more the preciousness of
such a salvation as the Gospel of Jesus provides for the sinner, than
when I was as I thought, just entering eternity, to plead it as the
ground of my hope before God. There seemed such simplicity in having
only to believe you were redeemed by his love, and should be eternally
preserved by the same, instead of having to do with weighing the sum
of your beggarly services, all of which one hates now, and oh, how
shall we hate them when we see him face to face. May our dear Lord
make the promise he made to his disciples, good to my poor bereaved
heart, and come himself and fill it with his fulness, that having him
I may indeed feel I have all things.

_May 18._--Our poor servant died last night, notwithstanding our hopes
of her recovery, and has left one little orphan boy of seven years old
with us. Oh that I could think of her transition from hence to
eternity, and contemplate her, as the Lord to my unspeakable comfort
allows me to contemplate my dear, dear wife, dwelling in the light of
her Lord's countenance, where there is fulness of joy for evermore.

The schoolmaster has just told me, that out of forty relations, he has
now only four--the rest have all been swept away. The accounts we have
of the misery, in which many of these died who endeavoured to fly, is
truly heart-rending; with the water nearly half a yard high in their
tents, without victuals or the means of seeking or buying any, they
suffered every privation and misery that can be imagined, and one poor
family which has returned, described the intense desire they had to
return and die quietly in their houses. But return they could not, for
the waters had so risen that there was no road, and no boats could be
obtained, but at an immense price, which a few only could pay, and
very few obtain even at any price.

Oh! how many alleviations to the trials of parting with those we
loved, the Lord allowed us in permitting us to see them surrounded by
every comfort they could want, and with every attendance that could
alleviate a moment's uneasiness.

From the Taylors at Bussorah we have yet heard no accounts, and are
therefore most anxious to know how the Lord has been moving among
them. I have just heard that orders have come from Stamboul,[31] to
the Pashas marching against this Pasha, to desire them to return, and
that another messenger is on the way from Stamboul to bring his
annual dress of investiture. Should it be really thus, our