_May 26._--To-day, thank God, all our household are tolerably well.--All accounts from without say the plague is ended. May the Lord grant it!
_May 27._--My dear baby still very poorly. Dear Lord, I commit this tender delicate flower to thy loving gracious keeping. Oh my God, my soul has been much cast down within me; but thou hast enabled me to remember thee from the land of Jordan, and the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar. O Lord, only let thy love appear shining through the clouds that surround me, and my soul will rejoice; it is only when the adversary prevails so far as to say, He loves thee not, that my soul is overwhelmed within me; for if I have not the Lord, whom have I? for vile and worthless as all my manifestations of love have been, cold and dead as all my worship, low and doubting as all my confidence has been, yet Lord, all my desire is to love thee better and serve thee more singally, who art infinitely worthy of all love and all service. How strong our tower seems till the Lord blow upon its foundations, and then much that looked so fair, flies like the chaff of the summer threshing floor, and meet it is, if the immoveable parts of Christ's own building be found to connect the poor fluttering soul with the Rock of Ages. Oh may my soul drink daily more and more deeply into that spirit of adoption and love, and assurance of the Lord's favour, that gilded the last year of my dear, dear Mary's life.--Lord, I feel I am a very child; but Lord, lead thou me by thine own right hand. Oh my heart longs for Christian communion--some one to whom I can talk of Jesus and his ways, and with whom I may take counsel; yet it now seems as though many months must elapse before our dear friends can come from Aleppo, but the Lord knows what is best, and to him we leave all our cares, and the providing for all our necessities. I pray the Lord to pour down his Holy Spirit upon my poor heart, and strengthen it for trials. It was one of my dearest Mary's greatest comforts, as it has been mine, to know so many of those who were dear to the Lord, and had purposed wholly to follow him, were praying for our guidance and welfare;--this used to be in our evening walks, on the roof of our house, a theme of thanksgiving, and used daily to draw out our hearts to the Lord for the continual dew of his blessing upon them. Oh when they hear of all the Lord's dealing, may their spirits be stirred up within them to pray that I may be filled with him who filleth all in all. I long to love my Eternal God--Father, Son, and Spirit, more with all my undivided heart; the coldness of my love--the lowness of my desires is my abiding sorrow.