_May 11._--This night has been the most trying of my life. How hard for the soul to see the object of its longest and best grounded earthly affections suffering without the power of affording relief, knowing too that a heavenly Father who has sent it, can relieve it, and yet seems to turn a deaf ear to one's cries; at the same time, I felt, in the depths of my soul's affections, that notwithstanding all, he is a God of infinite love. Satan has sorely tried me, but the Lord has shewn me, in the 22d Psalm, a more wonderful cry _apparently_ unheeded, and the Holy Ghost has given me the victory, and enabled me to acquiesce in my Father's will, though I now see not the end of his holy and blessed ways. Dear, dear spirit! she will soon wing her way to where her heart has long been; and, if I am spared, I shall perhaps have reason to bless God for having removed her thus early. The plague has attacked two more of our household--the schoolmaster's wife and our maid-servant, and how far it will go now, no one knows but he who guides it by his sovereign will. My dearest Mary's sufferings for four or five hours last night were great; she was quite delirious, and her dear voice was so affected, that I could not make out two words connectedly. How mysterious are God's ways! Oh my soul, learn the lesson of patient submission to his holy will. I have cast myself upon him and he will guide me. Dear Mary, to-day has been quite insensible. It has indeed been a very painful day, but it is the condition of this world. Dear spirit! her heart has been so set on her Lord's coming of late, that it seemed quite to absorb her thoughts and heart. And now she will quickly join the holy assembly that are waiting to come with him. Surely such times as these, when the Lord is taking a ripe shock of corn from your field, are seasons to rejoice that your prayer for the quick accomplishment of the number of God's elect has been heard, and yet how hard it is for nature not to feel deep sorrow that a message has come for one of yours. Poor dear Kitto and the little boys are now become the sole nurses of the dear baby by night and by day. Oh, may the Lord watch over them and bless them. My last night's attendance on my dear wife, leaves me little hope of escaping the plague, unless it be our Father's special will to preserve me, for in her delirium she required so many times to be lifted from place to place, and to have all her clothes changed, that I can now only cry to the Lord to preserve me, if it may be a little while, for the dear children's sake.