On arriving at Dresden, it became evident that Martha Yeardley, who had, suffered much for some time from an affection of the windpipe, required repose and medical care; and they concluded to rest awhile at the baths of Toeplitz.  The illness of his wife, and some degree of bodily indisposition from which he himself suffered, did not prevent John Yeardley from employing the time in the diffusion of evangelical truth.

He had heard at Berlin that within a few months several hundred Bibles and Testaments had been sent into Bohemia, and had been eagerly bought there by awakened persons.  He thought that if a translation could be made into the Bohemian language of some simple religious tracts, much good might be done by their dissemination; but he supposed that the intolerant laws of the Austrian Empire, which forbad all freedom of religious action, were still in full force.  His account of his feelings and those of Martha Yeardley under the burden which this supposition imposed on them, and of the agreeable manner in which permission was unexpectedly granted them to print and circulate their little messengers of peace, must be given in his own words:—­

Our hearts yearned towards the people, but we were afraid to give them tracts, which in other places had often been the means to conversation and to making acquaintance.  This brought us low in mind; the body was already weak enough before.  We thought it would not do to pass through the country in this state of depression, without trying to remove the cause.  I went, therefore, the next morning to the head of the authorities, took with me one of our little tracts, mostly Scripture extracts, and asked whether I might be allowed to have the little book, or such as I then presented to him, printed for circulation.  He received me politely, indeed kindly, and looked pleased with my tract, saying as be turned over its innocent little pages, Ah, nothing about politics; nothing against the religion of the country:  it is very good, it is beautiful.  You are quite at liberty to print and circulate such tracts as these.  And when he found that the object was to do good to all, without cost to the receiver, he said, That is lovely.—­(Letter of 6 mo. 23.)

The Bohemian translations were not made until J. and M. Y. went to Prague, which they did on the 22nd.  Their feelings on entering this city, and the manner in which they were helped in their work of love, are described in the following diaries:—­

6 mo. 23.—­Last evening we arrived at Prague.  Our heart sunk on approaching this great city.  The twenty-eight statues of saints, &c. on the bridge, with the many lamps devoted to these images, the crucifixes, &c., all indicated that superstition rages rampant.