during a
fall of snow, would have been trying, as we had to get out of the mail. I
now found myself again, after six years, amidst fellow-passengers who
spoke my native language; but alas! they spoke not for Christ.

March 18. This afternoon we arrived at Basle, where we were very kindly
received by the brethren.--March 23. Basle. These six days we have received
great kindness from the brethren. The Lord has given me an opportunity of
bringing before several who are already engaged in the ministry of the
Word, and before many who intend to give themselves to this work, many
important truths, so that in these opportunities I have been richly repaid
for the journey. This morning I conversed also with three brethren,
journeymen, who have a desire to give themselves to missionary work; but
nothing could be decided now. I awake very faint, but have been mercifully
helped through the work. Brother Groves intends to go to Geneva, and I to
Tubingen, in order to become acquainted with a brother, a student, who is
likely to go out with Brother Groves as a tutor to his sons, and to
combine with this, missionary service.

During my stay at Basle I attended one day a meeting at which a venerable
pious clergyman expounded the Greek New Testament to several brethren, who
purposed to give themselves to missionary service. The passage to which
this dear aged brother had then come, in the original of the New
Testament, was 1 Peter iii. 1, 2, which, in our English translation, reads
thus: "Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if
any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the
conversation of the wives; while they behold your chaste conversation
coupled with fear." After this aged brother had expounded the passage, he
related a circumstance which had occurred in his own days, and under his
own eyes, at Basle, which has appeared to me so encouraging for those
children of God who have unbelieving relatives, and especially for sisters
in the Lord who have unbelieving husbands; and which, at the same time, is
such a beautiful illustration of 1 Peter iii, 1.; that I judge it
desirable to insert the narrative of this fact here. I will do so as
exactly as I remember it. There lived at Basle an opulent citizen, whose
wife was a believer, but he himself feared not the Lord. His practice was,
to spend his evenings in a wine-house, where he would often tarry till
eleven, twelve, or even one o'clock. On