I cannot help exceedingly blessing my heavenly Father, however these calamities (for to nature they are such, though not to the heirs of glory) may end that he has allowed me to continue in health so long as to see every thing done I could have desired, and so infinitely more than I could have expected, for her whom I have so much reason to love.
May 15, 16.—I have heard to-day that the French Roman Catholic Archbishop of Babylon has been dead a long time, and two of his priests, and the remaining two fled. The poor schoolmaster’s wife is dying, and our servant I trust, recovering: the rest of our household within and without, thank God, all continue in good health—even dear little baby, though rather cross from want of amusement, and from her teeth.
They say new cases of plague have almost entirely disappeared; may the Lord grant its speedy disappearance altogether. We have had no intelligence from the Taylors since their departure, which makes us very anxious. As the waters are decreasing, the relics of those families which fled are returning; and, in numberless cases, out of eighteen in a family who left, only one or two return. The others died in the greatest misery and destitution of all things, distressed by the plague, the water, and scarcity, and the air in all the roads was tainted from the immense number of dead bodies lying by the way.
I feel to-day many symptoms similar to those with which my dearest Mary’s illness commenced—pains in the head and heaviness, pains in the back, and shooting pains through the glands and the arms. At another time I should think only of them as the result of a common cold; but now I know not how to discriminate, the beginnings are so similar. Should these be my last lines in this journal, I desire to ascribe all praise to the sovereign grace and unspeakable love of my heavenly Father, who, from before the foundation of the world, set his eye of redeeming love on me in the person of his dear and well-beloved Son. I bless God for all the way he has led me; and vile and wretched sinner as I feel I am, unworthily as I have in all my life served him, yet I feel he has translated the affections of my inmost soul from earth to heaven, from the creature to himself. As to the dear, dear helpless children, I have committed them to his love, with the full assurance that if he transplants me from hence to himself, to join the partner of my earthly history, he will provide them much, yea, very much better than I, or ten thousand fathers could do. To his love and promises, then, in Christ Jesus, I leave them; and strange and wonderful as his dealings appear, he has made my soul to acquiesce in them. To all the family of the redeemed of the Lord, especially those I know, I entreat you let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ; always abound in his most holy work, for you know your labour is not in vain in the Lord. Be as those who wait for their Lord with your lamp trimmed, for shortly he who shall come will come, and will not tarry. My soul embraces those I especially knew with all its powers, and desires for them that Christ may exceedingly be glorified in them, and by them, amen, and amen.
May 17.—To-day the fever has almost entirely left me, so that I feel a very little, except weakness, but never can I sufficiently praise God for the experience of yesterday. I certainly never expected again to have written in this journal, and few circumstances could have apparently presented themselves more trying to the heart, to have the prospect of soon leaving in a city like Bagdad, at this time, three helpless children, and the impossibility of making those provisions for them, which at another time might have been comparatively easy, seemed altogether more than the heart could support; yet so abundantly did the Lord allow his love to pass before me, so fully did he assure me of his loving care, that I felt no doubt for them—and, for myself, the prospect of soon joining him was specially exhilarating. He allowed me to see my free and full forgiveness and acceptance, and I never felt more the preciousness of such a salvation as the Gospel of Jesus provides for the sinner, than when I was as I thought, just entering eternity, to plead it as the ground of my hope before God. There seemed such simplicity in having only to believe you were redeemed by his love, and should be eternally preserved by the same, instead of having to do with weighing the sum of your beggarly services, all of which one hates now, and oh, how shall we hate them when we see him face to face. May our dear Lord make the promise he made to his disciples, good to my poor bereaved heart, and come himself and fill it with his fulness, that having him I may indeed feel I have all things.
May 18.—Our poor servant died last night, notwithstanding our hopes of her recovery, and has left one little orphan boy of seven years old with us. Oh that I could think of her transition from hence to eternity, and contemplate her, as the Lord to my unspeakable comfort allows me to contemplate my dear, dear wife, dwelling in the light of her Lord’s countenance, where there is fulness of joy for evermore.
The schoolmaster has just told me, that out of forty relations, he has now only four—the rest have all been swept away. The accounts we have of the misery, in which many of these died who endeavoured to fly, is truly heart-rending; with the water nearly half a yard high in their tents, without victuals or the means of seeking or buying any, they suffered every privation and misery that can be imagined, and one poor family which has returned, described the intense desire they had to return and die quietly in their houses. But return they could not, for the waters had so risen that there was no road, and no boats could be obtained, but at an immense price, which a few only could pay, and very few obtain even at any price.
Oh! how many alleviations to the trials of parting with those we loved, the Lord allowed us in permitting us to see them surrounded by every comfort they could want, and with every attendance that could alleviate a moment’s uneasiness.
From the Taylors at Bussorah we have yet heard no accounts, and are therefore most anxious to know how the Lord has been moving among them. I have just heard that orders have come from Stamboul,[31] to the Pashas marching against this Pasha, to desire them to return, and that another messenger is on the way from Stamboul to bring his annual dress of investiture. Should it be really thus, our dear friends may soon be here from Aleppo; it would indeed be a great comfort; but the Lord regards, in this dispensation, our real advantage more than our sensible comfort, we therefore desire to leave all to his Holy, gracious ordering, who, though he orders all things after the counsel of his own free will, has no will towards us, but that we should be filled with the fulness of Christ, and be conformed to his image.
May 19.—The water to-day has again fallen considerably in price, and as far as we can judge, God has mercifully nearly extinguished this desolating plague. I now feel quite satisfied the attack I had the other day was an attack of the plague, though very slight. The schoolmaster, yesterday, was attacked in the same way with a pain in his back and head, and a pain in his glands, one of which is decidedly enlarged, but still it is very slight, and I trust to-morrow, with the Lord’s blessing, to see him, with the exception of weakness, well again. We are, thank God, all well; the only thing I now suffer from is weakness and pain in the glands and under the arm, but there is no enlargement, and I trust in a day or two it will go entirely away. I heard, to-day, the Pasha had been ill of the plague this week; it is now reported he is dead; but we know nothing certain. One of his sons is also dead.