I feel now that I had been led to expect a greater measure of freedom from the troubles which fall on the people, in the midst of which I find myself, than the dispensation under which I live warranted; I do not mean from those which spring directly out of the Lord's service, but those natural and national evils which God sends as judgments on the ungodly. This error arose from considering the temporal promises of the 91st Psalm, and other similar ones in multitudes of places, as the legitimate objects of faith: whereas I have been now led to see that they, like the curses, are but typical representations of that kingdom in which the saints of the Lord shall rejoice and be safe when his enemies are swept away as the chaff of the summer threshing floor. Yet even now, spiritually they are all ours. Not a hair of our head shall fall to the ground without our heavenly Father's permission. Therefore I feel these thoughts ought neither to trouble us, nor any more prevent our hand undertaking for Christ any service, than if a greater exemption was promised; for we know that whatever is allowed to befall us, whether natural or spiritual, if Christ is ours and we are his, they shall only so operate as to work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; for these sufferings and trials must be among all the things that work together for good to those who love Christ. _July 28._ _Thursday._--Up to this time the shells and balls of the besiegers have done us no harm. Two shells have passed just over us. The one fell on the roof of the house of an Arab family at a little distance from us, who were all asleep, and on bursting killed three: one cannon ball has just passed over us, besides musket balls innumerable, only two of which, however, I have felt so near as to endanger us. The one just passed by me and struck the wall, the other, by bending my head, passed just over me: yet dangerous as it seems in such circumstances to sleep on the roof, the suffocating heat of the rooms is insupportable. I recollect Mr. Wolff, when here, mentions it as so hot that he could not write his journal, and indeed such is the heat, that one unaccustomed to it feels almost perfectly unfitted for any laborious service either of mind or body, but particularly the former, for at least my own experience is, that the body is much less affected by it than the mind.