea of my reasonable amount of service in visiting\n  the poor. Have I fallen short of this amount, I am\n  uneasy, and feel myself burdened; the thing is before\n  me, I must do it: why? Because I feel the\n  love of God constraining me? Sometimes far otherwise.\n  Because I feel benevolence towards the poor?\n  No; for the thing itself is a task; but because it is\n  my duty; because I would justify myself; because\n  I would lighten my conscience. I have called this\n  feeling independent of religion; but perhaps it is\n  most intense when religion is faintest. This latter\n  supplies, evidently, the only true motive for benevolent\n  actions. Then they are a pleasure: then the\n  divergence of the impulse of duty from the impulse\n  of inclination is done away; and I believe the love of\n  God is the only thing, which, thus redeeming those\n  that were under the law, can place them under the law\n  of Christ. Though it is little I can do for the poor,\n  I ought to feel it both a duty and a pleasure to devote\n  some time to them most days. To see the aged,\n  whose poverty we have witnessed, whose declining\n  days we have tried to soothe, safely gathered home,\n  is a comfort and pleasure I would not forego; and,\n  though the real benefit we render to them must depend\n  on our own spiritual state, their cottages have\n  often been to me places of deep instruction.\n\n  The useful desire to learn, may be carried too far;\n  we may sacrifice the duties we owe to each other, by\n  an eagerness of this kind; nor, I believe, can we,\n  without culpable negligence, adhere tenaciously to\n  any plan of study. The moral self-training which\n  is exercised by giving up a book, to converse with\n  or help another, is of more value than the knowledge\n  which could have been acquired from it. Indeed,\n  I am convinced we are often in error about\n  _interruptions_. We have been interrupted; in what?--in\n  the fulfilment of our duty? That cannot be;\n  but in the prosecution of our favorite plan. If the\n  interruption was beyond our control, it _altered_ our\n  duty, but could not interrupt it. Duty is the right\n  course at a given time, and under given circumstances.\n\n  A subject, which has of late been very interesting\n  to me, is that of the Jews. I am convinced that\n  much, very much, is to be done for them by Christians,\n  and for Christians by them; but I think the\n  interest excited in their behalf, in the world at large,\n  is, in many cases, not according to knowledge. An\n  historical view of their points of contact with the\n  professing Christian world, has long been on my\n  mind; and I think it needs to be drawn by an independent\n  hand,--in short, by a Friend. That \"He\n  that scattered Israel will gather him, and feed him\n  as a shepherd doth his flock,\" is confessed now on\n  all sides. The when, the where, and the how, are\n  variously viewed. But what will He gather them\n  to? is a question not enough thought of. One\n  wishes them to be gathered to the Church of England,\n  another to the Church of Scotland; but I am\n  persuaded their gathering must be to the primitive\n  Christian faith. I say not to Friends; although I\n  hold the principles of Friends to be the principles\n  of primitive Christianity. For I do think a vast\n  distinction is to be made between the principles of\n  truth professed by Friends, and the particular line\n  of action, as a body, into which they have been led,\n  (I doubt not by the truth,) under the circumstances\n  in which they were placed. My belief is, that the\n  Jews are to be gathered to none but a Church built\n  \"on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, of\n  which Jesus Christ himself is the chief corner-stone;\"\n  and that to such a Church they are to be\n  gathered immediately and instrumentally, by the\n  Spirit of God himself. A view of the manner in\n  which they have been regarded and treated by professing\n  Christians from the Christian era to the\n  present time, and of their own feelings towards\n  Christians and Christianity, if well drawn, would be\n  valuable and useful.\n\nThis interest in the Jews led Eliza to devote much, labor, during\nseveral years, in collecting information relating to their history\nsince the Christian era. Had her life been spared, she would probably\nhave made some defined use of the large mass of material collected,\nwhich, whilst valuable as an evidence of deep research, is not\nsufficiently digested to be generally useful.\n\n  _7th Mo. 3d_. This evening I have finished copying\n  the foregoing scraps, previously on sheets, into this\n  book, that they may yet speak to me, in days to come,\n  of His manifold mercies, whose \"candle has ofttimes\n  shone round about me,\" and \"whose favor has made\n  me glad.\"\n\n  _7th Mo. 5th_. I desire gratefully to acknowledge\n  the privilege of which we have this week partaken,\n  in the occurrence of our Quarterly Meeting, and a\n  most sweet visit from ----; full of love is ---- to\n  his Master, and full of love to the brethren,\n  and even to the little sisters in Christ. Most\n  kindly and tenderly he and his wife advised us,\n  and myself, when we happened to be alone, to wait\n  and watch at the feet of Jesus, from whom the message\n  will come in due time, \"The Master calleth for\n  thee.\" Manifold has been the expression of sympathy\n  for us all this week, in the prospect of parting with\n  our dear father on the Indiana committee, in about\n  five weeks, and the comforting expectation expressed\n  that his absence will be a time of sweet refreshing\n  from the presence of the Lord. Oh, we have much\n  to be thankful for in the grace that has been bestowed.\n\n  _7th Mo. 9th_. I have been much blessed the last\n  few days; not with high enjoyments, but with a calm\n  sense of dependence and trust on my Saviour, and\n  assistance in watching over my own heart. This\n  morning I have been tried with want of settlement\n  and power to get to the throne of grace; but faith\n  must learn to trust through all changes in the unchangeable\n  truth and love of Jesus. I am sensible\n  that this has been a time of much renewed mercy to\n  my soul; and oh that if, as ---- told me, the Lord\n  has many things to say unto me, but I cannot bear\n  them now, I may but be kept in the right preparation,\n  both for hearing and obeying!\n\n  _7th Mo. 27th_. I am sometimes astonished at the\n  condescending kindness of my Saviour, that he should\n  so gently and mercifully \"heal my backslidings and\n  love me freely.\" I think my chief desire is to be\n  preserved _alive_ in the truth, and _growing_ in the\n  truth; but sometimes, through unwatchfulness, such\n  a withering comes upon me, I lose all sense of good\n  for days together, and this nether world is all I seek\n  pleasure in. Then there is but a cold, cheerless,\n  condemning feeling, when I look towards my Father's\n  house; but when all life seems gone, and I am ready\n  to conclude that I have suffered so many things in\n  vain, how often does the gentle stirring of life bring\n  my soul into contrition, into stillness! and He, who\n  upbraideth not the returning sinner, reveals himself\n  as \"the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths\n  to dwell in.\"\n\nThe following lines describe her feelings at such a time as this:--\n\n  Then disconsolate I wander'd,\n    Where my path was lone and dim,\n  Till I thought that I was sunder'd\n    Evermore from heaven and Him.\n\n  Then it was my Shepherd found me,\n    Even as He had of old,\n  Threw His arms of mercy round me,\n    Placed me gently in His fold.\n\n  _7th Mo. 29th_. The expression, I think, of William\n  Penn, \"Let the holy watch of Jesus be upon your\n  spirit,\" is a fitting watchword for me.\n\n  _7th Mo. 30th_. Oh, this must be the watchword still.\n\n  _8th Mo. 10th. First-day morning_. I was helped\n  to cast away some of the weight of worldly thoughts\n  last evening, and fervently to desire after the Lord.\n  It is a blessing to have his manifested presence and\n  love with us; but this is not at all times the needful\n  or the best thing for us. To have the heart right\n  with God, to commit my _all_ to him, to live in the\n  very spirit which breathes, \"Thy will be done,\" in\n  and through me,--oh, this is to be alive in Christ;\n  this is indeed the work of the spirit; this is to lose\n  my life, that I may keep it unto life eternal.\n\nAt the Yearly Meeting of 1845 occurred the appointment previously\nalluded to, under which John Allen became a member of the committee\nwhich visited Indiana Yearly Meeting. As communication between Great\nBritain and America was not so easy and frequent in those days as at\npresent, both he and his family very strongly felt the prospect of\nseparation. In allusion to the appointment, Eliza writes, \"My father\nallowed the business [of the Yearly Meeting] to proceed, but at length\nsaid that he felt too much overwhelmed to speak sooner,--that the\nsubject touched his tenderest feelings, and that he felt very unfit\nfor such an engagement, but that the sense which had been and was,\nwhile he was speaking, present with him, of that goodness and mercy\nwhich had followed him all his life long and blessed him, was such\nthat he dared not refuse to do any little offices in his power for\nthose dear friends with whom he should be associated.\" She then gives\nan account of the receipt at home of the unexpected intelligence of\nthis long journey, and of the calmness which eventually followed the\nshock to the feelings which it occasioned. After he had set out, she\nwrote an interesting account, too long to be given at full length,\nof what had passed in the intervening time,--the hopes and fears, the\npreparations, her father's parting with his friends and their words\nof encouragement to him, with his own counsel and exhortations to his\nchildren. A few words of his last address to them may not be out of\nplace:--\"I earnestly desire for us all that when we shall meet again\nwe may all have made some progress in the heavenward journey and be\nenabled to rejoice together in the sense of it. For you, my dear young\npeople, especially, I earnestly desire that you may be preferring\nthe best things, not setting your affections on trifling objects, but\nvaluing an inheritance in the truth above all those things that perish\nwith the using. * * * Be willing to be the Lord's on his own terms,\nand prize above all things the sense that you are his; and you will\nbe his, if you are willing to walk in the narrow way--the way of\nself-denial.\"\n\nIt does not pertain to this volume to give any further account of this\njourney or of the mission in which he was engaged. The visit of the\ndeputation is probably fresh in the remembrance of many Friends in the\nUnited States.\n\n  _8th Mo. 24th_. The great parting is over: the love\n  and mercy of our heavenly Father sustained my\n  dearest father and mother beyond expectation. On\n  this occasion, when I have been helped back from\n  a sad, lone wandering on barren mountains, I may\n  learn, more deeply than ever before, the safety, the\n  sweetness, of dwelling in the valley of humiliation.\n  Oh, let me dwell there long and low enough. I ask\n  not high enjoyments nor rapturous delights; but I\n  ask, I pray, when I can pray at all, for quiet, watchful,\n  trustful dependence upon my Saviour.\n\n  _8th Mo. 27th_. We have had a ride in the country\n  this afternoon, and during a solitary walk of a mile\n  and a half I had very sweet feelings. Jesus seemed\n  so near to me and so kind that I could hardly but\n  accept of him. But then there seemed some dark\n  misgivings at the same time; as if I had an account\n  to settle up first,--something I must do myself; the\n  free full grace seemed too easy and gratis to accept\n  of. But all this I found was a mistake. I thought\n  of the lines--\n\n    \"He gives our sins a full discharge;\n      He crowns and saves us too,\"\n\n  and of a remark I had seen somewhere, \"Look at\n  Calvary, and wilt thou say that thy sins are _easily_\n  passed by?\"\n\n  This evening in my _andachtzimmer_,[1] I wished to\n  pray in spirit; but not a petition arose that I could\n  offer. I felt so blind, and yet so peaceful, that all\n  merged into the confiding language, Father, _Thy will_\n  be done!\n\n  [Footnote 1: Devotional retirement.]\n\n  _9th Mo. 2d_. On First-day, the twenty-first, I had\n  a great struggle on the old poetry-writing question.\n  I had written none since the great fight last winter;\n  but now to my dearest father I ventured to write,\n  thinking I had got over the danger of it. But when\n  all was written, I was forced to submit to the mortification\n  of not sending it. The relief I felt was indescribable,\n  and I hope to get thus entoiled no more.\n  My scruple is not against poetry, but _I_ cannot write\n  it without getting over-possessed by it. Therefore\n  it is no more than a reasonable peace-offering to\n  deny myself of it. * * * \"And now, Lord,\n  what wait I for?\" Enable me to say, \"My hope is\n  in thee.\" It seems as if the path would be a narrow\n  one; but, oh, \"make thy way straight before my\n  face;\" and, having enabled me, I trust, to _give some_\n  things to \"the moles and to the bats,\" leave me not\n  till I have learned \"to count _all_ things but loss, for\n  the excellency of Christ Jesus my Lord.\"\n\nThe following is the unfinished piece just alluded to:--\n\n  TO HER FATHER IN AMERICA.\n\n\n  And thus it was, as drew the moments nearer\n    That stamp'd their record deep oil every heart;\n  As day by day thy presence grew yet dearer,\n    By how much sooner thou shouldst hence depart.\n\n  Love wept indeed, though she might seem a sleeper,\n    Long ere descending tears the signs betray'd;\n  And the heart's fountain was but so much deeper,\n    The longer was its overflow delay'd.\n\n  The page my unapt heart has learn'd so newly\n    In the dark lessons which afflictions teach--\n  Oh, it were vain to try to utter truly\n    In the cold language of unapter speech.\n\n  That hearts when thus their very depths are burning\n    Alone should know their bitterness, is well;\n  But, oh, my heart more joys than aches in learning\n    Another lesson, would that words could tell.\n\n  New depths of love in measure unsuspected,\n    Ties closer than I knew, were round my heart;\n  And half I thank the wrench that has detected\n    How thoroughly and deeply dear thou art.\n\n  And 'twas to tell thee this that I have taken\n    The tuneless lyre I thought to use no more,\n  Yet once at thy returning may it waken,\n    Then sleep forever, silent as before.\n\n  And not more narrow than the dome of ether\n    Beams heaven's unbounded, earth-embracing scroll;\n  Then be it thine and ours to read together\n    Of Him who loves not less than rules the whole.\n\n  And not more slow than was the bark that bore thee\n    To an untried and dimly-distant land--\n  Our hearts' affections thither flew before thee,\n    And now are ready waiting on the strand.\n\n  --_8th Month_, 1845.\n\n  _10th Mo. 1st_. Much struck with the suitability of\n  the expression, \"under the yoke,\" truly _subjugated_.\n  not merely offering this or that, but _being offered_ \"a\n  living sacrifice.\" Oh for a thorough work like this!\n  This is \"when the yoke Is easy and the burden\n  light.\" I know almost nothing of it by experience,\n  but think it is \"now nearer than when I first\n  believed.\" For a day or two I have been given to\n  desire it earnestly.\n\n  _10th Mo. 12th_. Evening. Many thoughts about\n  faith in Christ. But oh for the reality, the living\n  essence of it! We can be Christians, not because\n  we believe that the blood of Christ cleanses from\n  sin, but because we _know_ the blood of Christ to\n  cleanse us from sin.\n\nAbout this date, in the diary of daily affairs, is the following:--\n\n  \"A conviction has come upon me that, in all\n  respects, now is the time to reform, if ever, the\n  course I am now pursuing. Religion, the main\n  thing, may it ever more be the main object; and\n  then, as to moral, social, and other duty, oh, be my\n  whole course reformed. ... From this time\n  forth may I nightly ask myself these five questions.\n  1. Has my employment and economy of time been\n  right? 2. Has my aim been duty--not pleasure?\n  3. Have I been quiet and submissive? 4. Have\n  I looked on the things of others as my own? 5.\n  Have propensities or sentiments ruled? I wish to\n  give an answer, daily, to each; and now say for\n  yesterday. 1. Some wasted time before dinner.\n  2. Pretty clear, 3. No temptation. 4. Pretty well.\n  5. Pretty [well] except at meals.\"\n\nIn this concise and simple manner are these questions answered, almost\ndaily, throughout the year, until, \"finding that daily records of\nemployment are of little use, and that the intellectual and spiritual\ncould not well be longer separated,\" she discontinued the practice,\nand recorded in the same book \"any thing in either line that seemed\nfit to reserve from oblivion.\"\n\nAlluding to a religious magazine, she writes:--\n\n  \"It is always pulling down error--seldom building\n  up truth. Surely Antichrist comes to oppose Christ,\n  not Christ to oppose Antichrist. Is there, then, no\n  positive Christian duty? Are we never to rest in\n  principles and practices of actual faith and love? or\n  are we to be always on the offensive and negative\n  side, stigmatizing all who act contrary to our belief\n  of the truth as doers of the work of Antichrist?\n  Antichrist, I fear, cares little for orthodox doctrines,\n  but fights against the Christian spirit.\"\n\n  _9th Mo. 13th_. Conflicting thoughts again. I\n  long that there may be no building on any sandy\n  foundation. But oh, the fitness that appeared to me\n  this evening in the blessed Saviour to supply all my\n  need. The one sacrifice He has been, and the one\n  mediator and way to God He ever is,--His own\n  spirit the one leader, teacher, and sanctifier; whereby\n  He consummates in the heart the blessed work of\n  bringing all into subjection to the obedience of\n  Christ. Oh for a personal experience, a real participation\n  in all this, a knowledge that _He is my own\n  and that I am His_.\n\n  _16th_. Somewhat puzzled at myself. This has\n  not been a spiritually prosperous day--passed just to\n  my taste, much in reading, but not much, I fear, with\n  the Lord. Yet I have had very loving thoughts of\n  Christ this evening, and was ready to call Him _my\n  own dear Saviour_, though I trust on no other terms\n  than His terms, namely, that I should be wholly His.\n  Some misgivings are come up that I am tempted to\n  think Him mine when I am not in a state to be His;\n  some fears lest Satan has put on the winning smiles\n  of an angel of light; and yet where can I go but to\n  Thee, Saviour of sinners? Thou hast the words of\n  life and salvation; suffer me not to be deluded, but at\n  all hazards let me be Thine.\n\n  Thou who breakest not the bruised reed, oh, bring\n  forth in me judgment unto truth, and let me wait for\n  the _law of life and peace from Thee_.\n\n  _9th Mo. 18th_. Rode to Lodge to get ferns. Enjoyed\n  thoughts of the beauty of nature, imperfect\n  as it is, because one kind of beauty necessarily\n  excludes another. What, then, must be the essence\n  of that glory in which all perfection is beauty\n  united? Thus these things must be described to\n  mortal comprehension under contradictory images;\n  such as \"pure gold, like unto transparent glass,\" &c.\n\n  _9th Mo. 19th_. I think harm is done by considering\n  a society such as \"Friends,\" \"a section of the\n  Christian Church,\" as societies are so often called.\n  It can be true only by considering the \"Christian\n  Church\" to mean _professing Christians_; but surely\n  its true meaning is the _children of God anywhere_.\n  Of this body, there are no _sections_ to be made by\n  man, or it would follow that to unite oneself to\n  either section, is to be united to the body, which\n  cannot be.\n\n  _10th Mo. 1st_. I fear I have so long been _childish_\n  and _thoughtless_, that I shall hardly ever be _childlike_\n  and _thoughtful_. Oh for a little more _care_ without\n  _carefulness!_\n\n  _10th Mo. 2d_. Much struck with Krummacher's\n  doctrine of \"Once in grace, always in grace.\"\n  \"After the covenant is made,\" he says, \"I can do\n  nothing _condemnable_. I may do what is sinful or\n  weak, but my sins are all laid on my Surety.\" _True,_\n  if my will-spirit humbles itself to bear the reforming\n  judgment of the Lord--but I think his doctrine\n  utterly dangerous; his error is this, that \"the\n  covenant cannot be broken.\" Now, suppose a\n  Christian, therefore, in the covenant; he sins, then\n  the Lord would put away his sin by cleansing him\n  from its pollution and power, by the blood of Christ,\n  who hath already borne the punishment thereof.\n  But he may refuse this cleansing, in other words,\n  this judgment, revealed within; not against _himself_,\n  as it must have been except for Christ's intercession,\n  but against the evil nature in him, and in love to\n  his soul. He may refuse this, because it cannot\n  but be painful, it cannot but include repentance for\n  his transgression, whereby he has admitted ground\n  to the enemy. And if he refuse it, persisting in\n  withdrawing his heart from that surrender, which\n  must have been made on his adoption into the covenant,\n  who shall say that the covenant is not at an\n  end? Who shall say that the way of the Lord is\n  not equal, in that, because he was once a righteous\n  man, made righteous by the righteousness of Christ,\n  \"now, the righteousness that he hath had shall not\n  be mentioned unto him, but in his trespass he shall\n  die\"? Far be it from me to say how long the Lord\n  shall bear with man; how long he may trespass ere\n  he dies forever; but I think it most presumptuous\n  to suppose that God _cannot in honor_ (for it does\n  come to this) disannul the covenant from which man\n  has already retracted all his share; though this,\n  truly, is but a passive one, a surrender of the will-spirit\n  to the faith of Jesus.\n\n  What good it does me to clear up my ideas on\n  prayer! but there is a limit beyond which intellect\n  cannot go. No one can fully explain the admission\n  of evil into the heart. We say \"it is because I\n  listen to temptation;\" but why do I listen, to temptation?\n  Because I did not watch unto prayer. The\n  Calvinist would say, perhaps, \"Because I am without\n  the covenant;\" but he allows that a person may sin\n  who is in it. Suppose I am one of these? The\n  origin of evil must ever be hidden, but not of evil\n  only; the _moral nature of man must ever be a mystery\n  to his intellectual nature, for it is above it._\n  There is a _natural testimony_ to the supremacy of the\n  _moral_ in man above the intellectual.\n\n  _10th Mo. 8th_. The charm of book and pen has\n  been beguiling me of my reward; but now my soul\n  craves to be offered a living sacrifice.\n\n  _10th Mo. 19th_. The world was fearfully my snare\n  yesterday,--I mean worldly objects, innocent, in\n  themselves. These things only show the depth of\n  unrenewed nature within. Though it slumbered, it\n  could not be dead. My \"wilderness wanderings,\"\n  oh, I fear they must be exceedingly protracted ere\n  the hosts that have come out of Egypt with me fall;\n  ere I can find _in myself_ that blessed possession of the\n  promised inheritance, which, I believe, _in this life_ is\n  the portion of the _thorough_ Christian: \"they that\n  believe _do_ enter into rest.\" Why, then, do not I?\n  Oh, it is for want of believing; for want of faith; I\n  fear to trust the Lord to give me my inheritance and\n  conquer my foes, and will not \"go up and possess\n  the land.\" Then, again, in self-confidence, I _will_ go\n  up, whether the Lord be with me or not; and so I\n  fall. But surely, surely it _need_ be so no longer. I\n  _might_ devote myself to Christ, and He would lead me\n  safely through all. The shining of the fire and the\n  shading of the cloud are yet in the ordering of the\n  Captain of Salvation.\n\n  _20th_. Exceeding poor; and yet I rejoice in what\n  I trust is somewhat of the poverty of spirit which is\n  blessed.\n\n    \"Nothing in my hand I bring;\n    Simply to Thy cross I cling;\n    To the cleansing fount I fly:\n    Wash me, Saviour, or I die.