We laboured in the Monthly Meetings as ability was afforded, and I trust to some solid satisfaction. Dartmouth Monthly Meeting we found in the contrary extreme, though lying contiguous to Acoakset. It is a large meeting, much departed from plainness, and very little in the exercise of a living engagement for good order or reformation, either in regard to inward righteousness, or outward conduct and conversation. We had very hard work among them, but it seemed to very little good purpose. What was said to them appeared to make no more impression on some, than water spilt on a rock, which immediately runs off again, And from others it rebounded back, like an elastic ball thrown against an impenetrable substance. I am satisfied plain, close dealing is much wanting, and must be used in many places. And though it cannot be expected all will think well of it, or rightly receive it, yet as the labourers keep to truth's anointing, they will be carried through, and receive the reward of their faithfulness.

Nantucket is a pretty orderly Monthly Meeting. They exhibit outward plainness, and generally, to appearance, walk in good degree circumspectly. They have had a good deal of true gospel-preaching; the servants having been frequently sent among them. They love to hear it; and yet, it appears to me, many of them are far more in form than substance. They are too little in the true medium, wherein a living, vigorous concern for a deep indwelling in the divine life, and therein maintaining a strict discipline and good order, is united with a lively flow of extensive charity, and true christian liberality. Many of them, I fear, esteem themselves as Abraham's children, and have scarce any true sense that they ever were, or now are, in bondage. And though a few are alive in the holy root, yet too many are too well satisfied with outward regularity, and too much unacquainted with the substance of true religion. Real renovation and regeneration are too much wanting among them. They were warned of their danger, and called to a deep consideration of the necessity of a more living experience of the essentials of religion.

Before we left the island, we were relieved in mind, having endeavoured to show Friends the insufficiency and unsuitable

ness of husks, (an outside thing,) for food for man; and the necessity of gathering manna, fresh every day: for, whatever was gathered, even by themselves, in times past, will not sustain the soul to-day; much less what was gathered by their ancestors before they were born. I fear too many are striving to live on such old gatherings; and if so, it will surely breed worms, as in the camp of Israel in ancient days. I hope a little remnant of living wrestlers will wrestle till the break of day, and so obtain the blessing. May these be preserved, and their number increase.

1 fear we had too much preaching in the Quarterly Meeting. It is a very different thing to get down, and preach to the spirits in prison, from that of moving the passions. There is a vast difference between the genuine fire of the holy ghost, and all the false likenesses thereof, kindled by the warmth of man's spirit; or, as it were, brought from heaven by the false prophet, in the sight, and under the influence of the beast. Oh! that all who attempt to be mouth for the Highest, may dwell deep, and know a thorough ceasing from, and dying to, all mere self-activity, and wait in the silence of all flesh, till he comes to rule and reign, whose right it is, and whose words are spirit and life.

And O my own soul! learn thou this sacred lesson; and presume not to speak in the name of the Lord, without the word of his command. Ever wait his opening, and his assistance, to give the utterance. Then, and not till then, will thy offerings be pleasant, and acceptable to the Lord, and substantially profitable to the people.

In Sandwich Monthly Meeting my mind was impressed with a sense of a state of long continued unfaithfulness in some present, even from youth to old age. Notwithstanding many renewed visitations of divine good, great insensibility had come upon them; so that I even feared, (and had to express it,) that the day of grace was almost expired with some, unless they were soon prevailed on to repent. In the openings of life they were reminded of the precious visitations heretofore extended for their gathering; and that God's spirit would not always strive with man; that the midnight cry must ere long be heard, Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him; and that at that awful period, the lamp of profession, without the oil, would not

profitably avail them. But that "when once the good man of the house hath risen up, and shut the door," it will be in vain to stand without, knocking for an entrance, and saying, “Lord, Lord, open unto us." For that awful sentence must go forth against all the finally impenitent, "Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity, I know you not."

The business of this meeting was conducted with condescension to each other, which is ever truly commendable, and worthy the imitation of some, who highly value themselves upon more spirituality and fervency of engagement, than appeared here.

May the ministers in our society ever remember, that of themselves, without Christ, they can do nothing. May they remember and maintain the testimony of truth, against that cloud of lifeless ministry, which abounds in the nations, and is, indeed, (without breach of charity,) "a common eclipse between God and the souls of the people."

After this we attended Rochester particular meeting on firstday, and so on to Swanzey Monthly Meeting, on second-day. We were silent in the public meeting for worship there. In the meeting for discipline, we laboured for the support of good order, and had some satisfaction therein.

