_8th Mo. 5th. 7th-Day_. I must in thankfulness record free and great mercies this week. First-day was a happy one. In the morning rain and a cough kept me at home. I read the crucifixion and resurrection in different Evangelists, and cannot tell how meltingly sweet it was. Surely I did love Jesus then because He had first loved me. Sundry sweet refreshing brooks have flowed by my wayside, and some dry lonely paths I have trodden, (since,) but think He who is alone the foundation and corner-stone, immovable and undeceiving, has become more precious. Oh, how shall I be enough careful to trust him alone? I have got on a little with Gibbon's Rise and Fall, and have begun Neander on the Emperors, finished one volume of Goethe with L., and begun Milton with M., and English history with R. _9th Mo. 2d_. The week tolerably satisfactory; but how truly may we say, "A day in thy courts is better than a thousand"! This evening's unexpected, unsought, unasked, free, gratuitous mercy has made the last two hours worth more than some whole days of this week. Oh, how kind is He who knows how to win back and attract to Himself by imparting ineffable desires after what is good, even to a heart that has grown dry and dead and worldly! I have thought that some measure of our growth in grace may be found in the degree in which our carnal natural reluctance to receive Christ back into our vessel, come how He may, is diminished. How full of significance is the inquiry, "To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" Blessed revelation; and well is it for those who feel ready to adopt the prayer, "Awake, awake, O arm of the Lord," if they know the way of its coming. Oh, how does its acceptance presuppose an experience of something of the kind, so awfully set forth as from Omnipotence Himself!--"I looked, and there was no man, therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me." Yes, it is when He sees that we have no human expectance or confidence left, and are, as it were, at our wits' end; it is then that His own arm brings salvation, that He says, "Stand still, and see the salvation of God; for the Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace." Oh, how great the condescension which has given me a glimpse of "so great salvation"! But I have remarked that it never has been in answer to any questionings or searchings of my own. Some great perplexities I have had lately, being so unable to satisfy myself how far religion or its duties should be the act of ourselves--so confused about prayer, etc. Difficulties, hardly capable to be put into words, put me in real distress; but the good seems to be _revealed_, if I may use such a word, to another part of me; or, as I. Pennington would say, "to _another eye_ and _ear_ than those which are so curious to learn." The Lord grant that I may at last become an obedient and truly teachable child; for that faculty,