\"\n\n  _21st_. I feel myself in much danger of falling,--manifold\n  temptations all round to love the world, and\n  how little _stay_ within!\n\n  _22d._ Yet the Lord was kind, most kind, to me in\n  the evening, constraining me to say within my heart,\n  \"Surely I am united to Christ my Saviour.\" Oh,\n  the joy of feeling that we are in any measure _His!_\n  May I by no means withdraw myself from His\n  hands, that He may do for me all that His mercy\n  designs, and which I am well assured is but _begun._\n  This morning a crumb of bread was given me, in the\n  shape of a sense that Christ is yet mine, but that He\n  will be _waited on_ in simplicity of heart to do His _own\n  work._ Oh, the comfort of having a fountain to flee\n  to _set open_ for sin! hourly have I need of it.\n\n  _11th Mo. 2d_. I have felt deeply the necessity of\n  the thorough subjugation of the _will_ to the Divine\n  will: if it were effected, all must work for good to\n  me. Little cross-occurrences, instead of exciting\n  ill tempers, would serve as occasions for strengthening\n  my faith in God. When He giveth quietness,\n  what should make trouble? 'Tis wonderful to think\n  what long-suffering kindness the Lord has shown\n  me! I can compare myself only to the prodigal\n  son saying, \"Give me my portion of goods\"--goods\n  spiritual; as if I thought once furnished, never\n  again to have recourse to a father's compassion. Oh,\n  often have I wasted this substance in a very short\n  time; but the Lord has reckoned better than I\n  in my self-confidence. He saw how I should have to\n  come back utterly destitute, and again and again has\n  had mercy. Oh that I might no more ask for a portion\n  to carry away, but seek to dwell among the servants\n  and the children of His house, to be fed\n  hourly by Him, learning in what sense He does say\n  to those who are willing to have nothing of their\n  own, \"All that I have is thine.\"\n\n  _12th Mo. 6th_. Nice journey to Falmouth. Here\n  we have been since Second-day learning our own\n  manifold deficiencies; but this, under a genial atmosphere,\n  is, to me, never disheartening,--always an\n  exciting, encouraging lesson. ----'s kind words\n  on intellectual presence of mind, and his animating\n  example of it, have determined me to make a vigorous\n  effort over my own sloth and inanity. I believe\n  the first thing is to be always conscious of what I am\n  thinking of, and never to let my mind run at loose\n  ends in senseless reveries.\n\n  _12th Mo. 25th_. Seventh-day. I trust, now we\n  are all together for the winter, there will be an effort\n  on my part to help to keep up a higher tone of feeling,\n  aim, and conversation: not mere gossip, but\n  really to speak to each other for some good purpose,\n  is what I do wish. What an engine, for good or\n  evil, we neglect and almost despise! and if it is not\n  employed properly, when at home, how can it be\n  naturally and intelligently exercised when abroad?\n\n  _Fourth-day, 31st_. Called on a poor sick man,--he\n  quietly waiting, I hope, for a participation in perfect\n  peace, and penetrated with the sense that man can do\n  nothing of himself. Surely this must be a step towards\n  knowing what God can do. I hope he will be\n  able to see and say something more yet; but I would\n  not ask him for any sort of confession. It is a fearful\n  thing to interfere with one who seems evidently\n  in hands Divine.\n\n  Thus ended 1845. Oh that it had been better\n  used, more valued, more improved in naturals, intellectuals,\n  and spirituals! Oh that I had cultivated\n  kindness and dutiful affection in the meekness of\n  wisdom; and as an impetus seems to have been lately\n  received to industry in study, etc., oh, may God\n  give me grace to spend another year, so far as I\n  live through it, in industrious Christianity too!\n\n  _1st Mo. 7th_, 1846. I should gratefully acknowledge\n  the loving-kindness and tender mercy which,\n  after all my wanderings, has again been shown: \"I\n  will prepare their heart, I will cause their ear to hear,\"\n  was sweet to me this morning. Though sometimes\n  lamenting that I hear so little of the voice of pardon\n  and peace, I have felt this morning that I have ever\n  heard as much as was safe for me in the degree of\n  preparation yet known.\n\n  _1st Mo. 19th_. Some earnest desires last evening,\n  this morning, and in the night, to be set right in\n  spirit. Struck with the text, \"His countenance doth\n  behold the upright,\"--not that the upright always\n  behold His countenance: that is not the thing their\n  safety consists in. \"Thou most upright dost weigh\n  the path of the just,\" that is, of the truly sincere\n  and devoted. Ah! how blessed that such an unerring\n  balance should apportion the way of a finite and\n  blind being!\n\n  _3d Mo. 2d_. Little E.P. died last week, aged three\n  years,--a child whom God had taught. I ventured a\n  little poem for his mamma, I think without harm.\n  The poetry-contest, some time since, was doubtless\n  useful as a check, but I seem to have lost the prohibition,\n  and enjoy, I hope, innocently.\n\n  _Sixth-day_. School, more encouraged than sometimes:\n  got on well with geography-class; visited\n  various poor people,--feeling very useless, but some\n  satisfaction. Oh, it were a sweet thing to do good\n  from the right motive, as a _natural_ effect of love.\n  I fear I do my poor share more to satisfy conscientiousness;\n  and that is a dull thing.\n\n  _3d Mo. 17th_. Faith small, world strong; but this\n  evening something like grasping after \"the childly\n  life beyond.\" A childly life I want. Oh for simplicity,\n  faith, quietness, self-renunciation!\n\n  Yesterday rode alone to Wheal, Sister's mine. Gave\n  W.B. tracts for the girls. Thence to Captain N.,\n  to get his daughters to collect for Bibles. His nice\n  wife seemed interested; said it was very needful.\n  Many families had not a Bible there; the place a\n  century behind the West. Rode home dripping, but\n  glad that I had not been turned back. Learned part\n  of the 42d Psalm in German.\n\n  _3d Mo. 27th_. What testimony of gratitude can I\n  record to that tender mercy which has drawn near to\n  me this evening? Oh that the \"Anon with joy\"\n  reception may not be united with the \"no root in\n  myself\"! I have thought of the Israelitish wanderings,\n  caused by faithless folly in refusing to \"go up\n  and possess the land.\" Oh, that lack of living appropriating\n  faith may not thus protract the period\n  ere my own passage through the spiritual Jordan, the\n  river of self-renunciation, and death of the \"old\n  man,\" into the Beulah of a thorough introduction to\n  the sheepfold! It is easy to say that it would be too\n  presumptuous to venture on the final, full, childlike\n  appropriation of Christ; but, oh, presumption, I do\n  deeply feel, is more concerned in the delay. It is\n  presumptuous to put off, till brighter evidences and\n  clearer offers of mercy, the acceptance of grace to-day.\n\n  _4th Mo. 14th._ The Lord has been kind to me\n  beyond expression. Not rapturous feeling, but calm\n  and peaceful confidence,--though sometimes almost\n  giving way to \"the world, the flesh, and the devil,\"\n  sometimes letting go faith; but, oh, He has been near\n  through all; then when His face has shone upon me,\n  how have I wondered that ever I loved the earth,\n  more than Himself!\n\n  _5th Mo. 3d. Bristol._ On the way to the Yearly\n  Meeting. _First-day._ Most interesting meeting. I\n  think the connection of evangelical doctrine with\n  Christian worship is often not enough considered.\n  The mere natural unsanctified dread or awe of the\n  Lord's presence is very different from that worship\n  of God which is through Christ our Lord, who has\n  made a way of access for us to the Father, who Himself\n  loveth us. If this be overlooked, there is little\n  essential distinction between Christian worship, and\n  Oriental gnosticism--the delusion of raising the soul\n  above the natural, by abstraction and contemplation\n  of the Divine. This is the distinguishing glory of\n  the gospel, that whereas the children of Israel said\n  to Moses, \"Speak thou to us, but let not God speak\n  to us, lest we die,\" Christ, his antitype, hath broken\n  down for his people \"the middle wall of partition,\"\n  hath abolished the enmity, and speaketh to us Himself\n  as God, and yet as once in our flesh.\n\n  _5th Mo. 10th_. Letter from father, from _Niagara_.\n  Awful spectacle, and most edifying emblem of His\n  unchanging word of power whose voice is as the\n  sound of many waters.\n\n  This evening had a nice meeting; my soul longed\n  for light and life in the assembly.\n\n  Of our dear father's safe arrival in Liverpool we\n  heard on our way to the train in the morning, and\n  now we settled in to expect him we had so long lost!\n\nAnd, after meeting him in London and alluding to conversation with\nfriends who called to see him, she says,--\n\n  \"But with father the fact of presence, real\n  meeting, actual talk, seemed more engrossing than\n  the thing talked. Oh that I had a really grateful\n  heart to the Lord for these His mercies!\"\n\n  _7th_. [Alluding to a meeting at Devonshire House.]\n  It is, indeed, \"looking not at the things which are\n  seen,\" when we really accept with equal, nay, with\n  greater, joy, His will to speak by the little as by the\n  great, or by His Spirit only, when communion of\n  truth is preferred to communication of the true.\n\n  _5th Mo. 29th_. And now that my London experience\n  is over, as to meetings, preachings, prayers,\n  what, oh, what is the result on this immortal spirit\n  of mine, which has on this occasion been brought,\n  as it were, in _contact_ with some of the honorable\n  and anointed messengers, with that which is good?\n  And yet it is possible that contact may not produce\n  _penetration_, and that _penetration_ may not produce\n  _assimilation_. I can unhesitatingly say, the first and\n  second have been produced; but then these are but\n  transactions of the time, not abiding transformations;\n  and if these are all? But, surely, it cannot be;\n  surely, when my heart melted within me, especially\n  on Second-day morning, and I heard the word \"and\n  anon with joy received it,\" some depth of central\n  stone was fused into softness; some actual change,\n  effected, that I might not have altogether \"no root\"\n  in myself. Sometimes predominated a fear that intellectual\n  interest interfered with spiritual simple\n  reception of good, that _this_ would vanish when _that_\n  was over; sometimes the responsibility of being thus\n  ministered to was truly a weighty thought; for never\n  more than on that morning did I so understand, \"Go\n  preach, baptizing.\" Sometimes I thought that God\n  had indeed brought me to this Yearly Meeting to\n  make me then and there his own; and when I heard\n  of passing by transgressions as a cloud, I was ready\n  to think my own were indeed dissolving as one. I\n  felt strongly the superiority of religion to every\n  other thing, not merely for its external aim, God,\n  but for its internal power on self, how these masterpieces\n  of the human creation were not only made the\n  most of by religion, but that _it_ alone can make any\n  thing of the _whole man_. How strongly do we feel,\n  when with a clever, talented, irreligious man, that he\n  has a latent class of moral powers which have not\n  been called into action, that on this point he may be\n  inferior to the veriest child; but God, who has made\n  man for himself, has made in every man a royal\n  chamber, for himself spiritually to dwell in; and if\n  this be not reappropriated to him, (which is religion,)\n  his capacity for the Divine is not exercised, and he\n  is not only not made the most of, but his best nature\n  is not even made use of. What a privilege to have\n  intercourse with those in whom the very reverse is\n  the case! What a stimulus to the little mind, to\n  become not equal to the great, but proportionally\n  Christianized--_i.e._ equally devoted! and this is\n  Christian perfection; not to have arrived at the\n  highest attainment of intercourse with God ever\n  granted to man, but to have the will thoroughly willing\n  God's will. This is, indeed, better far than a\n  mere knowledge of what that will is. But in some\n  whom I have seen, there is a beautiful union of a\n  high degree of this knowing and willing; and these\n  are they to whom it is given to edify the Church.\n\n  * * * How shall I enough praise and thank the\n  Lord, who has so condescended to my weak and\n  sinful condition, that though my head perhaps knew\n  all before, and my heart was disobedient, He has so\n  brought me under the mighty ministry of His Word\n  of life, that for a while _all_ seemed melted and subjected,\n  and my heart longed to accept Him and his\n  reconciliation to me on the blessed terms, _not_ the\n  harsh terms, but the privileged terms, of my being\n  reconciled to Him. Oh, what an error to think any\n  thing harsh or hard in the requirements of the gospel!\n  It is a mercy beyond man's conception, that we\n  are commanded, \"Be ye holy, for I am holy.\"\n\n  _6th Mo. 12th_. Yesterday my twenty-third birthday.\n  In the evening a song of praise seemed to fill\n  my heart for the vast mercy shown me of late. God,\n  who is rich in mercy for His great love wherewith He\n  loved me when I was dead in sins, has truly begun\n  to quicken my heart.\n\n  _6th Mo. 12th_. Had a note from ---- of kind\n  spiritual interest; but I think she mistakes my want,\n  which is more of practical than of theoretical faith.\n  Have ventured to tell her, in a note, what I feel and\n  have felt. I think many who have left Friends, and\n  become more decidedly serious since, remembering\n  that when Friends, the gospel was not precious to\n  them, fancy it is undervalued by the Society. My\n  note is as follows:--\n\n  My dear --- will, I hope, believe that I was not disposed\n  to receive her affectionate lines in any other than\n  that spirit of love in which they were written, and in\n  which, I am persuaded, it is the will of our blessed\n  Saviour for His disciples \"that they all may be one.\"\n  Yes, my dear ----, I believe there is not a sentence in\n  thine in which I do not heartily join; and while we are\n  both seeking to believe, as thou says, \"with the heart\"\n  in Christ our Saviour, \"in whom we have redemption,\n  through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins,\" let us\n  say not only, \"Here is a point on which we can unite,\"\n  but here is the one bond of fellowship, which unites the\n  whole ransomed Church, throughout the world, and\n  especially those who love each other, as I trust we do.\n  If we were more willing to let Christ be our all in all,\n  surely we should more realize this blessed truth. Disputations\n  on theoretical differences seem to me like disputes\n  on the principles of a fire-escape among those\n  whose sole rescue depends on at once committing themselves\n  to it, since the most perfect understanding of its\n  principles is utterly in vain if they continue mere\n  _lookers-on;_ while others, with perhaps far less _head-_knowledge,\n  are safely landed. This, it seems to me, is\n  the distinction between head-knowledge and heart-knowledge,\n  between dead creed and living faith; and every\n  day, I think, more convinces me that it is \"with the\n  _heart_ that man believeth unto righteousness.\" As thou\n  hast so kindly spoken of myself, and thy kind interest\n  for me, may I add that what I have known, small though\n  it be, of this faith, has been all of grace; nor do I hope\n  or wish but that it may be, from first to last, of grace\n  alone. If I love Christ, it is because He first loved me:\n  because God, who is rich in mercy, has shown me the\n  great love wherewith He loved me, when I was dead in\n  sins; nor should I have had one glimpse \"of the knowledge\n  of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ,\"\n  had not God, who \"commanded the light to shine out of\n  darkness,\" shined into my heart. And dark and sad\n  has ever been the view of myself bestowed by that grace\n  which brings salvation, long shining as it were to make\n  my darkness visible; but this do I esteem one of His rich\n  mercies, who will have no rival in His children's hearts,\n  and teaches us our own utter depravity and sinfulness;\n  that we may, without any reserve, fly to Him, \"who has\n  borne our sins in His own body on the tree, that we might\n  be saved from wrath through Him.\" And if it is of\n  grace, that while we were yet sinners, \"we were reconciled\n  to God by the death of His Son,\" it is by grace also,\n  that \"being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.\"\n  It is \"not by works of righteousness which we have\n  done, but according to His mercy He saveth us, by the\n  washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy\n  Ghost.\" And here I find abundant need to take heed\n  that I \"receive not the grace of God in vain;\" for truly\n  Christ cannot be ours, if we will not be his. But though\n  I have to lament many a revolt, and many a backsliding,\n  and many a denial in heart of Christ my Saviour, yet\n  the Lord, who turned and looked on Peter, has not forsaken\n  me; the fountain set open for sin has been, I\n  believe, set open for me; and still does He continue to\n  \"heal my backslidings, and to love me _freely_.\" For\n  the future I have sometimes many a fear, because of\n  this deceitful heart of mine; and at others I can trust\n  it in His hands, whose grace will be sufficient for me to\n  the end,--that end, when I may realize, what I now\n  assuredly believe, that the \"_gift_ of God is eternal life\n  through Jesus Christ our Lord.\" And now, my dear\n  ----, are we not one, essentially one, both one in Christ?\n  I know that, uniting in the acknowledgment, and, above\n  all, I trust, in the experience, of the great truths of the\n  gospel, we differ in their applications and influences on\n  subordinate points, and I believe this must be expected\n  to be often the case while \"we see through a glass\n  darkly;\" but we shall, I trust, \"see eye to eye, when\n  the Lord shall bring again Zion;\" and He will keep that\n  which we have committed unto Him against that day.\n  The Lord's \"commandment is _exceeding broad_,\" and it\n  is no wonder that our narrow minds cannot adequately\n  appreciate the whole, or that, while we believe the same\n  things, we sometimes view them in different order and\n  proportion, often being nearer each other than we are\n  aware. I fear much good is not done by discussing differences;\n  at least, _I_ find it calls up feelings which are\n  not good, and I lose more practically than I get or give\n  theoretically. May the Lord bless us both in our pilgrimage,\n  and guide us in a plain path to a city of final\n  habitation, where we shall not want sun, or moon, or any\n  other thing than the glory of God and the Lamb, to be\n  our everlasting light.\n\n  I could not be satisfied without replying to thy kind\n  remarks and inquiries about myself and my hopes; but\n  now, having said so much, I hope thou wilt not think it\n  strange that I cannot _argue_ on things about which we\n  differ. I have not adopted opinions without reflection,\n  and it has fully satisfied myself; but I have nothing to\n  spend in controversy, which I always find does me a\n  great deal of harm. I hope we now know enough of\n  each other to rejoice in each other's joy.\n\n  _6th Mo. 16th_. Last evening alone in the plantation.\n  Sought the Lord. It was beautiful. Was not\n  nature meant by Him to work in concert with His\n  spirit on our hearts? Or is the calming and soothing\n  power a thing confined to sense and sensibility? I\n  suppose the latter, but that religion appropriates these\n  as well as all other faculties and parts of man's nature,\n  and, where he would have praised nature, bids him\n  praise God, his own God in Christ.\n\n  _6th Mo. 18th_. I have thought this summer a time\n  of critical importance for my soul, for eternity. I\n  have felt, and sometimes spoken, strongly, but always,\n  I believe, honestly, unless I have imposed upon myself.\n  Thought I had accepted Christ. I thought He\n  was my salvation and my all. \"Yet once more\" will\n  the Lord shake not my earthly heart, but also my\n  heaven, my hopes, my expectations, in Him. Will\n  He convict me still of holding the truth in unrighteousness?\n  How else can I explain to myself the\n  pride which revolts from censure, the touchy disposition,\n  the self-justifying spirit, the jealousy of my reputation,\n  the anxiety to keep up my character? How\n  else can I explain the inaptitude for the divine, the\n  unwillingness to have the veil quite lifted from my\n  heart, to display it even to my own eyes? Ah! is it\n  not that there is still a double mind and instability in\n  all my ways, still a want of that simplicity of faith,\n  that humility, and poverty, and meekness of spirit,\n  that can accept the gospel, still the self-righteousness\n  (worse than \"I am of Paul\") which assumes to itself\n  \"_I_ of Christ\"? Ah! if I may yet lift my eyes\n  through Him who hath borne even the iniquity of\n  our holy things, keep me, O Lord, from a wider\n  wandering, till Thou bring me fully into the fold,\n  the \"little flock,\" to whom it is Thy good pleasure to\n  give thy kingdom.\n\n  _7th Mo. 5th_. * * * It is useless to conceal from\n  myself that I have felt grieved at some, whom we\n  might suppose grounded in the faith long since, appearing\n  to keep the expression of sole reliance on the\n  mercy of God in Jesus Christ, as a sort of death-bed\n  confession. I know full well that religion must be an\n  actual transformation of soul; but then the ground\n  of our hope that this will be _perfectly_ effected ere\n  we depart, is the mercy of God in Christ, quite as\n  much as our hope of forgiveness of actual sin, and\n  final salvation. Oh, some do separate things too much,\n  as if it were possible to err by too full a reliance\n  on Christ; as if there was a danger that He or\n  we should, by _that_ means, forget the work of grace.\n  Grace is grace throughout, not of works, but of Him\n  that calleth. Still, I believe there must and will be\n  variations in our modes of viewing the great gospel,\n  the \"exceeding broad\" commandment. May we, as\n  S. Tuke so beautifully said, \"know one another in\n  the one bond of brotherhood, 'One Lord, one faith,\n  one baptism;'\" without entering into nice distinctions\n  and metaphysical subtleties. And may I, to\n  whom temptations of this kind are naturally so accessible,\n  be preserved in my own spirit from the snares\n  of death, cleansed \"from secret faults,\" kept from\n  \"presumptuous sins,\" and hidden in the Lord's\n  pavilion from the strife of tongues.\n\n  _7th Mo. 9th_. I have been thinking much of the\n  young women at the Union, and yesterday went to\n  see them. A sad spectacle; but they seemed willing\n  and glad to be visited, and I hope to go once a week\n  to read to them, and to teach a few of them to read.\n  Oh that my life were more useful than it is!\n\n  _7th Mo. 18th_. Oh, why was I induced to allow\n  thoughts and reasonings to supplant worship! How\n  they plead their own utility, and how like good is the\n  thought about good! but then the dry, barren, unsatisfied\n  unrest of soul that followed! Strange, that\n  thought employed to so little purpose at other times\n  should pretend to be so edifying in meetings. Reveries\n  on probability, as being a mere relation between a\n  cause and a spectator, or bystander; not between cause\n  and effect. Thought it important touching free will\n  and foreknowledge. God is certain of futurity--we\n  are uncertain. Futurity is certain in relation to God,\n  uncertain in relation to us--probable or improbable in\n  relation to us, neither in relation to God; but neither\n  the certainty nor the probability exists in future non-existent\n  fact, therefore I take it they do not influence\n  the fact. This, perhaps, is profitless; but I am glad\n  to find that thought on this point always tends to confirm\n  what I believe is the true scriptural doctrine in\n  opposition to Calvinism. This was a natural reaction\n  on the minds of reformers from the Romish doctrine\n  of justification by works. They no sooner found that\n  man cannot make his own salvation, than they fancied\n  he could not reject it. They learned that it was freely\n  given to some, and fancied that it could not have been\n  freely offered to all.