This has been a heavy day with my poor heart, so slow a scholar am I under my dear Master’s teaching. Yet I feel he will fill me with his own most blessed presence, and then I shall be able to bear easily all other bereavements. How strange it is that feeling should rule with so much more power than principle, over the happiness of the soul, even when the spirit still imparts strength to direct the conduct aright. The feelings seize on the slightest recollection; and oh, what fuel have they when every thing in the minutest daily occurrences, every thing in the events passing around us, at once come directly on the heart and press upon it; and when there is not a soul near, not only not to supply all that is lost, but not even a portion of it, and yet notwithstanding all this, that now weighs on me, I feel the Lord himself will be yet more to me than all I have lost. I feel I have been skimming too much on the surface of Christianity instead of being clothed with Christ. Oh! what a child am I in the life of faith, but I feel the Lord has my poor soul in his training, and though the discipline may seem severe, it is only the severity of uncompromising love.
May 20.—This has been a day of mercies at the hand of the Most High. For a day or two past, I had observed a little dust falling through a creak in the wall, and although on any other occasion, it would have excited no anxiety; yet, knowing the cellars were full of water, I thought it better this morning early to take out all our things from this room; it was our own, mine and dear Mary’s, and therefore contained all we had of clothing, &c.; the dear little boys and the servant were helping me, and we had not finished taking out the last things above ten minutes, when the whole arch on which the room was built gave way—our little stock of things and ourselves being all safe. Oh! my soul, bless the Lord who watcheth over the ways of his children.
Oh! how easy it is to kiss our dear and loving Father’s hand when he turns bright providences towards us. How easy, then, it is to praise! but I feel my dearest teacher is teaching me the hardest lesson to kiss the hand that wounds, to bless the hand that pours out sorrow, and to submit, with all my soul, though I see not a ray of light. Oh, thou holy and blessed Spirit, come and help thy poor wayward scholar, who indeed would not entertain a hard thought of his dear and loving Father. Through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom; therefore, blessed Lord, prepare me for thy service. I am a poor inexperienced soldier; clothe me with the whole armour of God, that my soul may praise in the darkest day. All but myself are quite well, and my indisposition seems only at present a little weakness, which perhaps the exertions of removing the things from our room to-day, and all the painful associations connected with it, has this evening a little increased: but the Lord is very pitiful, and says, Ask what you will of my Father, and he will give it you. Dear Lord, fill me with thyself, that there may be no more room for the grief of any creature. Thou, and thy Father, and the blessed Spirit, one eternal God alone, are eternally a satisfying portion.
I am very anxious about the poor schoolmaster: should he die, he will be the last of our teachers; three are already dead, and he alone remains.—Oh, my Lord, my soul desires to wait on thee for light, and to remember Mizar and Hermon—days when the sun shone upon our path; but the frost may be as necessary to bring the cover to full perfection as the genial sun and showers. Dear Husbandman, do thine own will, only make us bear much fruit, that thou mayest be glorified.
May 21.—Last night thieves endeavoured three times to force an outer door, but did not succeed—the whole city is swarming with them.
To-day the Pasha of Mosul is come to Bagdad; what it portends we know not; but the Lord reigneth, therefore let the Saints rejoice; they can only accomplish his will who is our Father and our God.
I have to-day sent off a messenger to Major T. to Bussorah, may he quickly return with good tidings of them all. To-day I have also heard of a caravan proposing to go to Aleppo. Every account we have of the plague confirms its almost entire disappearance. Our walking now is altogether by faith: we see not a ray of light for the future, but the Lord will let light spring out of darkness, so that his servants who wait upon him shall not always mourn. Oh how different a thing faith is in a cloudy and dark day, and when all things smile around. I had intentionally renounced the world, yet the Lord saw that I held more of it than I knew in the dear object he has removed. In England, where I had many dear Christian friends, she was my constant companion; but here she was on earth all I had left—my sorrows, my hopes, my fears, she shared and bore them all. I feel Christ my Lord has in store for me in himself some great and special good in exchange for all this, but my poor weak faithless heart does not yet see the way of his going forth.
Miriam is most kind to my sweet little helpless babe.
May 22.—Our dear Lord said to his sorrowing disciples, You have heard how I said unto you, I go away and come again unto you. If ye loved me ye would rejoice because I said I go unto the Father, that is, if you loved me above the enjoyment of my society and help, ye would rejoice; how hard this is: as it was true of the departing head, so it is true of every member, and yet I feel my selfish heart constantly forgetting that true love which under the crucifixion of all one’s own feelings can truly rejoice at the happiness of an object beloved, even at this expense.
This has again been an anxious day. Dear Henry complained this morning of a swelling under his ear, or rather under the angle of the jaw, where there was on feeling it, an evidently enlarged gland; however, to the praise of the Lord’s great grace, it is evidently passing away without any general attack on the constitution. I really believe the Holy Ghost is making these events instrumental in working a deep sense on the minds of the dearest boys of the importance of their souls; there is a concern about religion, a willingness to talk about it I have not before observed. Oh, may the Lord’s blessed spirit water these seeds till they become plants of renown, to the glory of our own Lord’s great name.