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
My friend E. Dahl and I went out for a quiet walk. It was a lovely Sabbath
morning; the sky cloudless, and the sun shining brightly on the water as
it rapidly foamed down the cliffs. After gathering a few cranberries we
seated ourselves on a shady rock to meditate. All was silent
around--nothing heard but the shepherd-boy playing his horn; the sound
coming from the distant mountains into the wooded valley where we sat,
first shrill, then softening into a simple irregular note. My friend asked
me what I thought the instrument was. It is made, said he, of a goat's
horn, and is blown to keep the fox from taking the young lambs, and as a
means of communication with other shepherds when widely separated on the
mountains; the sound of this horn also keeps the sheep from straying.
They arrived at Christiansand on the 19th; and Endre Dahl, finding a
vessel sailing for Stavanger, engaged a passage in it for himself. After
parting with him, John Yeardley writes:--
E. Dahl and I have been closely united in the gospel bond; he has been a
truly affectionate sympathizer and efficient helper. I am thus, he
continues, left alone in a strange land; but I do feel a peaceful and a
thankful heart to my Heavenly Father that he has in mercy blessed me with
light, strength, and faith to go through this service in Norway.
Imperfectly has it been performed, I know; but I have done what I could,
and a song of thanksgiving is due to my Lord.
John Yeardley returned by Germany to England. At Obernkirchen, near
Minden, where some persons had not long before been convinced of Friends'
principles, he had a meeting, in which he was joined by a number of
Friends from Minden. A few years before, Thomas Arnett, from America,
desired to hold a meeting for worship in this place, but was prevented by
the police. The object was now accomplished by engaging a room without the
limits of the state of Bueckeburg, in which the town is situated, and
within the Hessian frontier, which includes, in fact, a part of
Obernkirchen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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