\n\n  _7th Mo. 20th_. Mere carnal conscientiousness is a\n  poor substitute for love of God. The constant inquiry,\n  \"What must I do to keep an easy conscience?\"\n  is no proof of high Christian attainment; rather\n  says the Christian, \"What can I render for all His\n  benefits?\"\n\n  _7th Mo. 30th_. A visit to J. Harvey's corpse. [A\n  poor man whom she had frequently visited.] I have\n  been much concerned about him in days past, and\n  now can a little rejoice in his exceeding joy. An\n  emaciated, sallow countenance, but speaking perfect\n  rest. He spoke scarcely at all for some days. I saw\n  him three days before his death, and could but commend\n  him to one of the \"many mansions;\" but he\n  could scarcely answer.\n\nA few passages about this period, record Eliza's desire for a\nfriendship with some sympathizing mind out of her own family,--some\none whose views, whilst tending to the same point as her own, would\nyet have the freshness of an altogether different experience. Not\nthat she undervalued home affections, for that would have been quite\ncontrary to her nature, but, after alluding to them warmly, she says,\n\"At the same time, we want a friendship for the rest of our faculties\nand minds; and it cannot be, I believe, that _one_ family should\nsupply to any one of its members all that it is capable of\nappreciating and experiencing in the way of friendship.\" Another entry\nstates, \"I have a new friendship with M.B., which promises substantial\ncomfort. Just the thing I have wished for all my life. We have\nexchanged two letters on each side.\" This acquaintance ripened into\na connection which was afterwards steadily maintained,--although\nthe intercourse of the two friends was principally by letter. That\ncircumstance, however, has caused the preservation of thoughts and\nsentiments which otherwise would have been unrecorded; and, as the\nletters offer much of an interesting character, copious extracts from\nthem are hereafter given:\n\n  _8th Mo. 2d_. Letter to M.B.\n\n  * * * Surely, whoever is not a true friend to himself\n  and to his own best interests cannot be such to\n  another. Here, indeed, if I may hope to have part or\n  lot in the matter, the thing aimed at is high; but this\n  does not insure its attainment, and there is great cause\n  for care that the humiliating discovery of the discrepancy\n  between the two, does not lead us to lower the one rather\n  than seek to elevate the other. I have a strong belief\n  of the importance of self-scrutiny and honesty with one's\n  own heart, of real willingness to know and feel the\n  worst of one's self, and sincerity of application to the\n  true means of remedy. Perhaps the very sense of deficiency\n  in this particular, makes me believe the more its\n  value; but I dislike what I think to be the false humility\n  of some persons, who, while seeming to claim the\n  _blessings_ of religion, would think it presumption to profess,\n  or even expect, conformity to its standard. The\n  presumption always seems to me on the other side; and\n  yet who is free from it altogether? Very long it takes\n  some persons--of whom I am one--to get through the\n  seventh chapter of Romans. Many a time they get to\n  the twenty-fourth verse, and stick in the twenty-fifth,\n  looking wishfully over the barrier which divides them\n  from the eighth chapter; and yet, if thoroughly willing\n  to know the worst of themselves, they would perhaps\n  find that it is because a _part_ of a man's nature may go\n  so far, while it requires the _whole_ spirit to make this\n  last transition. I think I long for true humiliation in\n  the evidence of my own deficiency here.\n\n         *       *       *       *       *\n\n  I did, indeed, enjoy the Yearly Meeting's Epistle: it\n  is a wholesome one in these days. How refreshing is\n  it in thought, to abstract ourselves from the words and\n  doings of men, and think of that _one_ eternal unchanging\n  truth, which can never be inconsistent with itself and\n  which, though hid from the wise and prudent, is revealed\n  to babes! Here I think the belief of the identity\n  of our own character hereafter, comes in well, and\n  should lead us to consider whether we love truth absolutely,\n  and not only relatively to the circumstances\n  which will not exist then; and whether we can be happy\n  in a land where righteousness and peace forever kiss\n  each other. And may I, without vanity and just in\n  illustration, quote from a rhyme of my own?--\n\n  While thus we long, in bonds of clay,\n    For freedom's advent bright,\n  Upbraid the tardy wheels of day,\n    And call the slumbering light,\n\n  Do we no willing fetters wear\n    Which our own hands have made,\n  No self-imposed distresses bear,\n    And court no needless shade?\n\n  While our departed friends to meet\n    We often vainly sigh,\n  To hold in heaven communion sweet,\n    Communion large and high,\n\n  Do we, while here on earth we dwell,\n    Those pure affections show\n  For which we long to bid farewell\n    To all we love below?\n\n  For no unhallow'd footstep falls\n    Upon that floor of gold;\n  Those pearly gates, those crystal walls,\n    No earthly hearts enfold.\n\n  And if our voice on earth be strange\n    To notes of praise and prayer,\n  That voice it is not death's to change,\n    Would make but discord there.\n\n  _8th Mo. 10th_. Strange vacillations of feeling; at\n  one time on the point of trusting the Lord for\n  eternity, at another, cannot trust him even for time.\n  At one time would cast my whole soul on him; at\n  another, will bear the weight of every straw myself,\n  till I become quite overloaded with them. Oh,\n  what a spectacle of folly, and weakness, and sin!\n  A soul immortal spending all her powers, wasting\n  her strength in strenuous idleness!\n\n  _8th Mo. 16th_. Very busy making things tidy,\n  and resolved, almost religiously, to keep them so.\n  I think I would not, for any consideration, die with\n  all my things in disorder. Disorder must be the\n  result of a disordered mind, and not only so, it\n  reacts on the mind and makes it worse in turn.\n\n  _8th Mo. 18th_. People do not say enough of the\n  need of _consistency_, when they speak of trusting in\n  Providence instead of arms. It was consistent in\n  William Penn, but it would not have been consistent\n  in his contemporaries, who took the Indians'\n  land for nought. Providence is not to be made a\n  protector of injustice, of which arms are the fitting\n  shield. Oh that consistency, earnestness of character,\n  were more valued!\n\n  _8th Mo. 23d_. Some true wish, may I say prayer,\n  that Christ may now, _now_, blot out as a cloud my\n  sins, even on his own terms, which, I am more convinced,\n  do not consist of things required of us to\n  give in exchange for his mercy, but are a part of\n  that mercy, a part of that redemption. Yes, when\n  sin becomes thoroughly a burden, as sin, then we see\n  that grace would be indeed imperfect, if it was not\n  to be a deliverance from the _power_, as well as the\n  punishment, of sin; and if we ask for grace, and yet\n  cherish sin, truly we know not what spirit we are\n  of, we wish not for complete salvation while we are\n  asking for it. Mercy is a broader thing than our\n  most earnest prayers suppose; yea, it is \"above all\n  that we can ask or think.\"\n\n  _8th Mo_. Letter to M.B.\n\n  * * * How little it avails to know the theory of\n  wisdom and folly, right and wrong, etc., just so as to\n  occupy only the perceptive and reasoning faculties!\n  What we want, what the world wants, I think, is the\n  _Christian_ version of the present so fashionable idea of\n  _earnestness_, or, as I have thought it may imply, _consistency_\n  of character. We get ideas and opinions in a _dead_\n  way, and then they do not _pervade_ our characters; we\n  have but half learned them; they have influenced not\n  our feeling, but only our knowing faculties, and then\n  perhaps it had been better not to have known the way\n  of truth. A full response is in my heart to the difficulty\n  of keeping things in their right places, neither can I at\n  all agree to the idea \"that where the love of the world\n  perverts one, the fear of it perverts ten;\" at least, understanding\n  the world to mean \"whatever passes as I\n  cloud between the mental eye of faith and things unseen.\"\n  Many a time has the book-shelf and the writing-desk\n  been made a substitute for the oratory. As to\n  friendship taking this place, surely the whole idea of a\n  _Church_ is based on that of Christian fellowship in its\n  strict sense. Be it ours to know what _that_ means, and\n  then, if our love to Christ is the main bond of union,\n  while that continues, we shall love him the more rather\n  than the less on that account. But I know that friendship\n  includes various other elements, and may we be\n  sensible that if these are made the main things in our\n  esteem, not only our faith, but our friendship too, becomes\n  debased.\n\n  Respecting the seventh and eighth chapter of Romans,\n  a believe I agree with thee; but lately I have had\n  stronger feelings than I used to have about the distinction\n  between _defective_ religion and _infant_ religion.\n  The full feeling of our corruption must certainly precede\n  the full reception of the Christian's joy; and I believe\n  we ought not to be too anxious to reduce to regular\n  theory what is so much above our finite understandings\n  as the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart. Still, I\n  think there is, when it goes on as it ought to do, unobstructed,\n  a completeness in all its stages. There may\n  and ought to be a perfect infant, then a perfect youth,\n  then a perfect man, and I don't know how to apply to\n  the advanced stage only; that blessed declaration which I\n  sometimes think expresses the sum of Christian liberty,\n  \"There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them which\n  are in Christ Jesus.\" Still, it will be quite time enough\n  to reason about this when we have attained such an entirely\n  childlike state; nor, I suppose, shall we be long\n  in discovering the privilege of which we shall then be in\n  possession--\"Of such is the kingdom of heaven.\" Then,\n  doubtless, we shall be furthest from reasoning at all.\n\n  We have been much interested with the last volume\n  of D'Aubign\u00e9. The imperfection of all the instruments\n  is strikingly shown. Luther's obstinate transubstantiation\n  or consubstantiation doctrines, Melancthon's timid\n  concessions to the Papists, and Zwingle's carnal warfare,\n  ending in the tragedy of Cappel, and, as it seems, in the\n  long delay of the establishment of the Reformation in\n  Switzerland. D'Aubign\u00e9 appears very sensible of this\n  inconsistency: even the loss of Ecolampadius by a peaceful\n  death he represents as a happy encouragement to\n  the Church after the blow it had received; but I don't\n  think D'Aubign\u00e9 a thorough peace advocate. He makes\n  so much distinction between the Churchman and Statesman,\n  that I fear he would allow of _mere_ rulers and\n  magistrates taking up arms on _merely_ secular affairs,\n  though he does not wish the Church to be defended by\n  such. I should like to know thy impression of the early\n  Christians' opinion on war. Neander allows that a _party_\n  objected to it, as in the case of Maximilian, A.D. 229;\n  but says that very sincere Christians were soldiers in\n  the Roman army, till Galerius required all soldiers to\n  take part in the heathen ceremonies.\n\n  _8th Mo. 26th_. Oh, how shall I set forth His\n  tender compassion, who has blessed me this evening\n  with, I was going to say, the abundance of peace\n  and truth? Oh, how near He has been, helping me\n  to cast my all on Him, helping me to leave the\n  things that are behind, yes, and the things that are\n  before too, as far as self is concerned, and commit\n  my future way and safety to Him! When His love\n  has been made known, how have I been grieved by\n  fears of future folly, fears, too, that have been grievously\n  fulfilled. What a pretest this for harassing\n  myself with fears that it will be so again! But, oh,\n  these fears are very far from that fear which the\n  Lord will put into His children's hearts, that they\n  shall not depart from Him. They have no preserving\n  power over me; they are \"of the earth, earthy,\" and\n  solely come from distrust of that grace which is ever-sufficient;\n  from a desire to have a share myself in\n  that victory which is Christ's alone. Oh, if my incessant\n  regards were to Him alone, He would take\n  all care on Himself. \"He is the same yesterday, to-day,\n  and forever,\" and His faith _is_ \"the victory\n  which overcomes the world.\" Humility, true watchfulness,\n  and self-distrust are diametrically opposed\n  to this careful spirit: their language ever is, \"I am\n  nothing, Christ is all.\"\n\n  _8th Mo. 27th_. Changed indeed; not any light to\n  be seen in my dark heart. Yet I look up, I trust\n  singly, to Him from whom it came yesterday; and\n  thither may I look till again the day break. Can I\n  say, in full sincerity, \"_more_ than they that watch\n  for the morning\"? Alas that I am so versatile!\n  Christian and worldling within a day. Oh for a\n  deeper sense that I am not my own,--that I have no\n  right to disturb the sanctuary of my own spirit\n  when God has made it such,--that there is no other\n  way than whole-hearted and honest-hearted Christianity\n  to attain the heavenly kingdom!\n\n  _9th Mo. 9th_. Letter to M.B.\n\n  * * * Our wily foe finds every thing which produces\n  strong emotion and commotion of mind a good\n  opportunity for trying new temptations, and, at any\n  rate, tries hard to keep us from committing all to a\n  better hand than ours. I feel quite ashamed of the\n  measure of his success with me; but surely we want a\n  new sanctification every day,--a new recurrence to the\n  grace that will _set_ \"all dislocated bones,\" as J. Fletcher\n  calls unsanctified feelings and affections. I was much\n  pleased with this comparison, which I found in his life\n  the other day. I think it is an admirable exemplification\n  of the uneasiness and pain of mind they cause.\n  But how very uncertain our frames of feeling are;\n  sometimes thinking there is but _one_ thing which we have\n  not _quite_ given up to God, and sometimes, with perhaps\n  correcter judgment, lamenting, \"_all my bones_ are out\n  of joint.\" May we, my dear M., encourage each other\n  in seeking help of Him who received and healed all\n  that had need of healing.\n\n  _9th Mo. 20th_. Finished most interesting review\n  of John Foster's life. * * * Foster was a very\n  deep thinker. He thought the boundary of the\n  knowable wider than the generality do. This may\n  be; but I fancy he does not always admit sufficient\n  weight in his arguments to the manifest relations\n  and actings of the unknown upon the known. He\n  was Calvinistic; this, joined to a strong view of the\n  moral perfection and benevolence of God, led him\n  to the natural result of denying _eternal_ punishments.\n  Could he have seen more of the essence of a human\n  spirit, as he doubtless now sees it, I venture to think\n  that that mysterious personality, by virtue of which\n  man may be said to choose his destiny, _i.e._ to embrace\n  destruction, or to submit to be saved by the Saviour\n  in his own way, that the perception of this personal\n  image of God in man might vindicate the Divine\n  perfection and benevolence, and make it evident that\n  our \"salvation is of God, and our destruction is of\n  ourselves.\"\n\n  _10th Mo. 2d_. Oh to be permitted any taste of\n  that grace which is free--ever free; which brings a\n  serene reliance on eternal love; which imprints its\n  own reflection on the soul! Oh, be that reflection\n  unbroken by restless disquiets of mind; be that\n  image watchfully prized, and waited for, and waited in.\n\n  _10th Mo. 5th_. Some sweetness in thinking how\n  much akin is \"having nothing\" to \"possessing all\n  things.\"\n\n  _10th Mo. 14th_. Talk with James Teare on the\n  immorality of drinking. Query:--Is it _per se_ a _sin_\n  to drink a little? He does not affirm it in pure\n  abstract, but says that no _action_ can be purely\n  abstract; and that as to uphold an immoral system\n  is immoral, as the drinking system is immoral, as\n  moderate draughts uphold the drinking system, and,\n  in fact, cannot be drunk by the community without\n  giving birth to drunkenness--_ergo_, moderate drinking\n  is an immoral practice. He does not at all judge\n  those who do not see it; only says they ought to\n  accept light and knowledge, and he cannot doubt\n  what would then be the result.\n\n  _10th Mo. 17th_. The above talk with J. Teare was\n  a great satisfaction to me; we went that evening to\n  his meeting, and after two hours of deep interest in\n  a crowded meeting I signed the pledge, with a hand\n  trembling with emotion. I could not trust myself to\n  tell S. that the pleasure he expressed was but a faint\n  reflection of mine. I have been expending two days\n  in a letter to the _Friend_ on \"Distillation,\" which I\n  ardently hope to get inserted.\n\n  _11th Mo. 3d_. Last evening sweetly realized in\n  some degree being in the Lord's own hands; and\n  this morning again enabled to cease from my own\n  vain attempts and trust the Lord. Oh, the folly of\n  the long trials I have made to _do_ something, when I\n  come before Him! It is all in vain. If I am ever\n  saved it will be His doing, His _free grace_; and this\n  moment can I call Jesus _my_ Saviour. On Fifth-day\n  I read Barclay's fifth Proposition--pleased and\n  satisfied almost entirely with it.\n\n  _12th Mo. 5th_. I have got my letter inserted in\n  the _Friend_; the editor says my zeal has carried me\n  too far as to _means_; he agrees as to the evil of the\n  system. Oh that it were seen as it deserves! But\n  how talk of abolition by _law_, and keep spirit-merchants\n  in the Church? [See _Friend_, vol. iv. page\n  232.]\n\n  _12th Mo. 11th_.--Letter to M.B.\n\n  * * * _Nothing_, I think, loses by its foundation\n  being tried. We see that in yet higher things it is needful\n  and right often to try whether principle is firm; and,\n  though sometimes we may tremble lest faith should fall\n  in the trial, perhaps it would be more just to fear lest\n  the trial should merely show it already to have fallen.\n  What thou sayest about laying aside reasoning is very\n  true; but how hard to do so! Saul's armor doubtless it\n  is, as says the little tract. How easy, comparatively, to\n  let any want go unsatisfied, rather than that imperious\n  reason which urges its claim with so many good pretences,\n  which tells us truth will always bear investigation,\n  and that if we cannot explain by our small faculties\n  experiences in which the highest mysteries are involved,\n  the experiences must have been fallacious! How different\n  is _this sort_ of voluntary and almost presumptuous self-investigation\n  from submitting all to the unerring touchstone!\n  It is, indeed, very instructive to observe that our\n  Saviour's rejoicing in spirit was not over the subjects of\n  some wondrous apocalypse, or over those endowed with\n  miraculous power, but over \"babes;\" and that in the\n  same way His lamentation was not that the Jews had\n  refused His offers of any thing of this kind, but that\n  they \"would not\" be \"gathered\" by Him as \"chickens\n  under their mother's wing.\"\n\n  It was the fault of my obscure expression, that when\n  I spoke of my \"painful reason\" I did not make it apparent\n  that I meant it of the _faculty_ of reason, which\n  has been a very unquiet occupant of my mind for some\n  years past, and which has led me to the conclusion that\n  our mental atmosphere, the whole system of feelings,\n  affections, hopes, doubts, fears, perplexities, etc., is one\n  which it is dangerous _needlessly_ and wilfully to disturb.\n  When once we have carelessly wrought up a storm it is\n  not in our own power so quickly to lay it, and the poor\n  mind is almost compelled to endure passively the disturbance\n  till these unruly elements spontaneously subside,\n  or something better interferes for its help. Surely,\n  if there has been any resting-place given us, if our eyes\n  have ever seen the \"quiet habitation,\" we ought to fear\n  the excitement of any thing which, naturally breaks the\n  equilibrium. I believe some people think _imagination_\n  the unruly member among the mental parts; but with\n  me it is the aforesaid offender decidedly. I hope I do\n  not tease thee about teetotalism: it lies near my heart,\n  and has done so for a long time; and though I too find\n  it an effort sometimes to give up an evening to a meeting\n  of that sort, it is such a comfort to be able to do any thing\n  to show on which side I am, that I think I ought not to\n  mind that.\n\n  _1st Mo. 4th_, 1847. Yesterday, and the day before,\n  gently blest in spirit with having things placed more\n  in their right position in my heart than for some\n  time before. One evening I had toiled long in vain,\n  could not overcome a sad sense of spiritual deficiency.\n  It occurred to me that this might be the very best\n  thing for me: then I opened my heart and welcomed\n  it; and, oh, how did a smile of compassion beam\n  upon me, and the grace that would not be purchased\n  came in full and free! But it is infinitely important\n  to watch for more.\n\nThus experiencing both \"how to be abased\" and \"how to abound,\" she\nlearned to be satisfied with poverty, and recognized in barrenness,\nas well as in richness of joy and love, a guiding and purifying grace,\nleading on to the perfect life in Christ.\n\n  _1st Mo. 10th_. Letter to M.B.\n\n  * * * Oh for that simple faith which thou speaks\n  of as mastering mountains of difficulty, and that not by\n  might or power, but by its intrinsically victorious\n  nature! I have sometimes been struck by the way in\n  which this is asserted in the text, \"This is the victory\n  which overcometh the world, even our faith.\" It is\n  taken for granted that there will be a contest and a\n  victory; but if there is true faith the world will certainly\n  be overcome: I mean provided the faith is held fast. It\n  may be abandoned, or foes within may betray the\n  citadel; but it will not otherwise yield to pressure from\n  without. May we, if possible, encourage one another\n  not to let go that small, and, it may be, famishing and\n  almost expiring confidence, which _hath_, not only is promised,\n  great recompense of reward. I little thought to\n  come to any thing so encouraging when beginning a sort\n  of lamentation over myself. But really there is so\n  much that is deceptive in the deceptive heart; so many\n  things, even our humility, that we once thought of the\n  right kind, turn out to have been some refined manifestation\n  of spiritual pride, that we may daily find, at least\n  I do, that the question \"Who can cure it?\" follows its\n  judgment as \"desperately wicked,\" with emphasis full\n  as great as that of \"Who can know it?\" is prompted by\n  the discovery that it is \"deceitful above all things.\"\n\n  * * * Job Thomas's death-bed has long been an\n  interesting one to me; and I think his parting address,\n  especially seeing it is a translation from Welsh, conveys\n  remarkably the impression of a mind beginning to be\n  shone upon from the other world. On the other hand,\n  death-beds of opposite characters, such as \"Altamont\"\n  in Murray's Power of Religion, carry a no less convincing\n  evidence of the dark realities to come. When\n  my father was in America he was much interested with\n  hearing from a friend, a female connection of whom had\n  lived in the house with Tom Payne, some account of the\n  last hours of that wretched man, who appears to have\n  become so fully sensible of his fatal errors as to have\n  written a recantation, which some of his infidel friends\n  destroyed. The account they gave to Cobbett was entirely\n  false; as the friend related that he expressed to\n  her the greatest sorrow for the harm that he had done,\n  and, on hearing that she had burned some of his books,\n  he expressed a wish that all had done the same.[2]\n\n  [Footnote 2: For a farther account see Life of Stephen Grellet,\n  vol. i. p. 163, Amer. edit.]