The 17th we attended Chichester meeting; it was a time thankfully to be remembered; the everlasting gospel of peace and salvation was preached in truth’s authority; and all contrary spirits were subjected and brought down. Truth reigned triumphantly over all; magnified for ever be the name of the Lord, who made bare his arm for our help, and the strengthening and refreshing of my poor soul. I had been at times, for days and nights past, ready to sink into discouragement and dismay, by reason of the deep baptisms I had to pass through, unknown to man, but in fellowship with the suffering seed, which lies smothered and pressed down in the hearts of many careless and lukewarm professors, as a cart under sheaves. Oh how does darkness and death spread itself, as a curtain, in this once highly favoured land! Alas for the people, for the professors of truth; what will become of them, unless they repent and turn to the Lord. Parents and children, in some places, are so estranged from the law and testimony, that many seem plunged into the condition of Jerusalem formerly, when this pathetic lamentation was taken up by the dear Master; “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not. Behold your house is left unto you desolate.” Oh how is this verified; what great desolations, in a religious sense, are apparent with many professors; and how are the poor servants, that are sent forth among them for their recovery, as with their lives in their hands, as it were stoned, and often so plunged into death and sufferings, as almost to despair of life! Oh the pangs that my poor soul has endured of late, in many places; so that I had often to say in secret, with the holy apostle; “why stand we in jeopardy every hour?” No tongue can tell, nor is it in the power of language to communicate, the distress and anguish, which is sometimes endured by the poor travellers, in filling up their measure of the afflictions of Christ, for his body’s sake, the Church. But, in this also, we are sometimes strengthened to rejoice, that we are accounted worthy to suffer with Him, that when he is pleased to arise in his own strength, as the light of the morning, we may be permitted to reign with Him; and rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.