* * * I often wonder at the attractions so many find in merely following the multitude in their recreations. * * * Do we not sometimes find, if our honest wish is to refresh ourselves for duty, and not to escape from it, that even our rest and recreation is owned by a blessing to which one would not for all the world be strangers?  How kind was He who had welcomed back his faithful twelve from their labors for others, when He said, “Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while; for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.”  But even then they were to learn no selfish indolence, and rest was quickly laid aside to share their morsels with thousands.  If we were always His companions, did “all our hopes of happiness stay calmly at His side,” how would our sitting down to rest and rising up to toil be alike blessed!  And then, when the scene is changed, and sorrow and care become our portion, the same who was our joy in prosperity will be our refuge in adversity; and “because thou hast made the Lord thy habitation, there shall no evil befall thee.”

I write my wishes for us both; may it be thus with thee and me, and when it is well with thee, think of one who longs sometimes to know these things for herself.  But how well it is that our safety is in other hands than ours! how often, had it depended even on our continued desire for that which is good, had all been over with us!

  “Thy parents’ arms, and not thy own,
  Were those that held thee fast.”

11th Mo. 4th.  “Hunted with thoughts,” as J. Crook so truly describes it, “up and down like a partridge on the mountains,” often feeling in meeting as if nothing could be compared with the joy of resting in Jesus, a rest to which I am still much a stranger; no more able to command the mob of unquiet thoughts than to hush the winds.  At other times, as this evening in my chamber, a sort of strained anguish of soul, wherein my desire has been that my eyes might he ever toward the Lord, that He, in His own time, may pluck my feet out of the net.  The mental pain I have passed through makes some escape seem most desirable.  If to lay down the body were all I needed to escape, and I were fit for it, how willingly would I accept such an invitation!  But I dare not ask it, nor any other thing, but only that He who alone can, may make me in His own time what He would have me to be; and this evening I have been thinking that the painful feelings I suffered might be the means appointed for freeing me from the bondage of the worldly mind, and from those tormenting, hurrying thoughts.  Oh, be it so; whether by means utterly incomprehensible to me, or not, be the needful work done.  I trust the comprehension is not needed; and that the simplicity and submission which are needed may be granted me; and that still [if] my enemies be expelled, as I hope they will be by “His own arm,” (as dear J.T. said,) their presence will not be laid to my charge.  Alas, that I am so often guilty of dallying with them!  What wonder that the wilderness is so long and tortuous, when I reckon the molten calves, the murmurings, the fleshly desires?

  1st Mo. 17th, 1850.  Letter to M.B.