\n\n  * * * Total abstinence, as well as many other good\n  Causes, and _the_ good cause, have lost a noble advocate in\n  our honored and lamented friend J.J. Ghirney. It is\n  hard to reconcile one's mind to so sudden a summons;\n  so little time for his sorrowing friends to receive those\n  ever valuable and precious legacies, \"dying sayings.\"\n  We have heard of nothing of that kind; and perhaps he\n  was not conscious of the approach of death at all. So\n  much the brighter, doubtless, the glad surprise of the\n  transition. Oh, how one longs for permission to look\n  in at heaven's opened door-way after the entrance of\n  such souls!\n\n\n  _1st Mo. 23d_. To-day, writing rhyming Irish,\n  appeal. It got the upper hand and made me sin--so\n  unhappy about it. When I believe sincerely\n  desiring to offer it up to the Lord's, will, I grew\n  easy to continue it. Perhaps it was a selfish and\n  self-pleasing influence, but I think not so. I felt\n  very glad afterwards to be able to ask to have all\n  my heart consecrated by the Lord's spirit; and I do\n  believe that to rectify, not extinguish, the beat of\n  oar facilities, is religion's work.\n\n  This appeal on behalf of the poor Irish was\n  never made public. It had occupied her\n  thoughts very deeply, and, had she seen fit to\n  publish it, might have been an auxiliary to the\n  material efforts on behalf of the sufferers in\n  which she, in common with many others at that\n  period, was warmly engaged.\n\n  Many visits to poor people. In some I felt able\n  to talk to them of heavenly things. I believe it is\n  right to speak in love and interest, but never to out-strip\n  our feelings. \"I was sick, and ye visited me,\"\n  refers to a duty; and surely, when we are blessed\n  with a knowledge of the way of salvation, and feel\n  anxious for the salvation of others, it is right to do\n  our endeavors; at the same time well knowing that\n  God only can touch the heart. I believe that indifference\n  and indolence do much shelter themselves\n  under pretence of leaving God's work to Himself.\n  I have often learned salutary lessons in doing my\n  little.\n\n  _2d Mo. 19th_. I have been musing upon \"_my\n  sorrow was stirred_.\" Can it be that every heart is a\n  treasury of sadness which has but to be stirred up\n  to set us in mourning? Is it proportionate to the\n  amount of evil? Does a certain amount of evil\n  necessarily bring a certain amount of sorrow soon or\n  late? Do we suffer only by our own fault, unless\n  a grief is actually inflicted upon us? I think not.\n  There may be mental storms, over-castings of cloud\n  in the mind's hemisphere, independent of the exhalations\n  from the soil.\n\n  _2d Mo. 23d_. Letter to M.B.\n\n  * * * The truth is, that I was once fonder of reading\n  than of almost any thing else. * * * I don't\n  know how to tell thee about the strangely sad impression\n  that has followed, that \"this also is vanity.\" I\n  know it is our duty to improve our minds, and I wish\n  much that mine had been better cultivated than it has\n  been, and yet some utilitarian infirmity of mind has so\n  often suggested, \"What use is it?\" while I have been\n  reading, that my zest for the book has been almost destroyed,\n  and the very thought of the volume has been\n  saddened by remembering what I felt while reading it.\n  So that what E. Barrett says of light reading is true to\n  me of Schiller and some others:--\n\n  \"Merry books once read for pastime,\n    If we dared to read again,\n  Only memories of the last time,\n    Would swim darkly up the brain.\"\n\n  I hope these feelings are not infectious, or I certainly\n  would not inflict on thee the description. But do not\n  take this as a _general_ picture of me. It is a morbid\n  occasional state of things; consequent, by reaction, on\n  the exclusiveness of aim with which those things were\n  followed. I learned sooner than I suppose many do,\n  the earnestness, coldness, reality of life; and there has\n  come an impression of its being _too late_ to prepare for\n  life, and quite time to live. However imperfectly, I have\n  learned that to live _ought_ to be to prepare to die; but,\n  without stopping to describe how that idea has acted, a\n  secondary purpose of being of some use to others has. I\n  might almost say, tormented my faculty of conscientiousness.\n  Don't suppose that this is any evidence of religion\n  or love. I believe it rather argues the contrary. Every\n  attempt to do good ought to spring naturally from love\n  to God and man; not from a wish merely to attain our\n  _beau-ideal_ of duty. Now, though I so much like reading,\n  I did not seem able to make any use of it; for\n  strangely confused were long my ideas of usefulness,\n  and there has followed many a conflict between these\n  two unsanctified tendencies. Perhaps they have done\n  some good in chastening each other and chastening their\n  owner. Do not think I prospered in either, for I have,\n  as I said, a poor memory; and then I wanted to see\n  fruits of my labors, and spent a great deal of time in\n  making charts; one of the history of empires, one of\n  the history of inventions and discoveries; the latter,\n  especially, was not worth the labor. I have had a taste\n  of many things, and yet, to speak honestly, excel in\n  hardly any thing: the reason of this is partly a great\n  want of order. I never attempted any thing like a\n  \"course of reading:\" but, when I began a book, _the_\n  _book_ was the object more than my own real improvement.\n  I read often D.E.F., before I had read A.B.C.,\n  and so grew confused, and then, if it is to be confessed,\n  the childish pride of having read a book was not without\n  its influence. Poetry in modern times has certainly\n  become diluted in strength and value; but,\n  though I have not at all a large acquaintance, I think\n  there are many good modern poets. I much admire\n  Wordsworth's \"Intimations of Immortality,\" as well as\n  many of his shorter and simpler pieces--\"The Longest\n  Day,\" for instance. There is a great deal of good\n  instruction, as well as deep thought, in his poetry; but\n  there is not, I think, very clearly an evangelical spirit;\n  indeed, the \"Excursion,\" which is beautiful, is unsatisfactory\n  to me in this respect. Longfellow I think not\n  _clearly_ influenced by religious principle, but I do not\n  see any thing contrary to it. Some of his short pieces\n  are like little _gems_,--so beautifully _cut_, too. Elizabeth\n  Barrett's [Browning] deep thoughts, rich poetical ideas,\n  and thoroughly satisfactory principles, when they appear,\n  [1846] make her a great favorite with me and with us\n  all. Even her fictions, though so well told, are not\n  wrought up, or full of romantic incident; but the tale\n  is plainly used merely as a thread on which to string\n  rich thoughts and lessons. How much this is the case\n  with the \"Lay of the Brown Rosary!\" Even the sad\n  pieces, such as the \"Lost Bower,\" end generally with a\n  gleam of light, not from a mere meteor of passion or\n  sentiment, but from a day-spring of Christian hope.\n  Perhaps I am too partial, for I know that taste, which in\n  me is particularly gratified with E. Barrett, will influence\n  our judgment. Some of Trench's poems, too, I think,\n  are worth learning; his \"Walk in the Churchyard\" I\n  particularly like.\n\n  _3d Mo. 25th._ Letter to M.B.\n\n  * * * But, oh, I do believe that if people did but\n  accustom themselves to view small things as parts of\n  large, moments as parts of life, intellects as parts of men,\n  lives as parts of eternity, religion would cease to be the\n  mere adjunct which it now is to many. * * * I am\n  convinced that till it be made _the one_ object of our\n  earnest love and endeavors, till we have an _upright_\n  heart, till the leader of the fir-tree points direct to\n  heaven, and all lateral shoots not merely refrain from\n  interfering, but mainly grow in order to support, nourish,\n  and minister to it, we shall never have that perfect\n  peace, that rest of spirit, that power to \"breathe\n  freely,\"--conscious that we are _as_ if not _all_ that we\n  ought to be,--which constitute the happiness of a\n  Christian. But enough of this: don't think I pretend\n  to any such attainment, though I can sometimes say, \"I\n  follow after.\"\n\n  I much admired that part of Jane Taylor's \"Remains\"\n  which describes her cheerful and unmurmuring\n  acceptance of a humble quiet life, and her dislike of\n  mere show and machinery in benevolence. I do not\n  think the best public characters are those who accept\n  formally, and for its own sake, a prominent station, but\n  those who, following their individual duty, and occupying\n  their peculiar gifts, are _thereby_ made honorable in the\n  earth. To them, I fancy, _publicity_ is often an accident\n  of small moment; and they who walk in the light of\n  heaven mind little whether earthly eyes regard or disregard\n  them. I do not, however, _covet_ for any one whom\n  I love a conspicuous path. There must be many thorns\n  and snares.\n\n  _4th Mo. 4th_. Much interested with Hester\n  Rogers's life. The Methodist standard of holiness is\n  full as high as Friends'--_viz_. the gospel standard.\n  Struck with the accordance with G. Fox's experience.\n  He was asked if he had no sin, and answered, \"Jesus\n  Christ had put away his sin, and in Him (Jesus) is\n  no sin.\" This was a young man. He grew much\n  afterwards, doubtless, in faith and knowledge. What\n  would be thought of a person, especially young, who\n  should profess so much now? Is the gospel changed?\n  It is, or we lack faith in its principle. We do not\n  _perseveringly_ seek, _determinately_ seek, to know for\n  ourselves what this high attainment is.\n\n  Nice visit at the Union on First-day. Congregation\n  enlarged, notwithstanding substitution of Bible\n  for Tract, and very quiet. Cornelius, a helpless sick\n  man, seeming near death, melted my heart with his\n  talk. I felt quite unfit to be called a \"sister\" by\n  such a saint.\n\n  _4th Mo. 10th_. \"To have had much forgiven\" is,\n  I can joyfully yet reverently record this evening, my\n  blessed portion; and in the sense, which as a cloud\n  of warmth and light now dwells in my heart, of the\n  loving-kindness and tender mercy of God in Christ\n  Jesus, I have been ready to say, in effect, \"Bless the\n  Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his\n  holy name,\" \"who forgiveth all thine iniquities,\n  who healeth all thy diseases, who redeemeth thy life\n  from destruction, who crowneth thee with loving-kindness\n  and tender mercies.\" How is all given me\n  gratis, without money and without price! Nothing\n  is mine but confusion of face for my oft-repeated\n  rebellions.\n\n  Oh, it is not that we can get salvation for ourselves;\n  it is that we hinder not, refuse not, turn not\n  from, but accept, wait for, pant for the free gift of\n  our Saviour's grace. \"To Him who is able to do\n  exceeding abundantly,\" the work belongs. He can\n  cause that even as sin hath reigned, so shall grace\n  reign; and that as death hath triumphed, so shall\n  spiritual and eternal life triumph also. Amen and\n  amen.\n\n  _4th Mo. 17th_. How short-lived were the feelings\n  I recorded at the close of last week! I believe an\n  earnest talk with a chatty caller on minor matters,\n  recalled my heart that same evening from its happy\n  abiding-place. I have thought of the words, \"Jesus\n  Christ _the end_ of your conversation,\" and fear he is\n  but a _by-end_ of mine. It is hard to analyze our\n  feelings: perhaps when discomfort from excitement\n  and discontent is greatest, my sin is no greater than\n  when in listless apathy and earthly-mindedness my\n  thoughts are bounded by the seen and the temporal.\n\n  _5th Mo. 24th_. A solemn warning from Uncle R.\n  on Fifth-day did me good. I was blessed with some\n  degree of ability to use the words, \"Into Thy hands\n  I commit my spirit,\" and though I feared to add,\n  \"Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord of truth,\" in its\n  full sense, yet I have felt how precious were the\n  words, \"as unto a _faithful_ Creator.\" Oh, does He\n  not say in _these_ days, \"Open thy mouth wide, and I\n  will fill it\"? Is His hand shortened at all? Can\n  we not have faith in our principles?\n\nThe following lines were written about this, time, in allusion to the\nmarriage of her eldest, sister, and the funeral of John Wadge, an old\nand valued friend of the family. It was hoped that the cactus which\nhad belonged to J.W. would have blossomed in time for the wedding; but\nthe first flower only opened a fortnight afterwards, on the morning of\nhis own funeral: and when, in a few years, the marriage of the beloved\nwriter of the lines was so speedily followed by her own decease, the\nstriking appropriateness of these touching verses could not fail to be\nremembered.\n\n  TO A CACTUS FLOWER.\n\n\n  Firstling blossom! gayly spreading\n    On a long-nursed household tree,\n  What unwonted spell is shedding\n    Thought of grief on bloom of thee?\n\n  For a morning bright and tender\n    They had nursed thee glad and fond;\n  Nay, the bud reserved its splendor\n    For a funeral scene beyond.\n\n  Who shall tell us which were meeter,--\n    Marriage morn, or funeral day?\n  What if nature chose the sweeter,\n    Where her blooming gift to lay?\n\n  Set in thorns that flower so tender!\n    Marriage days have poignant hours;\n  Thorny stem, thou hast thy splendor!\n    Funeral days have also flowers.\n\n  And the loftiest hopes man nurses,\n    Never deem them idly born;\n  Never think that deathly curses\n    Blight them on a funeral morn.\n\n  Buds of their perennial nature\n    Need a region where to blow,\n  Where the stalk has loftier stature\n    Than it reaches here below.\n\n  Not like us they dread the bosom\n    Of chill earth's sepulchral gloom;\n  They will find them where to blossom,\n    And perhaps select a _tomb_.\n\n  Yes, a _tomb_; so thou mayst deem it,\n    With regretful feelings fond;\n  _Not_ a _tomb_, however, seems it,\n    If thou know'st to look _beyond_.\n\n                          10th of 7th Month, 1847.\n\n  _8th Mo. 8th_. We alone. Pleasant and quiet\n  schemes have arisen (partly from reading Pyecroft,\n  partly from having felt so much my own deficiencies)\n  for thoroughly industrious study, and for keeping, if\n  possible, externals and mentals in more order. Order,\n  I believe, would enable me to do much more than I\n  do in this way, without lessening those little \"good\n  works\" which my natural, unsanctified conscience\n  requires as a sedative; (alas that this is so nearly\n  all!) but I have got such an impression of selfishness\n  in sitting down to read to myself, that this, added to\n  unsettlement from company, etc., almost puts study\n  out of sight.\n\n  _8th Mo. 16th_. Letter to M.B.\n\n  * * * Though not only inability for, but even\n  natural repugnance to good thoughts is often a prominent\n  feeling, let us not think this a \"discouraging\n  experience.\" What will be discouraged by it, except\n  that self-confidence and self-reliance which are the bane,\n  the very opposite, to the idea of faith? Surely it is for\n  _want_ of such a feeling, and not _because_ of it, that faith\n  is feeble. It is because we try to make those good\n  thoughts and holy feelings of which Thomas Charles\n  says so truly, \"we are no more capable than we are of\n  creating worlds.\" I hope I do not presume too much in\n  writing thus. How little can I say of the blessings of a\n  contrary state! But how much would my heart's history\n  tell of the exceeding vanity and folly, and may I not add\n  _presumption_, of attempting to do what Divine grace alone\n  can do! How many a painful and gloomy hour might\n  have been cheered by the Sun of Righteousness, but for\n  my obstinacy in trying to light farthing candles! But\n  I believe there are generally _other_ obstacles at the same\n  time. We _will_ have some beloved indulgence, some\n  pleasures, of which perhaps the _will_ is the chief sin,\n  and which, if but willingly resigned, might be\n  reconsecrated for our use and enjoyment; and then darkness\n  and gloominess of mind follow, and we light matches\n  and farthing candles to comfort us, while these very\n  resources keep us back from seeking the radical remedy.\n  How easy it is to write or tell the diagnosis of such a\n  case! but to be reconciled to the true mode of treatment,\n  the prognosis, as doctors say, _there_ is the difficulty, while\n  I doubt not Cowper speaks the truth:--\n\n    \"Were half the breath thus vainly spent\n    To heaven in supplication sent,\n    Your cheerful song would oftener be,\n    Hear what the Lord hath done for me.\"\n\n  I have been much interested with Thomas Charles's\n  life; such an example of spiritual-mindedness, faith, and\n  love. Dr. Payson's death-bed is indeed a deeply interesting\n  history. How we should all like to choose such\n  an one! and yet, if but prepared to go, whether we depart\n  as he did, or as poor Cowper, how true are the words\n  of the latter, \"What can it signify?\" I have often thought\n  these words very significant.\n\n  Of phrenology I have heard such conflicting opinions\n  that only my own small experience would satisfy me of\n  its general truth. I think only very weak minds need\n  be led by it to fatalism. The very fact of so many propensities\n  and sentiments balancing each other seems to\n  show that the result is to be contingent on some other\n  thing than themselves, as the best-rigged vessel on an\n  uncertain sea, in varying winds, is under the control of\n  the helmsman and captain, and may be steered right or\n  wrong; and surely no vessel is built by an all-wise Hand\n  which cannot be steered aright with grace at the helm.\n\n\n  _8th Mo. 19th_. Solemn thoughts yesterday in\n  reading that solemn tract, \"The Inconvenient Season.\"\n  In visiting I met with another affecting\n  illustration of the unfitness of old age for beginning\n  religion, in the senseless self-righteousness of poor\n  old Mary N. She says every night and morning the\n  prayers she learned when a child, which she evidently\n  thinks an abundant supply of religion,--saying, \"if\n  people only do the best they have been brought up\n  to, that is all they can need; and she never did any\n  harm to any one.\" Then there was poor Alice, who,\n  notwithstanding her rank Calvinism, seemed refreshing\n  in comparison. She knew she could not do any\n  thing for herself; it was all grace; but then,\n  \"whatever I am, or whatever I do,\" she said, \"I am safe,\n  unless I have committed gross sin, which I never\n  shall.\" Then poor M.L., whose only fault, she seems\n  to think, is not having learned to read, though she\n  knows she is a great sinner, but then as good as says\n  she never did any thing wrong. It was a sweet\n  change to E.S., with her thankful and trustful\n  spirit, and poor S., with his deep experience in the\n  things of God. \"It is a long time to suffer,\" he\n  said, \"but the end must come, the time must wear\n  away. I hope I shall have patience to the end, and\n  I have great need to ask that the Lord will have\n  patience with me. I hope I shall be fully purified\n  before He calls me away.\" He spoke solemnly on\n  the tares and the wheat, as showing the mixture of\n  good and evil growing _together_; that our being\n  outwardly among the righteous will not secure our not\n  being tares.\n\n  _9th Mo. 2d_. Went to see a poor woman at the\n  Workhouse; she is full of joy in the hope of heaven,\n  and possession of the present mind of Jesus. I said,\n  \"Many wish for it who have it not;\" she said,\n  \"Perhaps they are not enough in earnest: it costs a\n  few groans, and struggles, and tears, but it is sweet\n  to enjoy it now.\" Could the stony heart in me help\n  melting, seeing her exceeding great joy?\n\n  Pleased with the sweet spirit that was in poor\n  Alice, her trust, I think, in Christ alone, amid all her\n  (as I think) mistaken thoughts of the church, sacrament,\n  certain perseverance, &c. &c. I did not argue,\n  but wished for us both the one foundation.\n\nOf a peculiarly sensitive disposition herself, Eliza's heart abounded\nwith sympathy for the trials and sufferings of the poor. She was a\nwelcome visitor at their cottages, where her kind and gentle though\ntimid manner generally found access to their hearts; and whilst\nherself receiving lessons of instruction at the bedside of the sick\nand the dying, she was often the means of imparting sweet consolation\nto them.\n\nIn her desire to promote the spiritual welfare of others, she wrote\ntwo tracts, which were printed by the York Friends' Tract Association.\nThe first is entitled Richard Nancarrow, or the Cornish Miner, and\ntraces the Christian course of a poor man whom she had frequently\nvisited, and who had claimed her anxious solicitude as she watched his\nslow decline in consumption. In the second, entitled \"Plain Words,\"\nshe endeavored to convey the simplest gospel truths in words adapted\nto the comprehension of even the least educated. She was warmly\ninterested in the Bible Society, in connection with which, for some\nyears, she regularly visited a neighboring village, besides attending\nto other objects of a similar character nearer home.\n\n  _9th Mo. 10th_. Letter to M.B.\n\n  * * * Setting our affection above is indeed the\n  first thing of importance; and yet how utterly beyond\n  our own power! We are so enslaved to sense and sight\n  till He, who alone is able, sets us \"free indeed,\" that\n  things around us can take that disproportionate hold on\n  our hearts which makes work for the light of heaven to\n  reduce things to their proper proportion in our view. I\n  have thought often of the text, \"Thy will be done on\n  earth as _it is in heaven_.\" Oh, how much that implies,\n  both of love and joyfulness to be aimed at in our service\n  of our heavenly Father _on earth_. How high a standard!\n  Can we hope ever to attain it? Surely we are to ask it,\n  not as a millennial glory for the world only, (if at all,)\n  but also as our own individual portion. It is more to be\n  lamented that we do not realize this than that we do not\n  realize Foster's idea of the world to come, in which we,\n  yes, we, our very selves, will be actually concerned.\n  But I believe the two deficiencies are more connected\n  than we are sometimes aware of; and perhaps the joys\n  of a happy death-bed, the foretaste of heaven, of which\n  we sometimes hear, are as much connected with the\n  completeness of religious devotedness, often not till then\n  attained, as with the nearness in point of _time_ to a world\n  of purity and joy. How striking is the earnestness\n  shown in John Fletcher's \"Early Christian Experience,\"\n  in seeking mastery over sin, not as \"uncertainly,\" or as\n  \"beating the air,\" but as one resolved to conquer in the\n  might of that faith which \"_is_ the victory;\" and how\n  wonderfully was his after-life an example of \"doing the\n  Divine will as it is in heaven\"!\n\n  _9th Mo. 17th_. Distress in the country great.\n  What will all issue in? Surely in this, \"the Lord\n  sitteth on the flood; yea, He sitteth King forever.\"\n  Oh! if He be King in our hearts we shall not be\n  greatly moved. There is comfort to the Christian,\n  immovable comfort, in having his affections, his\n  _patriotism_, in heaven. My own heart, I ardently\n  hope, is not a totally devastated land. There is a\n  rudiment still there which God looketh upon, and\n  perhaps, though I know it not, his eyes and his\n  heart are there perpetually. It is not meant to\n  remain a rudiment: oh, no; as \"sin hath reigned,\n  even unto death, _so_ grace should yet reign, even to\n  eternal life.\"\n\n  _9th Mo. 27th_. Perplexed about Irish knitting,\n  because it is slave-grown cotton. It does not seem\n  consistent to buy it; and yet I don't know what to\n  recommend.\n\n  _9th Mo. 30th_. Another month is at an end. Oh\n  that I knew whereabouts I stand in the race! \"'Tis\n  a point I long to know.