That interview I
shall never forget; he talked to me out of the overflowings of a heart
devoted to Christ, and left me pining for more extended enjoyment of
Christian society. I was not long ungratified; within three days an
unexpected summons took me to Dublin, and on the very evening of my
arrival Mr. D---- introduced me to a party of about thirty pious
friends, assembled to meet a missionary just returned from Russia.
Remember these were the frank, unrestrained, warmhearted Irish, of all
people the most ready at expressing their zealous and generous feelings;
and imagine, if you can, my enjoyment, after such a long season of
comparative loneliness, when they came about me with the affectionate
welcome that none can utter and look so eloquently as they can. I
thought it a foretaste of heavenly blessedness; and yet I often longed
for those seasons when I had none but my God to commune with, and poured
out to him all that now I found it delightful to utter to my fellow-
creatures. Then, my tabernacle was indeed pitched in the wilderness, and
the candle of the Lord shone brightly upon it; now, the blending of many
inferior lights distracted my mind from its one object of contemplation,
and broke the harmony that was so sweet in its singleness.
A few months after this, the lawsuit being ended, my husband was ordered
abroad. I declined to cross the Atlantic a second time, and from this
period I became chiefly dependent on my own exertions.
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