gain, if He favours me (and oh! may He do it), I shall go from
strength to strength, and I and the saints in Bristol shall have
abundant reason to praise God for this my illness.

Jan. 15. I have had since yesterday afternoon less suffering in my
head than for the last eight days! though it is even now far from
being well. I have still an inward assurance, on account of the
spiritual blessings which the Lord has granted to me, that through
this affliction He is only purifying me for His blessed service, and
that I shall be soon restored to the work.---Today, also, God has
continued to me fervency of spirit, which I have now enjoyed for
three days following. He has today, also, drawn out my soul into much
real communion with Himself, and into holy desires to be more
conformed to His dear Son. When God gives a spirit of prayer, how
easy then to pray! Nevertheless it was given to me in the use of the
means, as I fell on my knees last Saturday, to read His Word with
meditation, and to turn it into prayer. Today I spent about three
hours in prayer over Ps. lxiv. and lxv. In reference to that precious
word! "O thou that hearest prayer," (Ps. lxv. 2.) I asked the Lord
the following petitions, and entreated Him to record them in heaven
and to answer them.

1. That He would give me grace to glorify Him by a submissive and
patient spirit under my affliction.

2. That, as I was enabled now, and only now from my heart, to praise
God for this affliction, He would not remove His hand from me, until
He had qualified me for His work more than I have been hitherto.

3. That He would be pleased to grant, that the work of conversion,
through the instrumentality of brother Craik and myself, might not
cease, but go on as much now as when we first came to Bristol, yea,
more abundantly than even then.

4. That He would be pleased to give more real spiritual prosperity to
the church under our care, than ever we have as yet enjoyed.

5. Having praised Him for the sale of so many copies of my Narrative
in so short a time, I entreated Him to cause every copy to be
disposed of.

6. I asked Him to continue to let His rich blessing rest upon this
little work, and more abundantly, so that many may be converted
through it, and many of the children of God truly benefited by it;
and that thus I might now be speaking through it, though laid aside
from active service.

7. I asked Him for His blessing, in the way of conversion, to rest
upon the