\" Sometimes I have joy of\n  heart, and then I tremble lest it be not rightly\n  founded; sometimes tenderness of heart, and then\n  I fear it is only natural feeling; sometimes fervent\n  desires after good, and then I fear lest they are only\n  the result of fear of punishment; sometimes trust in\n  the merits of Jesus, and can look to Him as a sacrifice\n  for sin; then I fear lest it is only as an escape\n  from danger, not deliverance from present corruption;\n  sometimes wish to fulfil actively my duties, then\n  these same duties have stolen away my heart. Oh,\n  how do I get cumbered with cares and many things,\n  entangled with perplexity, or elated with cheer! I\n  think I have honestly wished to be fed with convenient\n  food. Oh to be at the end of the race, or so\n  near it as dear E. Stephens, by whose bed of pain\n  and joy I could not but mingle tears. But why\n  thus? Surely, O Lord, Thou hast heard the desire\n  of thy poor creature. Thy help must have been\n  with me when I knew it not, or life had been quite\n  extinct ere now. Extinct it _is_ not; and for this will\n  I bless Thee, even that I am not yet cast out as an\n  abominable branch, though so unfruitful. I fear it\n  can be only by much tribulation that the enemy of\n  my own house will ever be quelled; and perhaps salutary\n  pains are sent, in the very perplexities of things\n  which might be more ensnaring if all went on smoothly.\n  I have declined more cotton goods from Ireland, and\n  asked for woollen, which is one burden gone.\n\n  _10th Mo. 7th_. I believe study and taste must be\n  kept very subordinate to duty. Enough, yea, heaven\n  is this, to do my Father's will, if it were but as it is\n  done in heaven--all willing, loving, joyful service! Oh\n  to be more like my Saviour! Surely I love Him!\n\n  _10th Mo. 20th_. If Martha should not have been\n  cumbered with the outward attention to Christ Himself,\n  cares for others on plea of duty can never be\n  enough excuse for a peaceless mind. \"They which\n  believe _do enter_ into rest.\" Oh for rest this hour\n  in Jesus' bosom!\n\n  _10th Mo. 21st_. This book will present no fair\n  account of my state if I write only in hours of comfort.\n  I have passed through dark and sinful days--no\n  hope, no love. I thought I must have wearied\n  out the Saviour--that He had given me up for lost.\n  Perhaps some self was in the feelings described in\n  my last, and so this faithless sorrow came to teach me\n  what I am. Oh that nothing impure might mix in\n  the consolation which has visited me last evening\n  and this morning, when the gracious regard of my\n  all-merciful Saviour has been witnessed, some blessed\n  sight of \"the water to cleanse and the blood to\n  atone.\" Oh, how fervently I wish to be _kept_ by faith\n  in Him, in still deepening humility!\n\n  _11th Mo. 27th_. What would be my present\n  condition but for the unchangeable faithfulness of my\n  God and Saviour? Ah! how well may He say,\n  \"Thou hast destroyed thyself,\" and yet how constantly\n  add, \"but in me is thine help.\" Yes, though\n  we ofttimes believe not, yet \"He abideth faithful, He\n  cannot deny Himself;\" and so, where there is any\n  thing of His own left in a wandering heart, again\n  and again returns, \"upbraiding not,\" or else only\n  in accents of the tenderest love: \"O thou of little\n  faith!\" Often have I admired not only His great\n  love as shown in the main features of redemption,\n  but, if such a word is allowable, His _minute_ loving\n  kindness. Kindness--such a tender regard for the\n  comfort and peace of the soul. Oh, the spiritual\n  sorrows are far more from ourselves, our own wilful\n  work, than from Him whose language is, \"I the Lord\n  do keep it, lest any hurt it.\"\n\n  _12th Mo. 4th_. Yesterday, in going to Plymouth\n  with father and mother, read in my Testament of\n  the Prodigal Son. Had no time to read before setting\n  out, and was dull. Thought it no use to take out\n  the book; but, oh, such a sweet contrition came over\n  me, such a sense of being invited to return to my\n  Father's house, such a soft and gentle peace!\n\n  _1st Mo. 15th,_ 1848. On the First-day before N.\n  and F. left us, we had a sweet address (in meeting)\n  from Uncle Rundell, on the grace which had been\n  his \"morning light, and which he trusted would be\n  his evening song;\" ending with his hope that all\n  would be willing to \"bear the cross,\" that finally\n  they might \"wear the crown,\" for it is the end that\n  crowns the action. We thought it a farewell-sermon;\n  and the joyful assurance in which it was uttered is\n  precious to think of. On Third-day he walked with\n  me in the meadow, but on Fourth-day sickness confined\n  him to bed, and on Fifth-day he had lost all\n  power of standing. Since then, he has been a patient\n  helpless invalid, and constant and most interesting\n  has been our occupation by turns, in waiting on him,\n  gathering up his really precious words, and witnessing\n  the yet more precious example and evidence of\n  all-sufficient grace. Never may this season be forgotten\n  by me, though not privileged to witness its close.\n  To visit F., I left home in the First month, after\n  a farewell to our precious uncle, which is not to be\n  forgotten. He asked me if I was going the next\n  day. I said yes, and that I was very sorry to leave\n  him. He said, \"Well, as thou art enabled, pray for\n  me.\" I said, \"And I hope thou won't forget me.\"\n  He replied, \"It is not likely.\" In the evening, as\n  he sat by the fire, and spoke of my going to N. and\n  F., he said, \"Desire them, as they are enabled, to\n  pray that I may be favored with patience and resignation\n  to the end.\" When I said I must try to bid\n  him farewell, hard as it was, he said, \"May the Lord\n  go with thee. Keep to the cross; despise not the\n  day of small things. The Lord may see meet to\n  employ thee in His service, and I wish that every gift\n  that He dispenses to thee may be faithfully occupied\n  with.\" A loving farewell followed, and I left--doubtless\n  for the last time--our honored patriarch.\n\n  At Neath I spent more than three weeks, enjoying\n  the great kindness of my brother and sister, and\n  the beauty of the country, then dressed in its winter\n  garb, and the feeling of being in some measure useful.\n  I was also blessed, at the beginning of my visit,\n  with more than a common portion of spiritual blessing;\n  and I think the first meeting I was at there\n  was a time never to be forgotten--silent; but my\n  poor soul seemed swallowed up of joy and peace such\n  as I had never before known, at least so abidingly.\n  The calmness and peace, and the daily bread, with\n  which I was blessed in my little daily works and\n  daily retirements for some days, make the time sweet\n  to look back on, but grievous that I kept not my\n  portion, and again wandered from mountain to hill,\n  forgetting my resting-place.\n\nShe afterwards accompanied her brother and sister to their new home at\nIpswich.\n\nFrom a letter to one of her sisters.\n\n  Ipswich, 3d Month.\n\n  My mind has been so full of you to-day that, though\n  it is First-day evening, I must spend a few minutes in\n  this way before I go to bed. The thought of father's\n  going homewards to-morrow and seeing you all, seems a\n  stirring up and drawing tight of the interests and connecting\n  bonds of our scattered race. Oh, I do dearly\n  love you in my inmost heart,--though some of my letters\n  may seem as if I had lost some home affections to root\n  amongst strangers; but surely the new scenes of life\n  which I have witnessed, since that cold frosty morning\n  when I left you, have tended to make me value more\n  than ever that precious treasure of household love. Oh,\n  what were life without it? a wilderness indeed! and\n  well is it worth all the pangs which it may cost us in\n  this cold world. It is cheering to think of them as\n  caused by contact of something warm within, as with\n  the cold without; and far better it is to bear, than to be\n  cooled down to the temperature of earth's raw air. Thou\n  wilt wonder perhaps at my writing in this way; but with\n  me, though I may seem cold and dull in the common\n  way, there comes a day, every now and then, when I find\n\n    \"New depths of love, in measure unsuspected,\n    Ties closer than I knew were round my heart.\"--\n\n  And though they are saddened by many a regret for\n  neglects and omissions and commissions toward you all,\n  and that old petrifying selfishness which only grace can\n  cure, I would not be without such days, and almost\n  thank \"each wrench which has detected how thoroughly\n  and deeply dear you are.\" I can hardly tell you what\n  the thought of leaving N. and F. is to me, but this dark\n  day begins to shadow itself.\n\n  * * * Poor dear old A.G.! What a change from\n  her dark corner to everlasting day!--but not less from a\n  kingly palace, if we knew the truth; and her shadowy\n  abode had more light than many a palace, if we knew\n  the truth of that too.\n\nShe remarks in her Journal, after her return home:--\n\n  I stayed at Ipswich three weeks after the birth\n  of my precious little niece, Frances Elizabeth; rejoicing\n  in her daily growth, and calm trustful fearlessness--a\n  lesson which nothing ever preached to\n  me so loudly before. Respecting my spiritual state\n  at Ipswich, I would say that great blessings, and I\n  would fear great ingratitude, must be acknowledged.\n  Some evening hours in my chamber were exceeding\n  sweet, and some meetings solemn indeed. * * *\n  I returned in rich and flowing peace. Many a lesson\n  I had through my four months' absence, but none\n  like that which awaited my return. My father met\n  me at Plymouth; we reached home about eleven\n  o'clock at night, and went at once to the chamber,\n  where four months previously I last heard the voice\n  of my uncle, and, though he still breathed, I was\n  not to hear it again. He had sunk gradually for\n  weeks, and now, though his lips moved a little, a\n  word could not be heard. His face was sunk and\n  pallid, his breathing uneasy, and his eyes were closed.\n  After a short time we left, and at four o'clock in the\n  morning, without a struggle, his spirit passed quietly\n  away to his \"eternal inheritance.\" \"They that turn\n  many to righteousness shall shine as the stars for\n  ever and ever.\" I never, I believe, shall forget how\n  forcibly came to my mind, as I sat beside his lifeless\n  form, the words, \"To this end Christ both died, and\n  rose, and revived, that He might be Lord both of\n  the dead and the living,\" and my thoughts turned\n  on many a solemn and blessed trust implied in them.\n\nHer uncle, Samuel Rundell, died on the 4th of 5th Month, 1848, at the\nage of eighty-five. In the _Annual Monitor_ for the following year is\na short Memoir of his life.\n\nIt had been for some years a frequent occupation with Eliza, together\nwith her sisters and cousins, to spend the long winter evenings with\nher aged uncle and aunt, and after the decease of the former these\nattentions were more constantly needed by the survivor. It was\nstriking to notice Eliza's cheerful alacrity to relinquish, when her\nturn came round, her favorite pursuits, often for some weeks together,\nin order to comfort and enliven the declining days of this aged\nrelative.\n\n  _7th Mo. --th_. My mental condition a quiet but\n  not painless one. I had been much favored, though\n  in pain and trouble, amidst which I had a kind note\n  from J.T., who says, \"When at Liskeard, and since,\n  I have believed that it might be said unto thee, 'The\n  Master is come, and calleth for thee;' and I wish, if\n  thou hast been made sensible of this, it may be thy\n  very earnest concern to sit at His feet in great humility\n  of mind, that thou mayst hear from season to\n  season the gracious words that may proceed as out\n  of His mouth. It may be that in the ordering of\n  His gracious designs, He may see fit, as He has done\n  with many others, to allure thee and bring thee into\n  the wilderness; but I have no doubt that He will\n  also give thee vineyards from thence, and thou wilt\n  be made sensible that indeed it is His own right\n  arm that has and will bring salvation unto thee\"\n  Though at present incapable of feeling as I have\n  done, yet, being desirous of finishing up my Journal,\n  I must acknowledge that great and gracious have\n  been the dealings of my heavenly Father with me,\n  causing me to rejoice in Him who has done for me\n  \"exceeding abundantly above all that I could ask\n  or think,\" chiefly in the way, which I have found a\n  very blessed way, of enabling me to give up my own\n  will to His, and to be subject in things little and\n  great to Himself. As far as I have known the yoke\n  of Christ, it is indeed a sweet and easy yoke; and\n  the chiefest sorrow which I have found during my\n  endeavor to bear it has been from my aptness to\n  throw it off. The worst of snares are the most\n  secret.\n\n  We are now quietly and unexcitedly at home; and\n  I wish industriously to do my little duties, and follow\n  my little callings: of these the Workhouse women supply\n  one of the most satisfactory to myself. They are a\n  sad sight; but I feel that my small labors with them\n  are not rejected, but desired, and I hope to a few at\n  least they may be of some use. On First-days I now\n  first read a short tract, then read in the Testament\n  two or three chapters, verse by verse, with the women,\n  then hear them say hymns,--which three or four learn\n  gladly: this fills the hour. And once in a week I like\n  to go in and try to teach those who cannot read. I\n  have much felt, lately, that it is vain to try as a mere\n  satisfaction to conscience to do these things, because\n  we _ought_: it must be from a better motive--true\n  keeping of the \"first and great commandment,\" and\n  the second, which \"is like unto it.\" No busy doings\n  at home or abroad will ever do instead.\n\n  _8th Mo. 5th. 7th-Day_. I must in thankfulness record\n  free and great mercies this week. First-day was\n  a happy one. In the morning rain and a cough kept\n  me at home. I read the crucifixion and resurrection\n  in different Evangelists, and cannot tell how meltingly\n  sweet it was. Surely I did love Jesus then because\n  He had first loved me. Sundry sweet refreshing\n  brooks have flowed by my wayside, and some dry lonely\n  paths I have trodden, (since,) but think He who is\n  alone the foundation and corner-stone, immovable\n  and undeceiving, has become more precious. Oh, how\n  shall I be enough careful to trust him alone? I have\n  got on a little with Gibbon's Rise and Fall, and have\n  begun Neander on the Emperors, finished one volume\n  of Goethe with L., and begun Milton with M., and\n  English history with R.\n\n  _9th Mo. 2d_. The week tolerably satisfactory; but\n  how truly may we say, \"A day in thy courts is better\n  than a thousand\"! This evening's unexpected, unsought,\n  unasked, free, gratuitous mercy has made the\n  last two hours worth more than some whole days of\n  this week. Oh, how kind is He who knows how to\n  win back and attract to Himself by imparting ineffable\n  desires after what is good, even to a heart that has\n  grown dry and dead and worldly! I have thought\n  that some measure of our growth in grace may be found\n  in the degree in which our carnal natural reluctance\n  to receive Christ back into our vessel, come how He\n  may, is diminished. How full of significance is the\n  inquiry, \"To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?\"\n  Blessed revelation; and well is it for those who feel\n  ready to adopt the prayer, \"Awake, awake, O arm of\n  the Lord,\" if they know the way of its coming. Oh,\n  how does its acceptance presuppose an experience of\n  something of the kind, so awfully set forth as from\n  Omnipotence Himself!--\"I looked, and there was no\n  man, therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto\n  me.\" Yes, it is when He sees that we have no human\n  expectance or confidence left, and are, as it were,\n  at our wits' end; it is then that His own arm brings\n  salvation, that He says, \"Stand still, and see the salvation\n  of God; for the Lord shall fight for you, and ye\n  shall hold your peace.\" Oh, how great the condescension\n  which has given me a glimpse of \"so great\n  salvation\"! But I have remarked that it never has\n  been in answer to any questionings or searchings of\n  my own. Some great perplexities I have had lately,\n  being so unable to satisfy myself how far religion or\n  its duties should be the act of ourselves--so confused\n  about prayer, etc. Difficulties, hardly capable to be put\n  into words, put me in real distress; but the good seems\n  to be _revealed_, if I may use such a word, to another\n  part of me; or, as I. Pennington would say, \"to\n  _another eye_ and _ear_ than those which are so curious\n  to learn.\" The Lord grant that I may at last become\n  an obedient and truly teachable child; for that faculty,\n  whatsoever it be, that asks vociferously, seems not to\n  be the one which, as I.P. says, \"_graspingly receives,\"_\n  but is rather a hinderance to its reception.\n\n  _10th Mo. 14th_. Outwardly, the chief variety in my\n  experience has been an interesting visit with my\n  mother at Kingsbridge and Totness. A solitary walk\n  in the garden at Totness, on First-day afternoon, I\n  think I can never forget. No sunshine--though not\n  mere darkness--was upon me during nearly all the\n  week: yet I wondered to find that at Kingsbridge,\n  though visiting was a constant self-denial, in withdrawing\n  me from the earnest search in which I was\n  engaged, I got on more easily than common, and felt\n  much more love than usual to my friends. The first\n  gleam of sunshine did not come through any man's\n  help, but in my lone matin the day after our return.\n  I tried to cast my care on God, and on Seventh-day\n  morning was favored with a blessed evidence that He\n  did care for me. Since then it has not been repeated;\n  but earnest have been my cries in secret to my heavenly\n  Father, whose mercies indeed are great; and\n  my lonely hours have been employed mostly in seeking\n  Him, having little taste for reading of any general\n  kind. One morning in particular, at Trevelmond, in\n  the plantation, waiting for my father, was my heart\n  poured out to God. Calmness has often succeeded;\n  and then I dread the coming of indifference and coolness.\n  Oh, this is surely the worst of states! I had\n  rather endure almost any amount of anguish.\n\n  Yesterday, the probability that my course on earth\n  may be short occurred forcibly. I recurred to the\n  words quoted by J.T., \"The sting of death is sin,\"\n  with encouragement to hope for \"the victory.\" However,\n  the future is not my care. May I be the care\n  of Him whose care the future is, and then----\n\n  _10th Mo. 22d_. At home with a cold, and may\n  just record my poor spirit's lowness and poverty\n  amid, as I trust, its honest desires to become wholly\n  the Lord's. \"Ye ask, and have not, because ye ask\n  amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts,\" is\n  surely true of spiritual food. We should desire it\n  that we \"may grow thereby,\" not from mere spiritual\n  voluptuousness; and, oh, in my own desires for the\n  will of God to be done, how often have I not known\n  what spirit I was of! How often have I been tenaciously\n  standing on the very ground that I was asking\n  to have broken up and destroyed! A short lone\n  meeting in the parlor, blest chiefly with humiliation,\n  and this I would regard as a blessing.\n\n  Letter to ----.\n\n  I am tempted to spend a few lonely minutes in thanking\n  thee for thy truly kind salutation, advice, and encouragement;\n  though I fear to say much in reply. I hope\n  and trust thou art not altogether mistaken in me: in one\n  respect I know thou art not,--that I have seen of the\n  mercy and love of a long-suffering Saviour, whom I do\n  at times desire to love and serve with all my heart; and\n  not the least of His blessings I esteem it that any of His\n  children should care for me for His sake. I dread depending\n  on any, even of these, which, as well as the fear\n  of man, I have found does bring a snare; and as far as\n  experience goes, I seem to have tasted more of the \"tree\n  of the knowledge of good and evil\" than of the \"tree\n  of life;\" which, however, I would fain hope, \"yielding\n  its fruit every month,\" has some for the wintry season\n  of darkness and of frost. Yes, my dear friend, thou hast\n  rightly judged in this also, that the winter is sometimes\n  very cold, and the night very dark. May thy desires\n  for me be accomplished, that these may indeed work for\n  my good; much as the utter absence of feeling would\n  sometimes tempt me to think it the result of that worst\n  of all sentences, \"Let her alone;\" to which the added\n  memories of many a \"mercy cast away\" are very ready\n  to contribute. Am I in this repining? I hope not; for\n  every day brings fresh cause to acknowledge that because\n  my enemies, though lively and strong, \"do not\n  quite triumph over me,\" therefore I may still trust that\n  He favoreth me. It is seldom that I write or speak in this\n  way of myself. May we learn more and more of the\n  utter insufficiency of any earthly thing, or of any power\n  of our own to do what is essential for our salvation, and\n  then, when we hang solely and entirely on the Lord\n  Jesus, we shall be safe. Of this I feel no doubt or fear:--the\n  fear is of having confidence in any thing besides, of\n  spiritual pride, of self-sufficiency. Yes, I find self\n  has many lives, and the very sorrows and humiliations\n  of one day, if we do not beware, may become the idols\n  of the next. \"We have eaten and drunk in thy presence:\"\n  can such a language ever be used in vain-glory,\n  while we remember \"the wormwood and the gall,\" which\n  we now see to have been administered in fulfilment of\n  His own words, \"Ye shall indeed drink of my cup\"?\n  Indeed, it seems to me that nothing is too high, too good,\n  or too pure for Satan to make use of, if he can but get\n  us and it into his hands. May the Lord be pleased to\n  rebuke this devourer for our sakes, and give at length to\n  the often-desponding heart to know that Himself hath\n  promised, \"when the wicked are cut off, thou shalt see\n  it,\" and that the \"God of peace shall bruise Satan under\n  our feet.\"\n\n  _12th Mo. 4th_ To the same.\n\n  * * * I am sorry for thy physical state, yet doubtless\n  it is but the inverted image of a counterbalancing\n  mental good, which is, or is about to be, perhaps to signify\n  that\n\n    \"God doth not need\n    Either man's works or His own gifts; who best\n    Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best;\n    They also serve who only stand and wait.\"\n\n  It is surely not for the value of the service itself, that\n  He calls for it so long and so repeatedly, till at last the\n  iron sinew gives way: no, but for the sake of bending\n  the iron sinew itself, and when it _is_ bent in one direction,\n  I conclude He does not mean to stiffen it there, but\n  would have it bend perhaps back to the very same position\n  as at first it was so hard to bend it _from_, with this\n  one wide difference, that in the first case it was so in its\n  own will, but now in His will. Perhaps thou thinkest I\n  am darkening counsel: I do not wish to do so, but write\n  just how things have happened to me in my small way.\n  Ought we not to be willing to be bent or unbent any\n  way? and if a bow is to \"abide in strength,\" it must be\n  unbent when it is not wanted. But as we have all different\n  places to fill, and different dispositions and snares,\n  and besetments, we must not measure ourselves among\n  ourselves.\n\n  It is indeed very good, as thou sayest, to be sometimes\n  alone, and at times I trust I have found it so; but it has\n  its dangers also, especially to me, who am perhaps more\n  apt to make self of too much importance than to shrink\n  from \"due responsibility and authority.\" Indeed, this\n  latter word belongs not to me at all, and if I may but\n  keep life in me, (or have it kept,) well indeed will it be.\n  Oh, till we have grace enough willingly to do the smallest\n  matters, thankfully to \"sit in the lowest room,\" meekly\n  and patiently to be put out of our own way, and see our\n  plans and intentions frustrated, and find ourselves of\n  small account or value in the Church or in the world,\n  yes, till we have grace enough to forget self altogether,\n  \"content to fill a little space, so thou art glorified,\" I\n  know not where is our claim to be followers of Him\n  \"who made Himself of no reputation.