ry, one by one, with individuals, who wished to
speak to us about their souls. There were so many, that we were engaged
from six till twenty minutes past ten.

These meetings we have continued ever since twice a week, or once a week,
or once a fortnight, or once a month, as our strength and time allowed it,
or as they seemed needed. We have found them beneficial in the following
respects:

1. Many persons, on account of timidity, would prefer coming at an
appointed time to the vestry to converse with us, to calling on us in our
own house. 2. The very fact of appointing a time for seeing people, to
converse with them in private concerning the things of eternity, has
brought some, who, humanly speaking, never would have called on us under
other circumstances; yea, it has brought even those who, though they
thought they were concerned about the things of God, yet were completely
ignorant; and thus we have had an opportunity of speaking to them. 3.
These meetings have also been a great encouragement to ourselves in the
work, for often, when we thought that such and such expositions of the
Word had done no good at all, it was, through these meetings, found to be
the reverse; and likewise, when our hands were hanging down, we have been
afresh encouraged to go forward in the work of the Lord, and to continue
sowing the seed in hope, by seeing at these meetings fresh cases, in which
the Lord had condescended to use us as instruments, particularly as in
this way instances have sometimes occurred in which individuals have
spoken to us about the benefit which they derived from our ministry, not
only a few months before, but even as long as two, three, and four years
before.

For the above reasons I would particularly recommend to other servants of
Christ, especially to those who live in large towns, if they have not
already introduced a similar plan, to consider whether it may not be well
for them also to set apart such times for seeing inquirers. Those
meetings, however, require much prayer, to be enabled to speak aright, to
all those who come, according to their different need; and one is led
continually to feel that one is not sufficient of one's self for these
things, but that our sufficiency can be alone of God. These meetings also
have been by far the most wearing out part of all our work, though at the
same time the most refreshing.

July 18. Today I spent the whole morning in the vestry, to procure a
quiet season. This