water. There was an
intelligent man present, who had spent some time in India, ---- Watson; he
now has charge of the British school in Petersburg. We find the Scripture
Lessons are no more in use in the school; nor is the New Testament in the
Russian language allowed to be circulated in the country. The Bible
Society is just alive, but can hardly breathe; other institutions languish
for want of support; party spirit has crept in to their great injury. The
law is still very stringent in not allowing a member of one religious body
to join another; but the different sects are allowed their own worship and
schools.

20_th_.--Left Petersburg by the train at 11 o'clock yesterday, and
arrived at Moscow about nine this morning. The road, with but little
exception, is flat and uninteresting. The forests are immense, mostly of
firs and birch, which being thickly set grow small. Many of the stations
are superb. The line of railway did not conduct us near any towns or
villages that I could observe, but by some of the poorest scattered huts
I ever saw in any country.

At Moscow, John Yeardley and his companion called on Pastor Dietrich, a
German, residing a little out of the city:--

He is, says J.Y., in one of his letters, a worthy pastor of the Old
Lutheran Church, a sweet venerable-looking man with long white locks. He
was at dinner with his family when we called, but he would not allow us to
go away, but took us up to the attic story to his study; primitive indeed,
but clean, and to him I have no doubt a room of prayer, as well as of
study. He seemed delighted to find our mission was to the Colonies. "But
what will you do about the language?" said he; "they speak nothing but
German." I wish the dear girls could have seen his countenance lighted up
with cheerful brightness, when he found we could speak German: "Ah, I need
not trouble you any longer with my poor English!" He knows a great many of
the pastors, and will give us letters of introduction to the little flocks
in the Colonies and the Crimea.

As might be expected, it was with a sinking heart that John Yeardley
contemplated the formidable journey before him; but, as in other times
of extremity, he cast himself wholly upon the Lord, and found his soul to
be sustained, and his courage renewed to undergo the hardships that
awaited him.

7 _mo_. 21.--Rose this morning much cast down in mind at the thought
of our long journey, and a want of a knowledge of the Russi