8th Mo. 24th.  The great parting is over:  the love and mercy of our heavenly Father sustained my dearest father and mother beyond expectation.  On this occasion, when I have been helped back from a sad, lone wandering on barren mountains, I may learn, more deeply than ever before, the safety, the sweetness, of dwelling in the valley of humiliation.  Oh, let me dwell there long and low enough.  I ask not high enjoyments nor rapturous delights; but I ask, I pray, when I can pray at all, for quiet, watchful, trustful dependence upon my Saviour.

8th Mo. 27th.  We have had a ride in the country this afternoon, and during a solitary walk of a mile and a half I had very sweet feelings.  Jesus seemed so near to me and so kind that I could hardly but accept of him.  But then there seemed some dark misgivings at the same time; as if I had an account to settle up first,—­something I must do myself; the free full grace seemed too easy and gratis to accept of.  But all this I found was a mistake.  I thought of the lines—­

    “He gives our sins a full discharge;
      He crowns and saves us too,”

  and of a remark I had seen somewhere, “Look at
  Calvary, and wilt thou say that thy sins are easily
  passed by?”

This evening in my andachtzimmer,[1] I wished to pray in spirit; but not a petition arose that I could offer.  I felt so blind, and yet so peaceful, that all merged into the confiding language, Father, Thy will be done!

  [Footnote 1:  Devotional retirement.]

9th Mo. 2d.  On First-day, the twenty-first, I had a great struggle on the old poetry-writing question.  I had written none since the great fight last winter; but now to my dearest father I ventured to write, thinking I had got over the danger of it.  But when all was written, I was forced to submit to the mortification of not sending it.  The relief I felt was indescribable, and I hope to get thus entoiled no more.  My scruple is not against poetry, but I cannot write it without getting over-possessed by it.  Therefore it is no more than a reasonable peace-offering to deny myself of it. * * * “And now, Lord, what wait I for?” Enable me to say, “My hope is in thee.”  It seems as if the path would be a narrow one; but, oh, “make thy way straight before my face;” and, having enabled me, I trust, to give some things to “the moles and to the bats,” leave me not till I have learned “to count all things but loss, for the excellency of Christ Jesus my Lord.”

The following is the unfinished piece just alluded to:—­

  TO HER FATHER IN AMERICA.

  And thus it was, as drew the moments nearer
    That stamp’d their record deep oil every heart;
  As day by day thy presence grew yet dearer,
    By how much sooner thou shouldst hence depart.

  Love wept indeed, though she might seem a sleeper,
    Long ere descending tears the signs betray’d;
  And the heart’s fountain was but so much deeper,
    The longer was its overflow delay’d.