for me to come. If we should agree, he wants me to go over
directly to lay down plans for a few weavers' houses, and to make other
arrangements to save time until we could remove.

I don't much like the situation of the house in the town, but I think
another might be had if required. They have a nice one in Low Bentham,
with a good garden attached, which would be at liberty in next Fifth
Month; this would be a pleasant walk from the mill by the water-side all
the way, which might be useful to my health after being confined in the
warehouse, and much nearer to the meeting. It is a very small meeting
indeed; there are only about two female Friends; but, should we be in the
right place, the smallness of the number would not preclude our access to
the divine spring.

I don't know how we shall come on with the thread trade, but it seems as
if we were to be done out with both thread and linens, for there is
scarcely any thing selling with me on this journey.

John Yeardley and his wife removed to Bentham in the Eighth Month, 1817.
Bentham is a considerable village on the north-west border of Yorkshire, a
few miles from the foot of Ingleborough; and it was at that time,
according to the division of the county adopted by the Society of Friends,
comprised in the Monthly Meeting of Settle.

After a season of deep spiritual poverty, during which he found no place
for the exercise of his gift, John Yeardley began to speak in ministry in
the little meeting to which he now belonged. On recording the circumstance
he remarks:--

Thus does a gracious Father lead on his children step by step, baptizing
them first into one state and then into another, in order to qualify them
to drop a word in season for the comfort of others. Little did I think
under the recent buffetings of the Enemy, that I should ever have had to
open my mouth again in the way of declaring the everlasting goodness of a
gracious Redeemer.

This memorandum was made a few days after the occurrence to which it
refers, on his return from Settle Monthly Meeting, and is accompanied
the record of a fresh unfolding to his mental eye of the need of gospel
laborers, and of his own vocation to the work. In my return I had rather
an unusual opening into the state of society, and the great want of
laborers therein; and querying with myself, By whom shall the Lord send? I
thought I felt the weight and power of the everlasting gospel upon me to
preach, so that I was willi