The friends appointed to arrange the visits, says J.Y., have done so with willingness and efficiency, and we have, I believe, the help of their spirits.  In passing from house to house, we are made sensible of our inability to render aid to others unassisted by the Spirit of our Divine Master.  Wherever we have gone we have been received with kindness and Christian cordiality; and in thus being permitted to mingle our feelings with those who are bound up with us in religious profession, we feel sweet peace and comfort, and our hearts are filled with thankfulness to the Lord, that he has enabled us to do that which we believe he put in our hearts.

They returned the minute which had been granted them for this service on the 6th of the First Month.  Many who read this Memoir will remember how the tidings of the death of Joseph John Gurney, who suddenly expired on the 5th, spread through the Society, and produced wherever it came an impression of sorrowful but heavenly solemnity.  The event is referred to in the notice of this meeting which is contained in the Diary.

The meeting for worship was particularly solemn.  The spirit of our dear departed friend J.J.G. seemed present with us.  The event had impressed our minds with the awful uncertainty of time.  My dear M.Y. ministered to our comfort, and so did dear ——.  I was constrained, under a sense that the Lord had withdrawn many laborers from his vineyard, to lift up a prayer for the remnant that is left, to crave prosperity for the blessed work of grace in the hearts of all present, and to ask for more devotedness to the Lord’s cause.

The next day they received intelligence of the decease of one of their Scarborough friends, whose dying words are worthy to be preserved in lasting remembrance.

1 mo. 7.—­On returning from meeting we found a letter informing us of the sudden decease of Isaac Stickney of Scarborough.  When the doctor attempted to give him brandy in his sinking state, he said, Doctor, don’t cloud my intellect; if this be dying, I die in the arms of Jesus.  These last words of my beloved and long-known friend are sweetly consoling to my spirit.

In the Second Month of 1848, John Yeardley again prepared to go forth and preach the Gospel in several countries on the Continent of Europe.  He was accompanied by his beloved wife, partly in the character of a fellow-laborer, constrained by the force of Christian love to the same field of service, and partly as his companion and helper in countries where she did not otherwise feel herself called to labor.  The course of their anticipated travel is described in the following extract from the Diary.  They were unable, as it proved, to obtain admission into the Russian Empire; and this part of the mission was accomplished by John Yeardley alone, and at a later period.