he Fourth Month that he began to speak in public as
a minister of the Gospel. He thus records the event:--

I felt myself in such a resigned frame of mind in our little week-day
meeting, that I could not doubt the time was fully come for me to be
relieved from that state of unspeakable oppression which my poor mind had
been held in for so many years past. Soon after I took my seat, my mind
became unusually calm, and the presence of the Most High seemed so to
abound in my heart and spread over the meeting, that after some inward
conflict I was unavoidably constrained publicly to express it, in nearly
the following words: "I think I have so sensibly felt the precious
influence of divine love to overshadow our little gathering, that I have
been ready to say, It is good for us to be here; or I might rather say, It
is good for us to feel ourselves under the precious influence of that
protecting power which can alone preserve us from the snares of death."
This first [public] act of submission to the divine will was done with as
much stability of mind and body as I was capable of; and I thought the
Friends present seemed sensible of my situation and sympathized with me
under the exercise. I trust the sweet peace which I afterwards felt was a
seal to my belief that I had been favored with divine compassion and
approbation in the needful time.

In the Fifth Month John Yeardley attended for the first time the Yearly
Meeting in London. He describes the business as very various and
instructive, but bewails his own condition as that of "one starving in the
midst of every good thing."

It seemed at times, he says, as though Satan himself was let loose upon
me, and permitted to try my faith and patience to the utmost; but I hope
the conflict had its use in teaching me to know that it is not by might,
nor by power, but by the Lord's Spirit, that we are enabled to prevail.

This was the commencement of another season of spiritual poverty. In
reading a few of his memoranda during this time, many a Christian
traveller may see his own mourning countenance reflected as in a glass.

11 _mo_. 8.--I have for a long time felt so depressed in spirit, and
so inwardly stripped of every appearance of good, that I have often
secretly had to say with tried Job, "O that I were as in months past, as
in the days when God preserved me!"

16_th_.--Death and darkness are still the covering of my poor mind,
and I am ashamed to acknowledge tha