d indivisible: if
Christ be not glorified, he gains nothing; but if he be but exalted,
he has his rich reward.
_June 28._ _Thursday._--There seems just sufficient strength in this
wretched country to destroy itself: it has long lost the power of
attacking its enemies with success, it has also lost the power of
resistance against their attacks, neither can it longer stand without
external support: there seems just sufficient power left to commit
suicide. In this pashalic, though the Sultan cannot without extreme
difficulty remove the Pasha, yet he effectually destroys its
prosperity;--he ruins the merchant, he encourages every species of
robbery, so that frequently, as at present, not a shop dare be opened
but for the simplest necessaries. Nor does it operate against the
prosperity of this city only, but all the trade of which this was a
sort of intermediate place of transit between India, Mosul, Merdin,
Damascus, and Aleppo, as well as on the other side from Europe, is so
far interrupted, for not a merchant will now venture his goods across
the desert. All attachment too seems entirely destroyed between the
head and the members of the empire. ---- was with me to-day,
who, speaking on the state of the Pashalic said, If the Sultan will
let us have Daoud Pasha well, we neither want the Sultan nor a
stranger; but we would rather put ourselves under the English, and let
them govern as they do in Hindoostan. This feeling is exceedingly
general, and in looking forward to the downfall of the empire, they
seem quite to consider this country as the portion which will fall to
England, and speak of it openly as a thing they desire. This arises
from their hearing so much of our government in India.
_June 29._--My dear little baby has had an attack of purulent
ophthalmia, which gives me much anxiety; for three or four days she
had been recovering a little, when this trying attack seized her dear
little eyes; she was quite unable to open either of them.
My mind has been much exercised these two days by reflections on the
ease with which the soul is taken off from living in Christ. In
prosperity, we are occupied with plans; in adversity, with our
sorrows; in missionary labour, in preparation for what we intend to do
for the Lord, and even in our very times of danger we are constantly
exposed to the temptation of looking for relief to circumstances,
rather than to the Lord of circumstances--to the love of the Lord of
life. May th
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