\" I am very far\n  from this. Couldst thou have seen how much hold the\n  many small duties of my lonely week have taken on my\n  mind, how little time I have found for the purpose for\n  which we both value solitude, and how much my \"lightly\n  stirred\" spirit has been hurried about from one object to\n  another, I fear thou wouldst scarcely think even this\n  note other than presumptuous. Oh, how should I be rebuked\n  by the thought,\n\n    \"One thing is needful, and but one:\n    Why do thy thoughts on many run?\"\n\n  _12th Mo. 30th_. To-day ends the week, and to-morrow\n  the year. Very unfit am I to speak of it as I\n  would. I have felt very happy on some occasions,\n  yet I have feared lest what should be on a good\n  foundation is yet but built of \"hay and stubble.\"\n  If so, who can tell the fierceness of the fire that\n  burns between me and my wished-for rest? There\n  is no way to true safety but through it; and, oh, to\n  part with all combustibles is very hard; but why\n  waste a thought on the hardness, could it but be\n  speedily and simply done? My old difficulty--what\n  is duty when the sensible help of grace is out of\n  sight--renews its strength. Doubtless to wait for it,\n  and perhaps ask for it also; but how? Oh that I\n  had crossed the great gulf from myself to my\n  Saviour! Oh that I were in His hands and out of\n  my own!\n\n  _2d Mo. 3d_, 1849. I have been sorely tried with\n  apparent desertion and darkness; \"yet not deserted\"\n  is my still struggling faith; and some consoling\n  thoughts have visited me of days still I trust in\n  store, when, \"as one whom his mother comforteth,\"\n  the Lord will comfort me. Dear J.T.'s counsel has\n  seldom been absent from my thoughts; but, manifold\n  as have been my heavenly Father's instrumental\n  mercies, I never was more impressed with the absolute\n  need of His immediate preserving care.\n\n  \"Can I trust a fellow-being?\n    Can I trust an angel's care?\n  O thou merciful All-Seeing,\n    Beam around my spirit there.\"\n\n  And not less _here_, in this shady vale of life, than in\n  the deep of death. Oh, how desirable, how infinitely\n  sweet, to sleep in His arms, on His bosom! An early\n  translation, if it were His will, would indeed be a\n  blessed portion; but I do not expect such indulgence,\n  and desire not to wish it. It is enough if I may\n  know that \"to live is Christ,\" and that to die will\n  at length be \"great gain.\"\n\n  _2d Mo. 13th_. Seldom does any appeal to my heavenly\n  Father seem more fitting than this, \"Thou\n  knowest my foolishness;\" and, oh, may His arm of\n  mercy and compassion be one day revealed.\n\n  _3d Mo.--th_. Letter to ----.\n\n  * * * Oh, how desirable it is to be willing to be\n  made of much or of little use!\n\n  \"And careful less to serve thee much,\n  Than to please thee perfectly:\"\n\n  and, very far back as I feel in the race, and insensible of\n  advance, I think we may be encouraged to believe that\n  we make some approaches to the \"mark for the prize,\"\n  if we have a clearer and more desirous view of the yet\n  far-distant goal. \"Thine eyes shall see the King in his\n  beauty, they shall behold the land that is very far off,\"\n  must have been addressed to one still \"very far\" from\n  the promised land. Thus I scribble to thee the musings\n  with which, in my now shady allotment, I try to encourage\n  myself to hope; and which perhaps are as incorrect\n  as the lament which the beautiful spring will sometimes\n  prompt, \"With the year seasons return, but not to me.\"\n  It would, however, be most ungrateful to complain. To\n  live at all is a _great_ favor--an undeserved and unspeakable\n  favor; and though it be a life of pain and weariness,\n  and even grief, may it never become a life of\n  thankless ingratitude! We who have tried our heavenly\n  Father's patience so long, dare we complain of waiting\n  for Him?\n\n  _4th Mo. 13th_. Letter to M.B.\n\n  * * * However high be the capacity of the mind,\n  it is humiliating to find what small things can distract\n  it, if its anchor-hold be not truly what and where it\n  ought to be; and who does not find the need of this\n  being often renewed and made fast? The little experience\n  I have had, that even a life comparatively free\n  from trial, except as regards its highest significance, \"is\n  but vanity,\" and the belief that it is so infinitely surpassed\n  by another, has much modified to me the feeling\n  of witnessing (might I venture to say of _anticipating?)_\n  the transition for others or for myself. I nevertheless\n  cannot say much from experience; for it has not yet\n  been my lot to lose one of my own intimate or nearly\n  attached friends, except where the course of time had\n  made it a natural and inevitable thing; and I know\n  there must be depths of sorrow in such events only\n  fathomed by descending to them.\n\n  _4th Mo.--th_. Letter to M.B.\n\n  What a privilege it is to be permitted to\n  expect and look for a better guidance than our own\n  judgment or inclination, even in the small things of our\n  small lives; small though they are, compared with the\n  great events which are ruled by our heavenly Father's\n  will, how much is involved in them as far as _we_ are concerned!\n  and we need not measure the controlling care\n  of Providence by the abstract greatness or littleness of\n  any event. Compared with His infinity, the fate of an\n  empire would be not more worthy of His care than the\n  least event of our lives; but it is _love_--the same wonderful\n  love that can comfort and bless the dying-pillow of\n  a little one, in which we want more practical faith for\n  our safe conduct through this uncertain life. Did we _live_\n  in such a faith, it would be sweet and easy to _die_ in it.\n\n  _4th Mo. 30th. Bristol_. Yesterday was a memorable\n  day to me; the evening meeting found me very\n  sad and burdened; when I thought I was made sensible\n  of something like an offer from One who is infinite\n  in power and love, to take this burden away,\n  to bear it Himself, and to do in me His own will.\n  There seemed something like a covenant set before\n  me, that all this should be done for me on condition\n  of my acquiescence with and subjection to that\n  supreme will, that I should refuse neither to suffer\n  His own work within me nor to do His manifested\n  will. It may be that I stamp too highly what was\n  most gently and calmly spread before my heart. It\n  may be that the relief, the peaceful calm, which\n  followed my endeavor to unite with this precious proposal,\n  was a mistaken thing; but I believe not.\n  Strikingly in unison with all this was the evangelical\n  and practical sermon of S. Treffry which followed,\n  and my feelings in returning home and sitting down\n  alone for a few minutes to seek a confirmation, were\n  like a seal to all that I had heard in meeting. This\n  morning I am far from rich or lively, but seem\n  bound neither to doubt nor to complain; but only\n  and constantly to endeavor to submit every thought\n  of my heart to my dear Saviour's will; and thus,\n  after many a tossing, I have been enabled to say,\n\n    \"I rest my soul on Jesus,--\n    This weary soul of mine.\"\n\n  There may I ever be, O Lord.\n\n  _5th Mo. 13th. First-day evening_. Oh that here\n  I might once more set up my Ebenezer, and say,\n  \"Hitherto Thou hast helped me, O Lord.\" \"My\n  Father's arms, and not my own, were those that held\n  me fast.\" Ah! my own hold in the last fortnight\n  has often relaxed, though many a heart-tendering\n  evidence have I had that \"He is faithful that hath\n  promised.\" Yesterday morning when I awoke, dead\n  as ever in myself, some sweet whisper of goodness at\n  hand saluted my ear, and, oh, it was but a sound of\n  the abundance of heavenly rain that soon made my\n  heart overflow.\n\n  _8th Mo. 4th_. Letter to ----\n\n  * * * At our Monthly Meeting, only a few words\n  from ----, advising young ones to be patient and submissive.\n  And surely we may well be thankful to learn\n  so wholesome a lesson, seeing how many sorrows we\n  have often brought upon ourselves by the contrary disposition,\n  and how faithful is the promise that \"the\n  meek He will guide in judgment and teach His way.\"\n  How contemptible, as well as sinful, that rebellious spirit\n  sometimes appears (when we honestly weigh it) that\n  wants to make in its own special favor exceptions to\n  the wise management of our kind and gracious heavenly\n  Father! Oh, why should we prolong our woes by such\n  perversity, when we feel at times as if it would be our\n  highest joy to be what He would have us to be, and our\n  very meat and drink to do His will?\n\n  _8th Mo. 13th_. This evening we had a precious\n  meeting indeed. A solemn silence, in which much\n  had been felt, was followed by a fervent prayer from\n  ----. Truly my heart's response was, \"Let thine\n  own work praise thee.\" Do I write too much if I\n  record the blessing of ability to crave for myself this\n  evening an increased knowledge of and obedience to\n  the Shepherd's voice, and that no disguise of Satan\n  may ever impose on me for this?\n\n  _9th Mo. 7th_. Letter to M.B.\n\n  * * * I often wonder at the attractions so many\n  find in merely following the multitude in their recreations.\n  * * * Do we not sometimes find, if our\n  honest wish is to refresh ourselves for duty, and not to\n  escape from it, that even our rest and recreation is\n  owned by a blessing to which one would not for all\n  the world be strangers? How kind was He who had\n  welcomed back his faithful twelve from their labors for\n  others, when He said, \"Come ye _yourselves_ apart into a\n  desert place, and rest a while; for there were many coming\n  and going, and they had no leisure so much as to\n  eat.\" But even then they were to learn no selfish indolence,\n  and rest was quickly laid aside to share their\n  morsels with thousands. If we were always His companions,\n  did \"all our hopes of happiness stay calmly\n  at His side,\" how would our sitting down to rest and\n  rising up to toil be alike blessed! And then, when the\n  scene is changed, and sorrow and care become our portion,\n  the same who was our joy in prosperity will be\n  our refuge in adversity; and \"because thou hast made\n  the Lord thy habitation, there shall no evil befall thee.\"\n\n  I write my wishes for us both; may it be thus with\n  thee and me, and when it is well with thee, think of\n  one who longs sometimes to know these things for herself.\n  But how well it is that our safety is in other\n  hands than ours! how often, had it depended even on\n  our continued desire for that which is good, had all been\n  over with us!\n\n  \"Thy parents' arms, and not thy own,\n  Were those that held thee fast.\"\n\n  _11th Mo. 4th_. \"Hunted with thoughts,\" as J.\n  Crook so truly describes it, \"up and down like a\n  partridge on the mountains,\" often feeling in meeting\n  as if nothing could be compared with the joy\n  of _resting_ in Jesus, a rest to which I am still much\n  a stranger; no more able to command the mob of\n  unquiet thoughts than to hush the winds. At other\n  times, as this evening in my chamber, a sort of\n  strained anguish of soul, wherein my desire has been\n  that my eyes might he ever toward the Lord, that\n  He, in His own time, may pluck my feet out of the\n  net. The mental pain I have passed through makes\n  _some_ escape seem most desirable. If to lay down\n  the body were all I needed to escape, and I were fit\n  for it, how willingly would I accept such an invitation!\n  But I dare not ask it, nor any other thing,\n  but only that He who alone can, may make me in\n  His own time what He would have me to be; and\n  this evening I have been thinking that the painful\n  feelings I suffered might be the means appointed for\n  freeing me from the bondage of the worldly mind,\n  and from those tormenting, hurrying thoughts. Oh,\n  be it so; whether by means utterly incomprehensible\n  to me, or not, be the needful work done. I trust the\n  comprehension is not needed; and that the simplicity\n  and submission which _are_ needed may be granted\n  me; and that still [if] my enemies be expelled, as I\n  hope they will be by \"His own arm,\" (as dear J.T.\n  said,) their presence will not be laid to my charge.\n  Alas, that I am so often guilty of dallying with\n  them! What wonder that the wilderness is so long\n  and tortuous, when I reckon the molten calves, the\n  murmurings, the fleshly desires?\n\n  _1st Mo. 17th_, 1850. Letter to M.B.\n\n  * * * Canst thou feel any sympathy or compassion\n  for one who pleads guilty to the folly of a flurried\n  mind, \"wasting its strength in strenuous idleness,\" and\n  that, too, with open eyes, seeing its own weakness and\n  despising it? One of the worst things such a folly includes\n  is that it allows no leisure to the mind; whereas,\n  I believe well-ordered minds, however much care may\n  be placed upon them, can throw this aside, when not\n  necessarily engaged, and repose in the true dignity of\n  self-command. This is, I believe, some people's natural\n  gift; but it surely ought, by supernatural means, to be\n  within every one's reach if only the government were\n  on the shoulders of the \"Prince of Peace.\" Oh, how\n  much that means! What \"delectable mountains!\"\n  What \"green pastures!\" What \"still waters!\" What\n  \"gardens enclosed!\" What \"south lands,\" and \"springs\n  of water,\" are pictured in that _beau-ideal_ \"on earth as\n  it is in heaven\"! Well my second page has spoken of a\n  land very far off from the haunted region described in\n  the first; but to \"turn over a new leaf\" is easier in a\n  letter than in a life. Thy idea of the next ten years\n  altering us less than the last will perhaps prove true;\n  but, oh, the painful doubts that force themselves on me,\n  whether the present channel is such that we can peacefully\n  anticipate it only as deepening, and not as having\n  an utter change of direction! How much harder to live\n  in the world and not be of it than to forsake it altogether!\n  So lazy self says; and, in turning from present duty,\n  tries to justify itself by the excuse that it would willingly\n  leave this world for another.\n\n  _2d Mo. 4th. First-day evening_. Little as I have\n  felt inclined to put pen to paper of late, I thought\n  this evening that some small memento might be left,\n  as it were, at this point of the valley, just to say,\n  Here were the footsteps of a weary halting pilgrim at\n  such a time--one that brought no store of food or\n  raiment, no supply of wisdom or subtlety, no provision\n  for the way, nothing but wounds and weaknesses,\n  household images, secret sins; but by favor\n  of unspeakable long-suffering, continuing unto this\n  day--and, as she would fain hope, not deserted. A.\n  troop of thoughts doth grievously overcome her, and\n  faint is her hope that she shall overcome at the last;\n  yet does she desire to set up the Ebenezer, if not of\n  rejoicing, which as yet cannot be, yet of humble hope,\n  in a cloudy and dark day, that He who has said,\n  \"Light and gladness are sown for the upright in:\n  heart,\" will yet verify His promise in the day-spring\n  of the light of His countenance, if any measure of\n  integrity remain within. Oh, that He may keep, as\n  the apple of His eye, that which a troop of robbers\n  are watching to spoil, and may provide it with a\n  hiding-place in His pavilion of love! And for one\n  thing is my earnest wish directed to Him, that, unable\n  as I am to direct my own steps aright, He would\n  provide a leader for me, and a willing heart within\n  me, and grant me _enough_ of His guidance to keep\n  me in the way, and enough of a willingness to walk\n  therein and not stumble.\n\n  _3d Mo. 7th_, Letter to M.B.\n\n  * * * I know well that impatience will sometimes\n  put on the pretence of something much better, and that\n  we shall never run to good purpose unless we \"run with\n  patience.\" Unhappily, a slow gradual progress is sadly\n  opposed to my inconstant nature, and after one of the\n  many interruptions it meets with, how prone am I to\n  wish for some flying leap to make up for the past! It\n  seems so hard a thing to get transformed, and therefore--strange\n  inconsistency indeed--one would be translated.\n  But truly it might be said, \"Ye know not what ye ask.\"\n  * * * I have been interested with reading the early\n  part of \"No Cross, no Crown,\" and especially the chapter\n  on lawful self, where the receiving back again, as\n  Abraham did Isaac, the lawful pleasures which had been\n  resigned to the Divine will, is so nicely spoken of; and I\n  do believe it explains the cause of half the gloom of\n  would-be Christians. They do not quite refuse, nor\n  quite resign their hearts, and so they are kept, not only\n  without true peace, but without the enjoyment of those\n  earthly goods which have been called for, not to deprive\n  their owners of them, but to be restored in _this life_ \"an\n  hundredfold.\" How is it to be wished that these half\n  measures were abandoned, and that if we have put our\n  hand to the plough, we might not look back, as we so\n  often have done, to the unfitting ourselves for that kingdom\n  which is not only righteousness, but peace and joy.\n  \"That your joy may be full,\" is plainly the purpose of\n  our Saviour towards His children; and yet how many,\n  as Macaulay says, \"have just enough religion to make\n  them unhappy when they do wrong, and yet not enough\n  to induce them to do right.\"\n\n  _5th Mo. 28th_. It is an unspeakable blessing to be\n  permitted and enabled to pray. How can I be sufficiently\n  thankful that it has been mine? Last night\n  my heart was fervently engaged towards my God;\n  and this evening, though the sense of my utter destitution\n  and weakness was very painful, was it not a\n  blessing if it led me to Him? I have thought of the\n  test, \"In quietness and confidence shall be your\n  strength.\" There is danger in fleshly confidence;\n  yet there is no strength, but a new danger in fleshly\n  fear. Oh, I would be stripped of _all_ fleshly dispositions\n  of whatever kind, or however specious: they\n  war against the soul; but because mine enemy has\n  not quite triumphed over me, may I not believe that\n  _He_ favoreth me in whose favor is life, and whose is\n  a faithful love? Oh for its perfect dominion in me!\n  His will is my sanctification, my perfection. It is\n  His \"good pleasure to give me the kingdom\"--even\n  to me. Amazing grace! What in me but my greatest\n  foe could hinder the full adoption of the prayer,\n  \"Thy will be done\"?\n\n  _6th Mo. 3d_. The little measure of faith I have is\n  not worn out, but rather purified and strengthened;\n  but, oh, when I think of the reality, the momentous\n  import, of the change of nature from sin to holiness,\n  which has to be effected, what a baptism may I not\n  have yet to be baptized with, and what perils to pass\n  through! Oh, if it might please my heavenly Father\n  to shorten and hasten the process, and deliver me\n  from earth and its dangers into a changeless state of\n  safety and peace in His dear presence! But I do\n  believe He would rather be glorified by living Christians\n  than by only dying penitents. A watchful,\n  holy life is His delight. Oh that this high calling\n  may not be slighted or cast away! The near approach\n  of my birthday has led me to look back over\n  the brief notes of twelve months. The interesting\n  details we have received of the Yearly Meeting\n  remind me of what I felt at the conclusion of the\n  last. The Lord has again been with the Church's\n  gathering, faithful as of old, and, where seats were\n  vacant, hath filled His people with joy.\n\n  _6th Mo. 5th_. I wish simply to record how last\n  night, when in bed, I was favored with a calm, watchful\n  frame, and lay enjoying the mental repose till\n  long after my usual hour of sleep. This morning at\n  breakfast-time it was renewed, with a sweet sense of\n  the willingness of our heavenly Father to enable His\n  children to serve Him. He made them for that end:\n  it is His will that they should do so. It cannot be\n  that He will refuse them the indispensable assistance.\n  How sweet was this feeling! but hurry, and too much\n  care about little things, sadly dissipated me in the\n  day. This evening I have had a gracious gift of\n  some of those _Sabbath_ feelings again, after reading\n  the seventeenth chapter of Jeremiah. The verses\n  referring to the Sabbath-day, and bearing no burden\n  therein, were solemnly instructive. The utter inability\n  of my natural heart to attain or retain such a\n  state shows me the necessity of all being done for\n  me through faith in Divine power, \"His name,\n  through faith in His name.\" Oh for watchfulness\n  unto prayer continually, and that the cumber of\n  earth may be cast away! \"Take heed that your\n  flight be not in the winter,\" has been my watchword,\n  though how imperfectly obeyed! and if, through\n  infinite mercy, the season be changing, if He who\n  has faithfully kept me from utter death there-through\n  is beginning to give me more of rest, oh,\n  let me never forget the solemn addition, \"neither on\n  the Sabbath day.\"\n\n  _6th Mo. 13th_. * * * I wish now to record\n  the very solemn and encouraging visit of James\n  Jones from America to our meeting this day. How\n  wondrously did he speak of trials and afflictions, and\n  the necessity of entire resignation through all!\n  Though oceans of discouragement and mountains of\n  difficulty loom up before thee, thou wilt be brought\n  through the depths dry-shod, and be enabled to\n  adopt the language, \"What ailed thee, O thou sea,\n  that thou fleddest, and ye mountains, that ye skipped\n  like rams?\" Thou wilt be \"led through green pastures,\n  and beside still waters,\" speaking of the call\n  to service in the Church, which he believed was to\n  some in an especial manner in the early stages of\n  life. I heard all; but such was my dejection that I\n  seemed to _receive_ little, though I could not but feel\n  the power. I seemed incapable of taking either\n  hope or instruction to myself. J.J. left us after\n  dinner, and, on taking leave, took my hand in a very\n  solemn manner, and, after a few minutes silence,\n  said, tenderly, but authoritatively, \"If the mantle\n  falls on thee, wear;\" words which will long live\n  in my heart. Would that the power which sent\n  them may fulfil them! None other can.\n\n  _7th Mo. 1st_. Last week at Plymouth Quarterly\n  Meeting. An interesting time. I trust that which\n  silenced and solemnized my spirit was something\n  better than myself. What could I do but endeavor\n  to lie down in passiveness under it, and crave that\n  nothing might interfere to mar the work of the\n  Lord? Much was said to encourage the hope that\n  those who truly love the Lord will at length be\n  brought into more peace and liberty in Him; that\n  He will qualify them to fill just that place He designs\n  for them in His house. Oh, how I long to\n  become that, and that only, which pleases Him, that\n  neither height nor depth might separate me from\n  His love! And when I think of the deceitfulness of\n  my heart, the danger of being lifted up seems so\n  appalling that the former deliverance seems yet\n  greater than the latter.\n\n  _7th Mo. 23d_. I have been glad to be released\n  from some of my charges and cares, as well as to\n  share the loving interests of home with all my dear\n  sisters, and trust it is not all laziness which makes\n  me shrink from engaging in new though useful\n  objects. I seem to have much need of quiet, and\n  have enjoyed many hours with dear F.'s precious\n  children. Often, as now, I am very destitute, and\n  sometimes very sad; but sometimes, though rarely,\n  \"all is peace.\" Long shall I remember a moonlight\n  half-hour, on Sixth-day, in the fields and garden,\n  where I sat down to enjoy the cool of the day, and\n  for a time all sorrow was far away, and the very\n  \"Prince of Peace\" did seem to reign. Then did I\n  feel I had not followed \"a cunningly-devised fable,\"\n  and the precious words did comfort me, \"If children,\n  then heirs.\" But, oh, how otherwise I often am!\n  how utterly destitute! This day we have had a\n  sweet little visit from ----. His encouragement to\n  the tribulated children saluted my best life, overborne\n  as it felt with the burden of unregenerate\n  nature--ready to say, \"Who shall deliver me from\n  the body of this death?