2. I asked the Lord that he would be pleased to deliver a certain sister in the Lord from the great spiritual depression under which she was suffering, and after three days the Lord granted my request.
3. I asked the Lord daily in his mercy to keep a sister in the Lord from insanity, who was then apparently on the border of it. I have now to record his praise, after nearly four years have passed away, that the Lord has kept her from it.
4. During this year has occurred the conversion of one of the greatest sinners that I had ever heard of in all my service for the Lord. Repeatedly I fell on my knees with his wife, and asked the Lord for his conversion, when she came to me in the deepest distress of soul, on account of the most barbarous and cruel treatment that she had received from him in his bitter enmity against her for the Lord's sake. And now the awful persecutor is converted.
5. It pleased the Lord to try my faith in a way in which before, it had not been tried. My beloved daughter was taken ill on June 20. This illness, at first a low fever, turned to typhus, and July 3 there seemed no hope of her recovery.
Now was the trial of faith, but faith triumphed. My wife and I were enabled to give her up into the hands of the Lord. He sustained us both exceedingly.
She continued very ill till about July 20, when restoration began. On August 18, she was so far restored that she could be removed to Clevedon for change of air. It was then 59 days since she was taken ill.
6. The heating apparatus of our Orphan Home unexpectedly gave out. It was the commencement of Winter. To repair the leak was a questionable matter. To put in a new boiler would in all probability take many weeks. Workmen were sent for to make repairs. But on the day fixed for repairs a bleak north wind set in."
Now came cold weather, the fire must be put out, the repairs could not be put off. Gladly would I have paid one hundred pounds if thereby the difficulty could have been overcome, and the children not be exposed to suffer for many days from living in cold rooms.
At last I determined on falling entirely into the hands of God, who is very merciful and of tender compassion. I now asked the Lord for two things, viz.: "That He would be pleased to change the north wind into a south wind, and that he would give the workmen a mind to work.
Well, the memorable day came. The evening before, the bleak north wind blew still; but on the Wednesday the south wind blew exactly as I had prayed. The weather was so mild that no fire was needed.