been considering the works and doings of the Lord, and many of them
have been renewed in my memory by the scenes I have passed through.

"I visited the seat of my juvenile years with my dear and only
brother. There I recollected the days of my vanity, and the Lord's
patience and long-suffering; my repenting, my returning, his
pardoning, his blessing; my backslidings, his stripes and
chastisements, his restoring and recovering, yea, many and many times.
There, too, I found my old acquaintances no more; most of them had
finished their course under the sun; some I could still clasp in the
arms of faith, as united to the glorious Head, and now singing the
song of Moses and the Lamb. From the idea of others, I was obliged to
turn away and say, 'The Judge of all the earth shall do right.'

"I recollected a lowly cottage, where lived a pious father,
mother, two daughters, and a son; where the voice of prayer seldom
ceased, the voice of complaint was seldom heard: not one stone
remained upon another; only the bushes which surrounded it, and the
ruins of a little garden, the seat of secret communion of each with
their God in turn; for one little earth-floored place was all their
house-convenience, and in the winter's storm their little cow-house,
built under the same humble roof, was their secret temple. I found
three had gone to glory: of the other two I could learn no tidings;
but I shall see them one day in very different mansions. I saw others
spreading like a green bay-tree, adding field to field, and dwelling
alone, servants and dependents excepted.

"I saw my father's cottage, in the day when the Lord pressed
him down, and the place where my dear glorified-mother poured out
many prayers for me and mine; my own retirement too, after the