will I
suffer, let it not be in acting against my convictions of his holy and
blessed will, for though I feel as a sheep in the midst of wolves, the
Lord does not allow my heart to be disturbed with any sense of
personal insecurity. How beautifully all our blessed Lord's precepts
hang together, and fit the one the other; if your consent to follow
him in his poverty as he has commanded, you have little to fear in
following his other commands of non-resistance: if you accept not the
first, you will not accept the second, except in such circumstances as
expose you to perhaps little comparative danger. May the Lord make me
willing, whatever it costs, to learn all his will, and give me grace
to love it. I have heard such instances to-day of hateful and
abominable oppression and wickedness against the poor Christians, by
the followers of those who have the name of rulers within the city,
that my heart aches, and my soul loathes the place. But what can we
expect, when these very persons robbed last night the house of Saleh
Beg, himself from whom they receive their pay.

A little butter and some sheep have been brought into the city; but
they ask so enormous a price, that they have not yet been bought.

I was struck with the quickness with which the mind apprehends the
simple truth of God when unprejudiced by interest. I have, without
even speaking contemptuously to the Christians of their fasting, taken
various opportunities of expressing the liberty of a Christian to fast
in such a way, and at such times, as he believes most conducive to his
soul's advantage; and have pointed out to them, that to lay the stress
on it they do, was quite perverting the very end and design of
fasting; for that they are manifestly less afraid of violating
Christ's commands than their own regulations, which, as they used
them, were purely human. To-day, a question arose between two of them
in my presence, about their fasts; and the one stated as clearly as
could be wished, the uselessness of burthening their consciences about
eating a little butter instead of oil, or such like, instead of
seeking to flee from their lies, and drunkenness, and robbery, and
cheating. There seems to me such a glorious moral power in God's word,
that my heart never doubts of its producing marked effects, where it
can be clearly and fully delivered; but, oh, the language, what a
mountainous barrier!

Last night, whilst lying on my bed, on the roof of my house, five