llingness of our heavenly Father to enable His
children to serve Him. He made them for that end:
it is His will that they should do so. It cannot be
that He will refuse them the indispensable assistance.
How sweet was this feeling! but hurry, and too much
care about little things, sadly dissipated me in the
day. This evening I have had a gracious gift of
some of those _Sabbath_ feelings again, after reading
the seventeenth chapter of Jeremiah. The verses
referring to the Sabbath-day, and bearing no burden
therein, were solemnly instructive. The utter inability
of my natural heart to attain or retain such a
state shows me the necessity of all being done for
me through faith in Divine power, "His name,
through faith in His name." Oh for watchfulness
unto prayer continually, and that the cumber of
earth may be cast away! "Take heed that your
flight be not in the winter," has been my watchword,
though how imperfectly obeyed! and if, through
infinite mercy, the season be changing, if He who
has faithfully kept me from utter death there-through
is beginning to give me more of rest, oh,
let me never forget the solemn addition, "neither on
the Sabbath day."
_6th Mo. 13th_. * * * I wish now to record
the very solemn and encouraging visit of James
Jones from America to our meeting this day. How
wondrously did he speak of trials and afflictions, and
the necessity of entire resignation through all!
Though oceans of discouragement and mountains of
difficulty loom up before thee, thou wilt be brought
through the depths dry-shod, and be enabled to
adopt the language, "What ailed thee, O thou sea,
that thou fleddest, and ye mountains, that ye skipped
like rams?" Thou wilt be "led through green pastures,
and beside still waters," speaking of the call
to service in the Church, which he believed was to
some in an especial manner in the early stages of
life. I heard all; but such was my dejection that I
seemed to _receive_ little, though I could not but feel
the power. I seemed incapable of taking either
hope or instruction to myself. J.J. left us after
dinner, and, on taking leave, took my hand in a very
solemn manner, and, after a few minutes silence,
said, tenderly, but authoritatively, "If the mantle
falls on thee, wear;" words which will long live
in my heart. Would that the power which sent
them may fulfil them! None other can.
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