easure. My Master has been a kind Master
to me, and if I had to choose this day again, as to the way of living, the
Lord giving me grace, I would not choose differently. But even these very
reports, false as they were, I doubt not the Lord has sometimes used as a
means, to put it into the hearts of His children, to remember our temporal
necessities.

About July 25th I preached several times at Collumpton, and in a
neighbouring village, in the open air. My experience as it regards
preaching in the open air has been very different from what I might have
expected. I have often preached out of doors, and but once has it been
blessed, as far as I know, and that was in the case of an officer in the
army, who came to make sport of it; whilst almost in every place, if not
in every place, where I have preached in rooms or chapels, the Lord has
given testimony to the Word. Perhaps the Lord has not been pleased to let
me see fruit from this part of my work, though I have been many times
engaged in it; or it may be, that, because I did not pray so earnestly
respecting my out-door preaching as respecting my in-door preaching, the
former has not been so much blessed as the latter. But this testimony I
cannot but bear, that, though I do not consider it at present my work, on
account of want of bodily strength, yet it is a most important work, and I
should delight in being so honoured now, as to be allowed to be engaged in
it.

August 9. After extreme suffering, which lasted about seventeen hours, my
wife was this day delivered of a still-born child.--Who of my readers
would suppose, that whilst I was so abundantly blessed by God, and that in
so many respects, my heart should have been again many times during
several months previous to this day, cold, wretched, carnal? How
long-suffering is the Lord! Repeatedly, during this time, I
could let hours run on, after I had risen in the morning, before
I prayed; at least, before I retired for prayer. And at that
time when I appeared most zealous for God, perhaps more
so than at any time before or since, I was often far from
being in a spiritual state. I was not now, indeed, indulging in gross
outward sins, which could be noticed by my brethren; but often--very
often, the eye of my kind loving Father must have looked on me with much
grief. On this account, I have no doubt, the Lord now, in great
compassion, sent this heavy blow. I had not seriously thought of the great
danger connected with