I got home to my dear wife and family, the 8th of the 7th month, and, finding them tolerably well, I left home next day, to attend our own Quarterly Meeting. Here I was rather too active in discipline. I have found it my business, sometimes of late, to be more inward in travail, and less active in the exercise of the wholesome rules of society, than I once was; and believe, when I have obeyed the call into this inward, still abode, and there felt my loins rightly girded, it has contributed much more to the right exercise of the discipline, than when, through a desire for its proper administration, I have, by overacting, seemed to do a good deal for its execution.

In the night, the 9th of the 8th month, there was a frost, which killed some of the vegetables, even some Indian corn. This being so very early in the year, and coming after a season of many refreshing showers, and at a time of very fair and promising prospect of plentiful crops, my mind was led into a train

of serious reflections, how the Almighty, who had thus brought forward our fields and prospects, could cut them all off; and how entirely dependant we are upon his bounty for every blessing. Were his compassions to fail, his providential aids to be withdrawn, alas! we, poor frail mortals, should soon perish.

In the 9th month, in company with my dear friend Jaazaniah Barrett, I visited Friends' families at Richmond, NewHampshire, a very distant branch of our Monthly Meeting; we were also at their meeting there on first-day. We were silent in nearly all the families, and the first-day meeting was very painful. "The Lord has covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger," in this place, because of backsliding, unfaithfulness, and earthly-mindedness. "Oh! that mine head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night, for the slain of the daughter of my people." The children are ready to fly away, and the parents, sunk into the earth, seem very much unconcerned about them. Alas! what will they answer, in the day when inquisition for blood shall be made? when inquiry shall be made for the lambs committed to their care in the wilderness, the wilderness of this wicked, tempting, and prevalently alluring world?

I thought much of the mountains of Gilboa; for it seems to me, that at Richmond, there is scarcely a drop of dew, or rain, and very little of any thing in the nature of true fields of offerings. For there indeed, "the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away. How are the weapons of war perished!" Ye daughters of Israel, weep over the desolations of Zion! I believe we viewed the mansions of the dead, in some of our silent, painful sittings among Friends in this place. At several of our meetings at Uxbridge, not long after this, I had livingly to sound an alarm among Friends; calling on them to awake, and arise from that awful lethargy, that has prevailed over too many, whose earlier days were days of divine favour and living exercise. These days they were reminded of, and as of a day of revival, which divers deceased Friends, as Samuel Fothergill, John Churchman, and others, have expressed a living foresight of. Oh! that we of the present age, may so draw near to the fountain of life, as to witness something of this blessed revival.

Previous to these late meetings, I had not, since my removal to Uxbridge, risen enough in my mind, above the depressions occasioned by the lifeless babblings that too much abound here. under the pretence of divine qualification, to utter any thing in any of our public meetings; but now, being lifted up in the pure power of eternal truth, above all that lifeless, chaffy kind of communication, my soul humbly rejoiced in the relief I obtained in these few favoured meetings.

2d of 2d month, 1784. The exercises of my mind have, for some time past, rather increased, insomuch that, for a considerable part of the time, I have felt like being in the furnace, especially in meetings, but much so out of them also. Indeed, it has felt like the power and fire of the Lord, laying hold of the remains of pride and evil in me, and burning like an oven, that is, inwardly and fervently. May all be consumed that cannot abide the fiery trial.

A number of well-concerned Friends of this Monthly Meeting, from a desire of good to themselves, and to promote the good of society, having for some time a desire to meet together, at seasons, solidly to confer together upon such subjects as might appear profitable, did, some time past, make a beginning. We have met divers times, and have been, at several of these seasons, baptized into death, or such creaturely abasement, as not to be able, for a considerable length of time, to move forward upon any subject. But as we have lain low, and been willing to be with Christ, in his depression, his agony, his death, and his burial, we have been livingly raised with him in his resurrection, into newness of divine life, and have sensibly known him to be "the resurrection and the life," to, and in our own souls. Then have we gone forward rejoicing, he going before us. Divers important matters have been the subjects of these our religious conferences. We have had much solid satisfaction in them, and a belief has been sealed on our minds, that such opportunities are very profitable, and might be highly promotive of the welfare of society, if rightly encouraged and attended, in the several Monthly Meetings; and, perhaps in some places, members from several Monthly Meetings, might usefully attend such conferences.