with an opportunity. The only advantage
seems to be, that we should thus be apparently further removed from
those troubles which seem likely to arise in the threatened attempt to
depose this Pasha; yet, on the whole, we feel we may hold on with the
Lord's blessing; but if we were once to leave our present post, it
might be very difficult again to regain it.

[23] The whole of those who took down the boats died.

The accounts brought us of the numbers of those who have died of the
plague, on this side of the river alone, in little more than one
fortnight, all agree in making it about 7000. The poor inhabitants
know not what to do: if they remain in the city, they die of the
plague; if they leave it, they fall into the hands of the Arabs, who
strip them, or they are exposed to the effects of an inundation of the
river Tigris, which has now overflown the whole country around Bagdad,
and destroyed, they say, 2000 houses on the other side of the river,
but I think this must be exaggerated; the misery of this place,
however, is now beyond expression, and may yet be expected to be much
greater. Dreadful as the outward circumstances of this people are,
their moral condition is infinitely worse; nor does there seem to be a
ray of light amidst it all. The Mohammedans look on those who die of
the plague as martyrs, and when they die there is no wailing made for
them; so that amidst all these desolations there is a stillness, that
when one knows the cause is very frightful. The Lord enables us to
feel the blessedness of the 91st Psalm, at least of the portion of
those to whom that Psalm pertains; and we have, amidst all these very
trying circumstances, a peace that passeth understanding. We feel
indeed that we owe it to our Lord's love to be careful for nothing,
neither to run or make haste as others, but to stand still and see the
salvation of our God.

There was a curious conversation going on last night, among some
Mohammedans, outside our window, relative to the plague, which they
said was an especial judgment on them and the Jews, but from which
Christ would deliver the Nazarenes, and in all these calamities, it is
remarkable how doubly heavy, they fall on these two classes. Feelings
like these, and others that we know exist, make us clear to stay where
we are in the midst of these judgments, trying as they are to natural
feeling. That which comes to the ungodly _as judgments_, comes to the
child of God, like the chariot