was wrong, that I
might be enabled to find a release in His time who had appointed the
conflict! And I do believe, could I then have come at a perfect
resignation to the divine will, I might have been brought forward in a way
which would have afforded permanent relief to my own mind; but such was my
dislike to the work, that I suffered myself to be lulled into a state of
unbelief as to the rectitude of the concern.

Thus many outward circumstances transpired, and some years passed over,
with my only viewing the matter at a distance, until He who first laid the
concern upon me was pleased to bring it more clearly home to me, and
seemed at times to engage his servants, both in public and private, to
speak very clearly to my condition. And although I had a concurring
testimony in my own mind to their declarations, yet I had always an excuse
to flee unto by secretly saying, It may be intended for some one else;
until the Most High was graciously pleased, by the services of his sincere
handmaids, Sarah Lamley and Ann Fairbank, in their family visits to
Friends of Barnsley, as mentioned last Fifth Month, to speak so clearly to
my situation in their private opportunity with us, as to leave no room for
excuse; but I was forced to acknowledge, Thou art the man. Indeed, Sarah
Lamley was led in such an extraordinary manner, that I had no doubt at all
but that she was favored with a clear and fall sense of my state. She
began by enumerating the many fears which attended the apostles in their
various situations; how that Satan had desired to have some of them that
he might sift them as wheat in a sieve; "but," added she, "I have prayed
for thee, Peter, that thy faith fail not, and when thou art converted
strengthen thy brethren." And how it was with Moses when the Almighty
appeared to him in a flame of fire in the bush, and that it was not until
the Most High had condescended to answer all Moses' excuses that he was
angry with him, and even then he condescended to let him have Aaron, his
brother, to go with him for a spokesman. Also how it was with Peter when
the threefold charge was given him to feed the lambs and the sheep. "It is
not enough," said she, "to acknowledge that we love the Lord, but there
must be a manifesting of our love by doing whatsoever he may command."
Methinks I still hear her voice, saying, "And O that there may not be a
pleading of excuses, Moses-like!" Thus was this valuable servant enabled
to speak to my com