A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains,: of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, EnglandSouthall, Eliza Allen
Religion
A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains,: of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England
Southall, Eliza Allen
Christian biography -- England; Quakers -- England -- Biography; Southall, Eliza Allen, 1823-1851
_6th Mo. 3d_. The little measure of faith I have is
not worn out, but rather purified and strengthened;
but, oh, when I think of the reality, the momentous
import, of the change of nature from sin to holiness,
which has to be effected, what a baptism may I not
have yet to be baptized with, and what perils to pass
through! Oh, if it might please my heavenly Father
to shorten and hasten the process, and deliver me
from earth and its dangers into a changeless state of
safety and peace in His dear presence! But I do
believe He would rather be glorified by living Christians
than by only dying penitents. A watchful,
holy life is His delight. Oh that this high calling
may not be slighted or cast away! The near approach
of my birthday has led me to look back over
the brief notes of twelve months. The interesting
details we have received of the Yearly Meeting
remind me of what I felt at the conclusion of the
last. The Lord has again been with the Church's
gathering, faithful as of old, and, where seats were
vacant, hath filled His people with joy.
_6th Mo. 5th_. I wish simply to record how last
night, when in bed, I was favored with a calm, watchful
frame, and lay enjoying the mental repose till
long after my usual hour of sleep. This morning at
breakfast-time it was renewed, with a sweet sense of
the willingness of our heavenly Father to enable His
children to serve Him. He made them for that end:
it is His will that they should do so. It cannot be
that He will refuse them the indispensable assistance.
How sweet was this feeling! but hurry, and too much
care about little things, sadly dissipated me in the
day. This evening I have had a gracious gift of
some of those _Sabbath_ feelings again, after reading
the seventeenth chapter of Jeremiah. The verses
referring to the Sabbath-day, and bearing no burden
therein, were solemnly instructive. The utter inability
of my natural heart to attain or retain such a
state shows me the necessity of all being done for
me through faith in Divine power, "His name,
through faith in His name." Oh for watchfulness
unto prayer continually, and that the cumber of
earth may be cast away! "Take heed that your
flight be not in the winter," has been my watchword,
though how imperfectly obeyed! and if, through
infinite mercy, the season be changing, if He who
has faithfully kept me from utter death there-through
is beginning to give me more of rest, oh,
let me never forget the solemn addition, "neither on
the Sabbath day."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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