oves, that I really had peace, or
confidence, or strength. And if in any measure I have been able to
walk on with joy in the ways of the Lord, it has been from the
manifestation of _his_ love, and not from the abstract sense of what
is right, nor from the fear of punishment." This was the theme of her
daily praise--the love and graciousness of her Lord; and I can set my
seal, though with a comparatively feeble impression, to the same
truths, that the sense of the love of Christ is the high road to walk
in according to the law of Christ.
_June 9._--I have heard from a German merchant, Mr. Swoboda, that
above 15,000 persons, many sick with the plague, and others, were
buried under the ruins of the houses that fell in the night the water
burst into the city. Nothing can give a more awful impression of the
mass of misery then in the city, than that such an event, which at
another time, would have called forth every exertion to remove the
sufferers, and have been the universal conversation and lamentation of
the city, passed by without any effort to relieve them, and almost
without a word of remark, but from those immediately connected with
the sufferers. I hear that those who have closed their houses intend
opening them on the 18th inst. I bless God for the intelligence; and
trust the plague has quite left us. Mr. Swoboda tells me he does not
expect to open his khan again for 12 months;--this, however, does not
arise simply from the plague, but because the rich merchants have all
left the city, and the principal Jews, from the apprehension of the
coming of Ali Pasha from Aleppo, and that in consequence trade is at a
stand.
_June 10._--Last evening the guns of the citadel fired as for some
good news, and we find, on enquiring, that a messenger has come from
the Sultan, confirming the Pasha in his Pashalic.[33] The Tartars, who
are the bearers of this intelligence, are expected to enter to-morrow
or next day. This arrangement, it is reported, has been brought about
by our Ambassador at Constantinople.--Should it be the Lord's pleasure
that we now have a little peace and quietness here, it will be a great
mercy, and an inconceivable relief from the disquietude of the last
18 months; however, the Lord knows what is best for us. These
difficulties have led my heart many times to him, when, perhaps, but
for them, it would have rested on some lower object. This prospect of
peace seems to bring nearer the possibility of our dea
|