rd that the streets begin again to be crowded, shops
here and there to be opened, and the gardeners are bringing things
from without into the city. To think that so near the end we should
have been thus visited, how mysterious! Yet my soul says, What thou
seest not, thou shalt see. If it does but lead to my Lord's glory, I
am sure it will lead to my dear sufferer's; then why should I repine?

Water is also reduced to 1s. 3d. the skin, the price it was at before.
For these proofs of mercy to the people, we will bless God in the
midst of our own personal sorrows.

_May 14._--This day dearest Mary's ransomed spirit took its seat among
those dressed in white, and her body was consigned to the earth that
gave it birth--a dark, heavy day to poor nature, but still the Lord
was the light and stay of it.

I cannot help exceedingly blessing my heavenly Father, however these
calamities (for to nature they are such, though not to the heirs of
glory) may end that he has allowed me to continue in health so long as
to see every thing done I could have desired, and so infinitely more
than I could have expected, for her whom I have so much reason to
love.

_May 15, 16._--I have heard to-day that the French Roman Catholic
Archbishop of Babylon has been dead a long time, and two of his
priests, and the remaining two fled. The poor schoolmaster's wife is
dying, and our servant I trust, recovering: the rest of our household
within and without, thank God, all continue in good health--even dear
little baby, though rather cross from want of amusement, and from her
teeth.

They say new cases of plague have almost entirely disappeared; may the
Lord grant its speedy disappearance altogether. We have had no
intelligence from the Taylors since their departure, which makes us
very anxious. As the waters are decreasing, the relics of those
families which fled are returning; and, in numberless cases, out of
eighteen in a family who left, only one or two return. The others died
in the greatest misery and destitution of all things, distressed by
the plague, the water, and scarcity, and the air in all the roads was
tainted from the immense number of dead bodies lying by the way.

I feel to-day many symptoms similar to those with which my dearest
Mary's illness commenced--pains in the head and heaviness, pains in
the back, and shooting pains through the glands and the arms. At
another time I should think only of them as the result of a common
cold