"But with father the fact of presence, real meeting, actual talk, seemed more engrossing than the thing talked. Oh that I had a really grateful heart to the Lord for these His mercies!" _7th_. [Alluding to a meeting at Devonshire House.] It is, indeed, "looking not at the things which are seen," when we really accept with equal, nay, with greater, joy, His will to speak by the little as by the great, or by His Spirit only, when communion of truth is preferred to communication of the true. _5th Mo. 29th_. And now that my London experience is over, as to meetings, preachings, prayers, what, oh, what is the result on this immortal spirit of mine, which has on this occasion been brought, as it were, in _contact_ with some of the honorable and anointed messengers, with that which is good? And yet it is possible that contact may not produce _penetration_, and that _penetration_ may not produce _assimilation_. I can unhesitatingly say, the first and second have been produced; but then these are but transactions of the time, not abiding transformations; and if these are all? But, surely, it cannot be; surely, when my heart melted within me, especially on Second-day morning, and I heard the word "and anon with joy received it," some depth of central stone was fused into softness; some actual change, effected, that I might not have altogether "no root" in myself. Sometimes predominated a fear that intellectual interest interfered with spiritual simple reception of good, that _this_ would vanish when _that_ was over; sometimes the responsibility of being thus ministered to was truly a weighty thought; for never more than on that morning did I so understand, "Go preach, baptizing." Sometimes I thought that God had indeed brought me to this Yearly Meeting to make me then and there his own; and when I heard of passing by transgressions as a cloud, I was ready to think my own were indeed dissolving as one. I felt strongly the superiority of religion to every other thing, not merely for its external aim, God, but for its internal power on self, how these masterpieces of the human creation were not only made the most of by religion, but that _it_ alone can make any thing of the _whole man_. How strongly do we feel, when with a clever, talented, irreligious man, that he has a latent class of moral powers which have not been called into action, that on this point he may be inferior to the veriest child; but God, who has made man for himself, has made in every man a royal chamber, for himself spiritually to dwell in; and if this be not reappropriated to him, (which is religion,) his capacity for the Divine is not exercised, and he is not only not made the most of, but his best nature is not even made use of. What a privilege to have intercourse with those in whom the very reverse is the case! What a stimulus to the little mind, to