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
They were disappointed to find that strangers were forbidden by law to
hold public meetings, or preach in the assemblies of the Protestants; and
although they met with many pious individuals, they thought the life of
religion on the whole at a low ebb, and deplored the prevalence of the
forms and ceremonies used by the Church, of England. The schools, too,
they found to be in a very poor state; the masters deficient in education
and badly paid, and the schools conducted without system. The ministers
showed them great kindness, and on their quitting La Tour, Pastor Best
encouraged them by the expression of satisfaction with their visit. They
returned to Turin on the 28th.
Passing over Mont Cenis, they directed their course to Geneva, where they
arrived on the 3rd of the Eighth Month, rejoiced to be once more on the
English side of the Alps. On their outward journey their sojourn in this
city had been short, but now they found it needful to make a longer visit,
and were thankful in being permitted to mingle again in intimate communion
with those who understood the language of the Spirit. They paid and
received many visits, and held two religious meetings at their hotel, at
the latter of which about fifty persons were present.
One of the most interesting occasions of which they speak was a Missionary
Meeting, in which the minister Olivier unfolded his experience of a divine
call to leave his country, and go abroad on the service of the gospel. The
voice which he described as having been sounded in his spiritual ear, and
the manner in which he received it, must have struck John Yeardley as
singularly in accordance with the call to a similar service which he
himself had heard so distinctly in his younger days, and which, like
Olivier, he had for a long time hidden in his heart.
8 _mo_. 4.--In the evening I attended the Missionary Meeting in the
Chapel de l'Oratoire. Pastor Merle [d'Aubigne] opened the meeting by a
short prayer, and singing, and then gave a narrative of the liberation of
the slaves in the English colonies, according to the account received from
England. Pastor Olivier, from Lausanne, was present. He is about to depart
for Lower Canada, and he spoke in a very touching manner of the way in
which the mission had first opened on his own mind. When the concern was
made known in his heart, he kept it there in secret prayer to the Lord for
direction, and whenever he heard what he believed to be the same voice, it
was always--Go, and the Lord will go with thee. A real unction attended
while he gave us this account; the way in which he spoke of it resembled
the manner of one of our Friends laying a concern before a meeting: many
hearts present felt the force of his words. His exhortation to the young
persons was excellent. Pastor Gaussen concluded the meeting with an
address and lively prayer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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