\" and, amid many a giving\n  way to the worryings of earthly thoughts, struggling\n  to say, \"Lord, I believe: help thou mine unbelief.\"\n  Often have I remembered dear Sarah Tuckett's\n  encouraging words, \"But through all, and underneath\n  all, will be the everlasting Arms.\" Amen, and\n  amen.\n\n  _8th Mo. 4th._ Still, still amen, says my poor weak\n  spirit, in the remembrance of \"goodness tried so\n  long,\" of the faithful love of my heavenly Father,\n  which melted my spirit on the morning of Fifth-day\n  week, with the blessed hope that I had not followed\n  \"a cunningly-devised fable\" in seeking a nearer\n  union with my Saviour. I little thought what was\n  awaiting me that day--a very important proposal\n  from ----, put into my hands by my father. After\n  glancing at the contents, I laid it aside, to seek for\n  a little calmness before reading it, and needed all\n  that morning's manna to strengthen my conviction,\n  \"Thou art my Father.\" Into _His_ hands I have\n  sought to commit myself and my all, trusting that a\n  covenant with everlasting love will not be marred by\n  aught beneath the skies. Some precious feelings\n  have I since enjoyed; \"And one of them shall not\n  fall to the ground without your Father,\" \"Ye are of\n  more value than many sparrows,\" have been almost\n  daily in my heart. On Sixth-day, after spending\n  the afternoon in the country with a cheerful party,\n  before going to bed, such a blessed sense of my\n  heavenly Father's presence and love was vouchsafed\n  me, that every uneasy thought was swallowed up\n  in-the precious conviction, \"I know in whom I\n  have believed.\" This love did indeed appear the\n  \"pearl of great price,\" and all else as \"dust in the\n  balance.\"\n\n  _8th Mo. 20th_. Last week I was once or twice\n  favored with a precious feeling of Divine love. At\n  one time my earnest sense of need and desire to seek\n  Him to whom I could appeal amid many a recollection\n  of past transgressions, in the words, \"Thou\n  knowest that I love thee,\" was most sweetly followed\n  by the remembrance of the words, \"I remember\n  thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine\n  espousals; when thou wentest after me in the wilderness,\n  in a land that was not sown.\" At another\n  time the precious promise, \"Because thou hast made\n  the Lord thy habitation, there shall no evil befall\n  thee,\" came livingly before me, and then I felt how\n  far short of the terms I had fallen. Oh, how preciously\n  did I feel the worth of an atonement! how\n  my Saviour's pardon did not only remove the burden\n  of guilt, but really reinstate me in the privileges\n  which my backslidings had forfeited, so that the\n  promise of safety was still mine! * * *\n\n  _9th. Mo. 20th_. [Alluding to a visit from some\n  friends.] How precious are these marks of our Father's\n  love! His eye is surely on us, and His hand\n  too, for good. May we never, may _I_ never, do any\n  thing to frustrate His merciful designs! Very various\n  has been my state--so dead and earthly, sometimes,\n  that I may indeed feel that in me \"dwelleth no\n  good thing,\" but now and then so filled with desires\n  after God, that I feel assured that they come from\n  Himself.\n\n  _9th Mo. 26th_. This afternoon, in a lonely walk,\n  my sorrow was stirred, and I hope I prayed for\n  mercy; but it has been hard to keep any hold of\n  the anchor. But what! shall I leave my only Helper\n  because of my evil case--my only Physician because\n  of my desperate disease? I can take comfort in the\n  thought that He knows the worst, and that He has\n  sworn eternal enmity to sin. Then, if He loves me,\n  a sinner, He must be willing and able to save me;\n  and Jesus Christ is the mediator between God and\n  man, that He may be the perfect divider between\n  the sinner and his sin. Oh, what a work is this--which\n  none but Omnipotent grace can do! Oh, be\n  it done for me.\n\n  _11th Mo. 20th_. Letter to M.B. [Alluding to\n  her prospect of marriage.]\n\n  * * * How does such an occasion teach one the\n  weakness of human nature, and our utter dependence\n  on our heavenly Father's preserving care, who \"knows\n  our frame and remembers that we are but dust.\" And\n  if we can in truth say, \"If Thy presence go not with\n  me, carry me not up hence,\" and endeavor to decide in\n  His fear. I hope we may trust, that if it be not of Him,\n  something will be provided for our rescue, and that if\n  it be, He will remember His ancient promise, \"My presence\n  shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.\"\n\n  _1st Mo. 4th_, 1851. So very much has happened\n  since I made my record here, that I scarcely know\n  where to begin. Never did a year end thus with\n  me. I had almost called it the most important of\n  my life; and certainly it is so as regards time, and\n  also a very important one as regards eternity. Now\n  I find my hopes, my interests, my anticipations, my\n  every feeling and affection, have a strong reference to\n  another than myself--one whom I believe the\n  Providence of a merciful, heavenly Father has led\n  me to regard with esteem and love, as a sharer in the\n  future portion of the path, of life.\n\n  Surely it has been a serious thing, much as I have\n  fallen short in the duties of my present favored and\n  sheltered lot, to consent to undertake responsibilities\n  so weighty and untried; and yet I have cause to\n  hope in the mercy of Him who has helped me\n  hitherto, whose covenant is an everlasting covenant,\n  even a covenant of peace, that shall never be removed\n  by any earthly change. Oh that it may never\n  be forsaken by me! Oh that every breach may be\n  forgiven me! Oh that the wisdom that is from\n  above may be my safeguard and director! How has\n  it comforted me, in thinking of leaving such dearly-loved\n  ones behind, to feel that one Friend above\n  all others, whose love has been the most precious\n  joy of my life, will go with me, and be with me\n  forever, and, I trust, bind in that bond of heavenly\n  love, even more and more closely, the spirits He, I\n  trust, has brought together, and make us one another's\n  joy in Him!\n\n  Now that we are at home in the quiet round of\n  duties and employments which have filled so many\n  (outwardly at least) peaceful years, and that perhaps\n  my continuance among them reckons but by months,\n  oh for a truly obedient, affectionate, filial spirit,\n  both to my heavenly Father and the precious guardians\n  of my childhood! I have strongly felt that my\n  highest duty towards him with whom my future lot\n  may be linked, as well as my own highest interest,\n  is to live in the love and fear of God. Many deficiencies\n  I shall doubtless be conscious of! but if I\n  may live, and we may be united in the love and fear\n  of God, all, all will be well. Oh, then, to be watchful\n  and prayerful!\n\n  _1st Mo. 25th_. Letter to M.B.\n\n  * * * There is much, very much, connected with\n  any experience in these matters calculated to teach us\n  that this is not our rest; and often have I thought, when\n  pondering the uncertain future, that but for the small\n  degree in which the hope of things beyond, steadfast\n  and eternal, keeps its hold, I should be ready to sink;\n  and then I think of kind rich promises on which I try\n  to lay hold, \"Thy shoes shall be iron and brass,\" and\n  \"As thy day, so shall thy strength be.\" And so, dear\n  M., I trust it will be with us all, if our trust be but\n  rightly placed; and in this I fear I have sometimes, perhaps\n  often, been mistaken. I am sure it is well to have\n  this sifted and searched into, and none of the pains\n  which must attend such a process are in vain. When\n  we have learned more fully what and how frail we are,\n  then we can better appreciate the help that is offered,\n  and the abundant blessing of peace when it does come.\n  The depth of our own capacity for suffering is known to\n  few of us; and when we have made a little discovery of\n  it, some short acquaintance with the dark cold caverns\n  of hopeless woe into which it is possible to fall, even\n  when all externally is bright and apparently prosperous,\n  how thankful then should we feel for the daylight of\n  hope!\n\n  Perhaps I am using strong language. I would not use\n  it to every one, but I think thou knowest that words are\n  feeble rather than strong to express what may be the\n  real portion of one whom spectators look on as very\n  happy; and I do feel sure that not a grief that can befall\n  us even in this hidden world of ours, but _may_ be the\n  stepping-stone to a joy with which also a stranger doth\n  not intermeddle; and how shall we sooner find it than\n  by \"casting all our care on Him who careth for us\"?\n  \"He knoweth our frame, and remembereth that we are\n  dust, and is touched with a feeling of our infirmities.\"\n\n  _3d Mo. 14th_.--Letter to M.B.\n\n  * * * I am abundantly convinced that if we can\n  find the right place and keep it, and endeavor to fulfil\n  its duties, whatever they may be, _there_ is our safety, and\n  _there_ is our greatest peace; and what a blessing to know\n  in any degree where the knowledge and the power are\n  both to be obtained! * * *\n\n  _6th Mo. 21st_. After a fortnight's visit to my dear\n  aunts, I followed Louisa to Tottenham. Many an\n  occasion of deep instruction was offered to us at the\n  Yearly Meeting; and yet from all this what remains?\n  A solemn inquiry for all; and how much so for me,\n  now that every principle of the heart and mind\n  must prepare to encounter unwonted exercise and\n  trial, now that I daily need all that I can have in\n  a peculiar manner, and now that the future, amid\n  the hopeful calm which it sometimes assumes, will\n  sometimes almost frown upon me with lowerings of\n  fear? Fear it is, not of others, but of myself, and\n  fear of the ignorance or precipitancy of my yet but\n  very partially regulated mind. Oh for that other\n  fear which only \"is a fountain of life, preserving\n  from the snares of death!\" Oh for that love which\n  casteth out the slavish fear, and maketh one with\n  what it loves--first with that God from whom it\n  comes, and then with those in whom it dwells!\n  Dwell, oh, that it may, in our two hearts, their best,\n  their first, their strongest, dearest bond, and dwell,\n  too, in the hearts of those I leave behind, and cause\n  that still and henceforth we may be \"together though\n  apart\"!\n\n  The responsibility of having so important an office\n  to fulfil towards any fellow-being as that of sharing\n  in, influencing, and being influenced by all his wishes,\n  actions, and tendencies, has felt very serious. * *\n  * * Never before had I so strong a sense of the\n  identity of our highest duty towards ourselves and\n  towards each other; and that _to live_, and _to be as_ and\n  _what_ we ought, in the best sense, is the chief requisite\n  for influencing one another for good.\n\n  _6th Mo. 24th_. Though I have this morning been\n  helped and comforted, I must confess much unsubdued\n  evil has manifested itself even within these few\n  days. The bitter waters within, the tendency to what\n  is evil, the corrupt root, have sadly appeared.--Oh,\n  there is the one cause, not minding enough the good\n  part which shall not be taken away, and so disquieted\n  at the loss or disturbance of lower things. \"How\n  shall we escape if we _neglect_ (not only _reject_) such\n  great salvation?\" I was made mercifully sensible,\n  last night and this morning, that such is our Father's\n  love, that His aim is chiefly to bestow, our duty to\n  receive, that He calls and invites; but it is not that\n  we may work a performance of our own, but receive\n  His own good things. Oh, the folly, the ingratitude,\n  of being inattentive to such a blessing! Oh, the rebellious\n  pride of choosing our own self-will, and our\n  own way, when the privilege may be ours of becoming\n  the obedient and loving children of God--of receiving\n  from Him the willing and the obedient heart\n  which we may offer up to Him again, and which He\n  will accept!\n\n  _6th Mo. 30th_. Letter to M.B. [Alluding to\n  various engagements.]\n\n  * * * These \"fill the past, present, and future\"\n  of these last months at home with many and various\n  occupations and meditations. It is a blessing not to be\n  more disturbed within, if it be but a safe calmness. Oh,\n  that is a large condition; but how unsafe is all calmness\n  resulting from shutting our eyes from the truth of our\n  worst side! Yet I think when we can really be glad at\n  the thought that our worst side is seen and known, there\n  is some hope of remedy and of peace, and (may I not\n  say?) _alliance_ with the Physician who has all power and\n  skill. Then only can we welcome any thing, however\n  trying, which we can believe comes from His hand, or\n  may tend to make us any nearer the pattern we strive\n  for, or any more likely to fulfil rightly the serious part\n  we have to take in life.\n\n  _7th Mo. 16th_. I hope I do sincerely desire to seek\n  for strength to cast my many burdens on Him who\n  careth for me; and, oh, if I did but live in the spirit,\n  and walk in the spirit, more faithfully, surely I should\n  know more of what it is to \"be careful for nothing,\"\n  but in every thing to make known my requests unto\n  God. Quiet is most congenial. Oh that the few\n  weeks remaining to me here, may all be given to Him\n  who alone can bless! But this desperate heart--might\n  it not well be despaired of? I trust I have\n  got to this point, \"God be merciful to me a sinner.\"\n  \"Let me fall now into the hands of the Lord, for\n  His mercies are great,\" and not into-human hands,\n  nay, _not my own_. I thought I saw some sweetness\n  in the words, \"By His stripes ye are healed.\"\n\n  _7th Mo. 17th_. Why do I not feel that nothing I\n  can _do_ is so important as what I _am_, and that things\n  without had better be ever so much neglected, than\n  things within set wrong for their sake?\n\n  _7th Mo. 21st_. Had very comfortable feelings\n  yesterday in meeting. Oh, it was joyful to believe\n  that God was near to bless and to forgive. This\n  evening, I have longed to commit my soul and its\n  keeping into my Father's hands. Oh for a little\n  more faith in His infinite, everlasting mercy! To\n  come even boldly to the throne of grace, is the high\n  calling even of those most in need of mercy.\n\n  _7th Mo 26th_. Letter to C.B.C.\n\n  * * * I hope that so far I have been favored with\n  a measure of real help and good hope, though often\n  sensible of multiplied difficulties and dangers, amid the\n  desire to maintain such a state of mind and feeling as I\n  ought. Perhaps the strong light in which I have often\n  perceived how the best earthly hope may be blighted or\n  blasted, even when all seems outwardly favorable, is a\n  true blessing; and would that it might lead me oftener\n  where all our wants can be best and only supplied! I\n  know that _self_ is the foe to be dreaded most, and that is\n  so ever near, sticks so close, that there can be no remedy\n  effectual that is not applied with the penetrating power\n  and all-wise discretion which are no attributes of ours.\n  And yet how often do we vainly try to help ourselves!\n\nTwo days after this, she wrote to her friend M.B. and alluded\nvery feelingly to the prospect of leaving her old home and its\nassociations. Ever taking a humble view of herself and of her fitness\nfor the duties she was expecting to assume, she writes of\n\n  \"feeling increasingly my deep unfitness and lack\n  of qualification for so very responsible an undertaking\n  as sharing in and influencing and being influenced\n  by all that concerns another. May I be permitted\n  the privilege of which thou hast spoken, that the\n  Lord's presence may go with us, and give us rest, and\n  be to us a little sanctuary wheresoever we may come.\n  _Then_ all will be right. * * * So thou seest\n  just where I am,--in need of faith and hope, and\n  sometimes wanting all things, even amid circumstances\n  which I can find no fault with. Farewell,\n  dear M.; and if thou nearest that I get on well, or\n  am in any way made happy or useful, one conclusion\n  will be very safe, respecting thy unworthy friend,--that\n  it is not in _me_.\"\n\nThis closes a correspondence which appears to have been attended with\nmuch comfort and profit to the two friends.\n\n  _8th Mo. 11th_. The time flies, and then the place\n  that has known me will know me no more, except\n  as a sojourner and pilgrim to my father's hearth;\n  and yet I cannot realize it: could I, how should I\n  bear it? This day, much as before, weak in body,\n  death-like in mind; but this evening had such a desire\n  for retirement--so undesired before--and such\n  precious feelings then. Oh, I could go through much\n  with _this_ to sustain me, but I cannot command it for\n  one instant; and, oh, how I felt that He alone can\n  keep my soul alive, whose is every breath, natural and\n  spiritual! Oh, what a joy to feel His Spirit near,\n  the thick, heavy wall of separation melted away.\n  Would that the way could, be kept thus clear to God--my\n  life, my strength, my joy, my all!\n\n  Much that is very interesting has passed,--chiefly\n  a visit from T.E. and his wife, of Philadelphia. The\n  day they left us, we sat in silence round the dinner-table,\n  till he said that words seemed hardly needful\n  to express the precious feeling of union that prevailed.\n  * * * It was very sad to lose them; and yet I\n  never felt before so strongly how the individual\n  blessing to each soul is not a merely being present,\n  and recognizing, and rejoicing in such times as these.\n  How the words of one that hath a heavenly spirit\n  and a pleasant voice may be heard in vain!\n\n  _8th Mo. 20th_. How can I describe these eventful\n  days? One lesson may they teach me, that God is\n  love, and that whatever good thing I am blessed with\n  is not in me. He has been so kind, so gracious, and\n  I so very perverse, frequently so distrustful, so easily\n  wounded; but He, as if He will not take offence,\n  again and again has pity on me. How was I met\n  and saluted with the words, \"_By Myself have I\n  sworn_,\" as part of some promise! Then I felt and\n  rejoiced in His faithfulness to all in me and in all\n  the universe that is His. _By Himself_, then _He_ will\n  never fail; and I hope I shall be preserved by Him.\n\n  _8th Mo. 21st_. I was so grievously stupid last\n  week, so unable to realize any thing--feared when\n  I should come to myself that it would be terrible;\n  but no, it is not so: I have love for all, and I hope\n  it will grow for all and take in all. It is not that\n  one love swallows up another, as one sorrow does:\n  yet I am very weak, and need daily help. Oh that\n  it may not be withheld!\n\nWith this record her Journal concludes; and, in reflecting upon it as\na whole, the reader can scarcely fail to observe the evidence it gives\nof progress in the Divine life, of growth, as it were, from the\nblade to the full corn in the ear, now early ripened for the heavenly\ngarner; and perhaps in nothing is this progress more discernible than\nin the manner in which through many fluctuations she was enabled\nto look away from the suggestions of unresting self, which were so\npainful to her sensitive and conscientious spirit, and to stay her\nmind on her Saviour, entering into that rest which the apostle says\nis the portion of those who believe,--\"a rest which remaineth for the\npeople of God,\" and which they only realize in its fulness who have\naccepted Christ as all sufficient for every need of the soul, not only\npardon of past sins, but also of daily recurring transgressions, and\nwhose trials and provings of spirit have led to the blessed result of\nincreased oneness with their heavenly Father.\n\n_8th Mo. 21th_. To her sister F.T. she writes, the day before her\nmarriage,--\n\n  \"I am still a wonder to myself,--so thankful for dear\n  mother's cheerfulness, and for the kindness and love of\n  all around. I have taken leave of nearly all. Last\n  evening we had a nice walk. Then for the first time I\n  felt as if the claims of past, present, and future were\n  perfectly and peacefully adjusted, to my great comfort.\"\n\nThe walk to which this allusion refers is very fresh in the\nremembrance of her sister and of her (intended) husband, who\naccompanied her. Her manner was strikingly calm and affectionate; and\nas they returned home, after a pause in the conversation, she said,\ntaking a hand of each,--\n\n  \"I have heard of some people when they are\n  dying feeling no struggle on going from one world to\n  the other; and I was thinking that I felt the same\n  between you. I don't know how it may be at last.\"\n\nStrangely impressive were these words at the time; and when we\nremember that she never saw that sister again after the morrow, can we\ndoubt that this preparation was permitted to soften the bitterness\nof the time, so near at hand, when this should have proved to be the\nfinal parting on earth?\n\nIn looking back to this time, there is a sweet conviction of the peace\nwhich was then granted her, which did seem something like a foretaste\nof the joys of the better home which was even then opening before her\nand upon which her pure spirit had so loved to dwell.\n\nShe was married, at Liskeard, to William Southall, Jr., on the 28th\nof 8th month, 1851. She was anxious that the wedding-day should be\ncheerful; and her own countenance wore a sweet expression of quiet\nsatisfaction and seriousness; and the depth of feeling which prevailed\nin the whole party during that day was afterwards remembered with\nsatisfaction, as being in harmony with what followed.\n\nIn a tenderly affectionate note, written from Teignmouth the same\nevening, she says, \"I can look back without any other pang than the\nnecessary one of having stretched, I must not say broken, our family\nbond;\" and then she adds the sincere desire for herself and her\nhusband, \"Oh that we may be more humble and watchful than ever before,\nand that my daily care may be to remember those sweet lines which\nhelped me so this morning,--\n\n    \"When thou art nothing in thyself,\n    Then thou art close to me.\"\n\nA fortnight spent among the lakes of Westmoreland and Cumberland was\na time of much happiness. It was her first introduction to mountain\nscenery; and her letters to the home circle she had just left, contain\nanimated descriptions of the beauties around her. A few extracts from\nthese, showing the healthy enjoyment she experienced, and the cheerful\nand comfortable state of her mind, particulars which acquire an\ninterest from the solemn circumstances so soon to follow, may not be\nunsuitably inserted:--\n\n  BOWNESS, 9th Month, 1st, 1851.\n\n  MY DEAR L.:--\n\n  * * * We had a lovely ride and ferrying over Windermere\n  to Colthouse meeting on First-day. * * *\n  I am almost well, and able to enter into these beauties.\n  Will you be satisfied with seven sketches, such as they\n  are, for this day?\n\n  I thought, as we passed Doves' Nest, and read in the\n  guide-book F. Hemans's description of her dwelling\n  there for twelve months, and how many sad hearts,\n  beside hers, had come thither for a refuge from sorrow,\n  what cause we had to be thankful for (so far) another\n  lot; and yet, dear L., with all I see around me, my\n  heart is very often with you, and turns\n\n  From glassy lakes, and mountains grand,\n    And green reposeful isles,\n  To that one corner of the land\n    Beyond the rest that smiles.\n\n  Beyond the rest it smiles for me,\n    Thither my thoughts will roam--\n  The home beloved of infancy,\n    My childhood's precious home!\n\n  And yet somehow it is not with a reproachful smile that\n  it looks on me, nor with a regretful heart that I think\n  upon it. It is delightful to think of dear father and\n  mother's coming to Birmingham so soon, and of meeting\n  R. this day fortnight.\n\nTo her Mother.\n\n  GRASMERE, 3d of 9th Month, 1851.