Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the GospelYeardley, John
Religion
Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel
Yeardley, John
Clergy -- United States -- Biography; Quakers -- Biography; Yeardley, John, 1786-1858
The cows, when fresh in milk, are milked three times a day, by which means
more milk is obtained than in the common method; any one wishing to make a
fair experiment of this must try it not for two or three days only, but
for a week or ten days.
John and Martha Yeardley found the institution at Fredericks-Oort of a
deeply interesting kind. It was Established by private benevolence to
improve the condition of the poor, and to relieve the country from
beggars, and was commenced in 1818. The poor families which are placed
there are employed, some in manufacture, some in cultivating the soil, and
every means is made use of to encourage industry and provident habits.
When our friends visited the colony, it comprised 2900 souls, including
the staff by which the institution is worked, and which is necessarily
numerous. They thought the method of instruction in use in the schools
excellent, and found that religious liberty was strictly respected.
From Fredericks-Oort they went on to Ommershaus, where is the poor-house
and penal colony belonging to the former institution. Thirteen hundred
beggary, orphans, and criminals were then in the colony.
How much, remarks J.Y., such an institution is wanted in England; every
inducement is held out for improvement in civil society, and a most
effectual check placed against vice and idleness.
The travellers fared badly in Holland, and they were rejoiced to "set foot
again in honest Germany, where they know how to use strangers with an
honest heart." They returned through Bentheim and Osnabrueck, and arrived
at Pyrmont on the 19th. Here they spent ten days in resting, and in
preparing to pursue their journey through South Germany.
On First-day, the 30th, they took leave of their friends.
First-day, says John Yeardley, was a solemn time, both at meeting and at
the reading in the afternoon; I hope both my M.Y. and I were enabled to
clear our minds. In the evening we took an affectionate and affecting
leave of them all; it was to me particularly trying. I could not refrain
from weeping much.
Not much occurs in the diary to claim attention, until they reached
Friedberg, not far from Frankfort.
10 _mo_. 7.--Sat down to our little meeting, after breakfast, and
reading, on First day morning. It was to us both a season of deep feeling.
My dear M.Y. was so filled with a sense of our own weakness, and the
Almighty's goodness towards us in a wilderness travel through a dark
country, that she knelt, and was enabled to pour forth a heart-felt
supplication for a precious seed of the kingdom in the hearts of the
people among whom we were; and also that He would in his tender mercy
remember us his poor instruments, and in the right time cause light to
break forth on our path, preserve us in the way we ought to go, and make
us willing to suffer for the sake of his suffering cause: to which my
heart said, Amen!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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