About July 25th I preached several times at Collumpton, and in a neighbouring village, in the open air. My experience as it regards preaching in the open air has been very different from what I might have expected. I have often preached out of doors, and but once has it been blessed, as far as I know, and that was in the case of an officer in the army, who came to make sport of it; whilst almost in every place, if not in every place, where I have preached in rooms or chapels, the Lord has given testimony to the Word. Perhaps the Lord has not been pleased to let me see fruit from this part of my work, though I have been many times engaged in it; or it may be, that, because I did not pray so earnestly respecting my out-door preaching as respecting my in-door preaching, the former has not been so much blessed as the latter. But this testimony I cannot but bear, that, though I do not consider it at present my work, on account of want of bodily strength, yet it is a most important work, and I should delight in being so honoured now, as to be allowed to be engaged in it. August 9. After extreme suffering, which lasted about seventeen hours, my wife was this day delivered of a still-born child.--Who of my readers would suppose, that whilst I was so abundantly blessed by God, and that in so many respects, my heart should have been again many times during several months previous to this day, cold, wretched, carnal? How long-suffering is the Lord! Repeatedly, during this time, I could let hours run on, after I had risen in the morning, before I prayed; at least, before I retired for prayer. And at that time when I appeared most zealous for God, perhaps more so than at any time before or since, I was often far from being in a spiritual state. I was not now, indeed, indulging in gross outward sins, which could be noticed by my brethren; but often--very often, the eye of my kind loving Father must have looked on me with much grief. On this account, I have no doubt, the Lord now, in great compassion, sent this heavy blow. I had not seriously thought of the great danger connected with childbearing, and therefore had never earnestly prayed about it. Now came this solemn time. The life of my dear wife was hanging, as it were, on a thread, and, in the midst of it, my conscience told me, that my state of heart made such a chastisement needful. Yet, at the same time, I was much supported.--When the child was still-born, I saw almost immediately afterwards, that this could not have been expected otherwise, for I had not looked on the prospect of having a child as on a blessing, which I was about to receive from God, but rather considered it as a burden and a hindrance in the Lord's work; for I did not know then, that, whilst a wife and children may be in certain respects, on the one hand, a hindrance to the servant of Christ, they also may fit him, on the other hand, for certain parts of his work, in teaching him things which