\n\n  MY DEAR MOTHER:--\n\n  We have had a lovely day, and I scarcely\n  know where or how to begin the tale of beauty. If\n  there be any shadow of truth in the notion that \"a\n  thing of beauty is a joy forever,\" we must have been\n  laying in a store of delight which may cheer many a\n  busy and many a lonely hour. Truly, as we have gazed\n  upon the glorious mountains; looked down from the\n  summit of Silver How, on the green vale of Grasmere,\n  and the far-off Windermere; looked with almost awful\n  feelings on the black shadowy rocks that encompass Easdale\n  Tarn, (all that yesterday,) and to-day, passed from\n  waterfall to waterfall, through the solemn and desolate\n  Langdales, under the twin mountain _Pikes_, \"throned\n  among the hills,\" dived into the awful recess of Dungeon\n  Ghyll, where the rock, with scarcely a crack to\n  part it, stands high on each side of the foaming torrent,\n  which dashes perpendicularly down the gorge, then out\n  upon the sunny vale, and home through the brotherhood\n  of mountains to our quiet dwelling of Grasmere; surely\n  all this, and much, much more, has made the days very\n  precious for present enjoyment and for future recollections.\n  The moon is bright as ever I saw it, and we have\n  lately returned from the smooth, still Grasmere, where\n  there was hardly ripple enough to multiply its image;\n  and where we could have sat for hours, nourishing the\n  calm and solemn thoughts we had just brought from the\n  quiet corner of the churchyard where we had sat by\n  Wordsworth's grave. It was growing dark, but we\n  could just read on the plain slate head-stone the sole\n  inscription, \"William Wordsworth.\"\n\n  * * * But I cannot make you fully imagine these\n  scenes, so varied, so picturesque. How little pleasure I\n  had in anticipating this journey, while those formidable\n  things lay between! The thought of the mountains\n  seemed not worth a straw, and now looking back to only\n  this day week is wonderful. Home still smiles upon\n  me like a lake that catches a sunbeam; and sometimes\n  I feel truly thankful that the way that I knew not has\n  led me here. * * *\n\n  The thought of seeing you is bright indeed.\n\n  Thy loving daughter,\n\n  ELIZA.\n\nTo her Sister.\n\n  LODORE INN, 5th of 9th Month, 1851.\n\n  MY BELOVED M.:--\n\n  * * * I am glad to say that we still have very fine\n  weather. At Keswick we were planning how we could\n  see Frederick Myers, but that evening his widow was\n  returning to the parsonage with her three fatherless\n  children, and we could only look on the family vault in\n  the lovely churchyard, the school-room, library, etc.,\n  and think of his anticipations, now no doubt so happily\n  realized, of the \"'well done,' which it will be heaven to\n  hear.\" A fine black storm hung over Skiddaw and\n  Saddleback, and _such_ a rainbow spanned it. The western\n  sky was full of the sunset, and the lake lay in lovely\n  repose beneath. Of the clouds we really cannot say\n  more than that they are often very beautiful, and sometimes\n  dress up the mountains in grandeur not their own;\n  but I have seen none that might not be Cornish clouds.\n\n  I am quite well. * * * For my sake be cheerful\n  and happy.\n\n  Thy very loving sister,\n\n  E.S.\n\nTo her Father.\n\n  SCALE HILL HOTEL, 8th of 9th Month, 1851.\n\n  MY BELOVED FATHER:--\n\n  On Seventh-day, after breakfast at Lodore,\n  we set off for a treat indeed--a canter up Borrowdale.\n  The morning splendid. Keswick Lake sparkling behind\n  us. The crags of Borrowdale in the blue misty sunshine\n  of morning overhung by not less beautiful shades.\n  We were quite glad to get to this sort of mountain\n  scenery again, which we had so enjoyed at Grasmere,\n  and leave smooth, bare, pyramidal Skiddaw and its\n  \"ancient\" fellows behind. We at last ascended the\n  steep zigzag which begins Sty Head Pass, confirming\n  our resolution now and then by admiring the plodding\n  industry of our mountain horses. It was indeed pleasant\n  when the last gate was opened and we were safe\n  within the wall of rough stones which headed the steep\n  ascent, and we could wind more at leisure beside the\n  foaming \"beck\" which runs out of Sty Head Tarn.\n  This desolate mountain lake was soon reached, and the\n  noble dark Scawfell Pikes--the highest mountain in\n  England, (3166 feet)--were its majestic background.\n  But that we had been gradually inured to such scenes,\n  this would indeed have been the most impressive we\n  have beheld. On we rode till deep shady Wastdale\n  opened below us, and we found ourselves at the head\n  of the Pass.\n\n  I have enjoyed this journey very much more than I\n  expected, and the weather, on the whole, has been favorable.\n  I think of you all with double affection,\n  which accept very warmly from\n\n  Thy affectionate daughter,\n\n  E.S.\nTo her Sister.\n\n  PATTERDALE, 11th of 9th Month, 1851.\n\n  MY BELOVED L.:--\n\n  * * * This delightful morning, Ulleswater, which\n  we admired as much, if not more than any lake which\n  we have seen, was of the brightest blue, and the valley\n  behind as rich in loveliness, when we set off for Helvellyn.\n  The top is just five miles from the Inn. At\n  last the pony was tied to a stake, and we wound up the\n  Swirrel Edge. The rocks are almost perpendicular, and\n  strangely shivered, and we looked down on the Red\n  Tarn sparkling in the sun with, as it were, thousands\n  of stars. At last we reached the top, a bare smooth\n  summit, whence the wide misty landscape stretched all\n  around us. Six lakes should have been visible; but we\n  were obliged to be content with the whole stretch of\n  Ulleswater, eight miles behind us, Bassenthwaite to the\n  north, and perhaps a bit of Keswick; but I would not\n  have missed the scene for any reasonable consideration.\n  Scott, of course, stood on the top of the hill looking\n  down on the Tarn, with Striding Edge on his right.\n  Alas! no \"eagles\" are ever \"yelling\" on the mountain,\n  nor \"brown mountain heather\" is in sight--only common\n  mountain grass.\n\nOn the top of Helvellyn she wrote the following lines in a\nsketch-book:--\n\n  How softly the winds of the mountains are saying,\n    \"No chamber of death is Helvellyn's dark brow;\"\n  On the \"rough rocky edge\" are the fleecy flocks straying,\n    And \"Red Tarn\" gleams bright with a thousand stars now.\n\n  The \"huge nameless rook\" has no gloom in its shadow;\n    It catches the sun, it has found it a name;\n  And the mountain grass covers like the turf of the meadow\n    The arms of Helvellyn and Catchedecan.\n\n  There is not on earth a dark city's enclosure,\n    Or vast mountain waste, where the traveller may roam,\n  That peace may not soothe with its balmy composure,\n    And love may not bless with the joy of a home!\n\nTo her sister.\n\n  ULVERSTON, 15th of 9th Month, 1851.\n\n  MY BELOVED M.:--\n\n  Thy very welcome letter yesterday met me\n  soon, after returning from Swarthmore, where, of course,\n  we had a very different assembly from yours.\n\n  It was very interesting, having been at Pardsey Crags\n  last week, where the thousands had listened to George\n  Fox's preaching, now to see Swarthmore and remember\n  how things used to be when he \"left the north fresh\n  and green;\" but G. Fox never saw the meeting-house.\n  It was built, I believe, after his death, though the inscription\n  \"_Ex dono G.F._\" is over the porch. His black-oak\n  chairs stand in the meeting-room, and his two bed-posts\n  are at each side of the foot of the stairs. Swarthmore\n  Hall is an ancient-looking, high farm-house, with\n  stone window-frames, as we have seen it drawn. The\n  Hall, where the meetings used to be held, looks very\n  antique: black-oak panels remain in parts. Judge\n  Fell's study is just inside, and his desk in the window,\n  whence he could hear what passed, though he never went\n  to the meetings. The house is in sad repair. It seems\n  strange to lay aside our daily companions, the map and\n  the guide-book, and tarn our backs wholly on the mountain\n  land, for the level and busy plains of England, with\n  their \"daily round and common task.\" But I know that\n  the bright and beautiful mountain-scenes will often come\n  again before the mental eye--\"long-vanished\" beauty\n  that \"refines and paints in brighter hues;\" and I hope\n  the pleasure will long be gratefully remembered.\n\nThe new home was reached on the 16th, from whence she writes,--\n\nTo her sister.\n\n  EDGBASTON, 20th of 9th Month, 1851.\n\n  MY BELOVED L.:--\n\n  * * * I do not like to end this eventful week\n  without trying to send you a few lines. * * * Please\n  tell mother, with my dear, dear love, how very acceptable\n  her note was, and how much I hope that her kind good\n  wishes may be realized, and how frequent a thought of\n  pleasure it has been while we have been setting things\n  in order, that before long I may enjoy to show our little\n  territory to her and father,--to have her kind advice and\n  opinion about my little household. * * * I yet feel\n  as strongly as ever a daughter's love to the home of my\n  childhood. When I think of you, I can fully share in\n  the illusion thou spoke of, fancying that before long I\n  shall be among you just as before. * * *\n\nTo her sister, P. Tregolles.\n\n  YEW-TREE ROAD, 9th Month, 1851.\n\n  * * * I could not have thought I should have felt\n  so easy amongst so many, lately, such strangers; but\n  every day I feel more strongly that on one nail \"fastened\n  in a sure place\" many things may hang easily;\n  and truly all treat us with such kindness, that I should\n  be ungrateful not to value highly my connection for its\n  own sake, whilst that on which it hangs grows firmer\n  too. * * *\n\nThe remembrance of the cheerfulness with which Eliza Southall entered\ninto the duties and cares of her new position in her adopted home has\nafforded cause for much gratitude on the part of those dear relatives\nwho welcomed her there. Newly made acquainted with some of them,\nshe won their love and esteem by her unaffected simplicity and the\ngeniality of her sympathies; but, whilst she showed true conjugal\nsolicitude in her plans for domestic comfort and social enjoyment, it\nwas evidently her first desire to have her heart and her treasure in\nheaven. It was designed in the ordering of Divine providence that a\ncloud should very soon overshadow the bright promises of her arrival;\nand the following account of the illness which so speedily terminated\nher life will, it is hoped, convey a correct impression of the\npeacefulness of its close. It is compiled from memoranda made very\nsoon after her decease, but is of necessity imperfect; the attention\nof those who contributed from memory portions of her conversation\nbeing so much absorbed by their interest in the conflict between life\nand death, and by the overwhelming feelings of an hour of such moment\nto some of them. Whilst it is hoped that nothing inserted may appear\nto go beyond the simplicity of the truth, it may be added that it\nseems impossible to convey in words a full and faithful idea of\nthe holy serenity of her last hours, which showed that the work of\nreligion had not been in vain in her heart.\n\nWith the exception of a slight cold, which soon left her, she appeared\nto be in her usual health and spirits. But it was so for only two\nweeks, and on Third-day, the 30th of 9th Month, on returning from a\nvisit at Woodfield, she complained of not feeling well. The next day\nshe was more poorly, and medical advice was obtained. The following\nmorning she suffered much pain, but the remedies used soon relieved\nher; and, though she was not able to leave her bed, the symptoms did\nnot continue such as to excite much uneasiness. She enjoyed hearing\nanother read, and not unfrequently Isaac Pennington's letters, or\nsome other book, was in her own hand, and during occasional pain and\nuneasiness she would request to have some chapter in the Bible read,\nor a hymn of comfort. There was always an air of cheerfulness in her\nchamber, and the affectionate greeting with which each relative who\nvisited her was welcomed was very precious. Few words passed of a\nreligious nature, or such as to induce the supposition that in four\nmore days earth would be exchanged for heaven, except one short remark\nto her husband in the evening: \"I have been thinking of the text,\n'Then whose shall these things be which thou hast provided?' they may\nnot be mine much longer.\" This was touching to his feelings, but was\nviewed as her wonted cautious manner of speaking of temporal things.\nThere was nothing further in her remarks which showed that she\nregarded her case as a critical one.\n\nOn Sixth and Seventh days she seemed decidedly better--entering into\nthe varied interests around her. The evening of the latter day was\nparticularly bright and cheering, when she conversed cheerfully with\nher husband and sister and spoke of her plans for the future. She also\nlistened with pleasure to some pieces of poetry which were read, and\namongst them appeared to derive comfort from the hymn beginning,--\n\n  \"Nearer, my God, to Thee--\n    Nearer to Thee!\n  E'en though it be a cross\n    That raiseth me;\n  Still all my song would be,\n  Nearer, my God, to Thee--\n    Nearer to Thee!\"\n\nEarly on First-day morning she seemed rather depressed, and requested\nher sister to repeat the hymn, \"'Tis a point I long to know,\" [Olney\nHymns.] In the course of the morning she wrote a touching note to her\nbeloved mother: it was her last effort of the kind:--\n\n  5th of 10th Month, 1851.\n\n  My beloved Mother:--\n\n  I have got permission to use a pencil in thanking thee\n  for thy kind sweet lines which this morning's post\n  brought me. I am thankful for being so remembered\n  by my own precious mother now so far away. * * *\n\n  It is a new experience to me to lie here so long; but,\n  now that I am much better, and what pain I have is\n  transient and easy to be borne for the most part, it is my\n  own fault if the days are profitless. I quite hope, by the\n  time father comes, to be able to enjoy his visit--and so\n  I could now; but then it could only be in this chamber,\n  already become quite familiar. * * *\n\n  We are so thankful to hear of thy amendment to this\n  hopeful stage! I trust nothing will prevent thy being\n  able to leave home with father; and then how soon we\n  shall rejoice to see thee here!\n\n  Thy ever loving, and trying to be submissive,\n\n  ELIZA.\n\nHer medical attendant still took an encouraging view of her case, and\nshe was so nicely in the afternoon that her husband left her to go to\nmeeting. The evening was passed pleasantly, and the family retired to\nrest as usual. She continued very comfortable till about mid-night,\nwhen a very sudden attack of violent pain came on, which continued\nwithout intermission for about three hours.\n\nVery affecting, during this time, were her earnest cries for patience\nand strength. \"Oh that I had been more faithful! It is because I have\nbeen so unfaithful!\" She was reminded that these sufferings ought not\nto be regarded in the light of punishment, but that \"whom the Lord\nloveth he chasteneth.\" Some texts were read at her request. \"They are\nvery nice,\" she said, \"but I cannot receive them all now.\" Truly this\nwas a time when all human help was felt to be unavailing, and when\nnone but the Ruler of the waves Himself could speak a calm; and, if we\nmay judge from the subsequent altered and tranquil expression of her\ncountenance, her petitions were mercifully granted. \"Do not cry, my\ndear,\" she said; and then, \"Oh, how kind to speak cheerfully!\" adding,\n\"I hope this illness may be made a blessing to us all in time to\ncome.\" When the doctor, who was hastily called, arrived, she said, \"I\nhope I shall be able to bear the pain: I will try to bear it.\" Whilst\nin much suffering, she requested to have the forty-sixth Psalm read,\nwhich had always been a peculiar favorite with her. On her mother\nS. entering the room, she greeted her with the words, \"Dear mother!\"\nsaying, \"What a comfort it is to have some one to call mother!\"\n\nThe remedies resorted to, afforded temporary relief; and great was\nher thankfulness for the alleviation from what she described as\nanguish--anguish--anguish! But her strength was greatly prostrated,\nand for some hours she dozed--being only occasionally conscious.\nAbout nine or ten o'clock on the morning of Second-day, the pale and\nexhausted expression of her countenance convinced us that the time\nfor letting go our hold of this very precious treasure was not far\ndistant. Overwhelming as was this feeling, the belief that she\nwas unconscious of her state added to our anxiety. We longed to be\npermitted an evidence from her own lips that she felt accepted through\nChrist her Saviour; though her humble walk with God through life would\nhave assured us, had there been no such expression. Our desires were,\nhowever, mercifully granted, to our humbling admiration of that grace\nwhich had made her what she was.\n\nAbout noon she roused a little, and, one of the medical men having\nstated that a few hours would probably produce a great change for\nbetter or for worse, her beloved husband concluded it best to inform\nher that she was not likely to continue long amongst us. She replied,\nwith striking earnestness, \"What! will it be heaven?\" He asked if she\ncould feel comfortable in the prospect, and she replied, \"I must wait\na while.\" A few minutes of solemn silence followed, in which it is\nimpossible to convey in words the earnest prayerful expression of her\ncountenance and uplifted eyes, when it seemed as if, regardless of any\nthing around her, she held immediate communion with her God. She then\nsaid, \"I feel a hope, but not assurance.\" Her husband said, \"Trust in\nthy Saviour, my dear.\" \"Yes,\" she replied.\n\nSoon after this, being asked if she would like her medical attendants\nto come into the room, she answered, \"Oh, any one who wishes. I could\nspeak to the queen.\" After acknowledging their kindness to her, she\naddressed them in an earnest manner on the importance of devoting all\ntheir talents to the glory of God, so that their chief aim in their\nprofession might be to serve Him. She alluded to the insufficiency of\nhuman skill and the emptiness of earthly attainments at such a time as\nthis; adding, \"But above all things serve the Lord.\" They were deeply\nimpressed with her great calmness and resignation.\n\nShe spoke to those around her in a striking manner on the unsatisfying\nnature of all things here. \"Oh, they are nothing--less than nothing\nand vanity--nothing to me now;\" earnestly encouraging all to prepare\nfor heaven--to serve the Lord; quoting very fervently and beautifully\nour Saviour's words, \"'I ascend unto my Father and your Father, unto\nmy God and your God.' * * Upwards! upwards! upwards!--I hope we may\nall meet in glory.\"\n\nA short time afterwards, appearing a little discouraged, she asked,\n\"Do you feel assured for me? can you trust for me?\" And on being told\nthat we felt no doubt, her diffident mind seemed comforted; \"but,\" she\nadded, \"I want assurance: I hope; but I don't feel sure--I do _hope_\nin Christ.\" The text was repeated, \"'Lord, I believe: help thou mine\nunbelief.'\" She was reminded that He died for all. She rejoined, \"Then\nfor me; but I have nothing of my own--not a thing to trust in, only in\nthe mercy of God. I don't feel any burden of sin--only of neglect. I\nhope it is not a false peace. Do you think it is?\" Her aunt repeated,\n\"'Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear\nno evil.'\" \"Oh, precious!\" she exclaimed: \"though He hideth His face,\nyet will I trust in the Lord; I will trust in the Lord, for He is\nfaithful--faithful--faithful! I have a humble trust, but _no rapture_.\nBut I don't feel sure that I shall die now; I cannot see how it may\nbe.\" Again and again were her eyes turned to heaven in earnest prayer,\n\"If I die, oh, receive me to Thyself.\"\n\nThroughout her illness a holy feeling of serenity and love pervaded\nthe sick-chamber: she affectionately acknowledged every little\nattention, and frequently expressed a fear of giving trouble, saying,\none night, \"What won't any one do for love?\"\n\nNo expression of regret escaped her lips at leaving her earthly\nprospects. Her possessions in this world were loosely held, and\ntherefore easily relinquished for those enduring treasures which had\nlong had the highest place in her heart.\n\nHer heart overflowed with love to all around her, saying, \"All is\nlove;\" and many were the messages she sent to her absent relatives and\nfriends. \"Give my dear love to father and mother: tell them how glad\nI should have been to have seen them; but how glad I am mother was not\nhere! I know she could not have borne it. Tell them how thankful I\nam they brought me up for heaven. Tell them, not raptures, but peace.\nTell them not to grieve, not to grieve, not to grieve! Tell them how\nhappy I have been here; that I wanted for nothing.\" To her sisters,\n\"All love--nothing but love;\" adding that she might have had much more\nto say, had she been able, \"but I must not; I must be quiet.\"\n\nAs the different members of her husband's family surrounded her bed,\nshe addressed each with a few appropriate words. Taking her mother\nS.'s hand, she said, \"Thou hast been a kind mother to me: I can never\nrepay thee. * * *\" To her father S., who was absent, she sent her\nlove. He, however, returned in time to see her. From his having left\nher so much better on Seventh-day, she feared he might be alarmed\nat the change, anxiously inquiring whether he was aware of it, and\naffectionately greeted him when he came, saying, \"I am _so glad_ to\nsee thee!\" To one she said, \"Dear ----, seek the Lord; seek Him and\nserve Him with a perfect heart.\n\n    'Why should we fear youth's draught of joy.'[3]\n\nTell her that verse from me. * * * \" She inquired for J.H.; and, on\nhis coming into the room, being rather overcome with her exertions,\nshe said, \"I am too weak to speak now;\" but, waving her hand, she\npointed her finger towards heaven with an almost angelic smile.\n\nAfter a short pause, she renewed her leave-taking, adding, at its\nclose, \"Farewell--my best farewell! now I have nothing more to say.\nFarewell!\" And a little after, turning to her sister, \"Now, my dear\nR., there seems nothing to say--nothing but love--all love!\"\n\nShe then asked for a few minutes alone with her dear husband, and took\na calm and tender leave of him also.\n\nDifficulty of breathing now became very trying to her; but again\nand again she tried to cheer us by the assurance that she had no\npain--\"only oppression: don't think it pain.\" The lines being repeated\n\n  \"Though painful at present,\n    'Twill cease before long;\n  And then, oh, how pleasant\n    The conqueror's song!\"\n\nshe responded with a sweet smile, and exclaimed, \"Oh, glorious!\" She\ndwelt with comfort on the text, \"Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth,\"\nand once, commencing to repeat it herself, asked her sister to finish\nit.\n\nNo cloud now appeared to remain before her. \"I don't see any thing in\nthe way,\" she said. Her sister reminded her that the everlasting arms\nwere underneath and above her, waiting to receive her. \"Dear R.,\" she\nreplied, \"she can trust for me.\" * * She spoke at intervals until a\nfew minutes before her departure, but not always intelligibly. On her\ndear husband's asking her if she felt peaceful, she assented with\na beaming smile, and soon after, resting in his arms, she ceased to\nbreathe.\n\nShe died on Second-day evening, the 6th of 10th month, 1851. Thus, at\nthe age of about twenty-eight years, and within six weeks after\nthe happy consummation of a marriage union which promised much true\nenjoyment, was this precious plant suddenly removed, to bloom forever,\nas we humbly trust, through redeeming love and mercy, in a celestial\nparadise. The funeral took place at Friends' burial-ground at\nBirmingham, on the following First-day; being only three weeks from\nthe time she had first attended that Meeting as a bride. It was\na deeply solemn time; but, amidst their grief, the hearts of many\nresponded to the words expressed at the grave-side: \"Now, unto Him who\nhath loved her, and washed her from her sins in His own blood, unto\nHim be glory and dominion, for ever and ever, Amen.\"\n\n\n  [Footnote 3:\n  \"Why should we fear youth's draught of joy,\n    If pure, would sparkle less?\n  Why should the cup the sooner cloy\n    Which God hath deign'd to bless?\"]\n\n\nTHE END.","title":"A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains,: of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":43832}