enough consider how little known in a great nation the salt that
preserves it may be. The reports from the agent of the Bible Society in
France seem to me more than usually encouraging. I hope you may be enabled
to impart some spiritual gift or knowledge to many hidden ones who appear
to be hungering and thirsting after righteousness in that vain-glorious
nation, and that your faith may be strengthened by meeting with such.

John and Martha Yeardley arrived at Lyons on the 13th, and, after making
some calls, intended to proceed to Nismes the next day. But not feeling
satisfied to leave the city so soon, they concluded to remain there one
day more; and they had cause to be thankful in having taken this course.

For, says J.Y., we have made the acquaintance of several religious
persons. An evangelist and colporteur named Hermann Lange, a German Swiss,
took us to see some Protestant converts, amongst whom we have found much
of the interior life. The Lord gave me a word of exhortation for them, and
helped me to utter it in French. We had a conversation with our friend
Lange respecting the ministry in our Society. Like many other persons he
supposed we had no recognized ministers; we explained the usage of
Friends, and showed him our certificates, with which he was pleased. He
admired the good order in use amongst us, and said that he had for a long
time desired to be informed respecting the principles of Friends; that he
thought as we did, that an express call of the Holy Spirit was necessary
to the ministry, and that women as well as men ought to be allowed to
preach, I felt intimately united to him in spirit: on parting we gave him
some tracts explanatory of our principles.

Lyons is the head-quarters of popery; the Jesuits here exert a strong
influence with the government against the Protestants. We visited a good
man named Elfenbein, who with his wife, is very useful to the awakened
Protestants. He is a colporteur, and introduces the Holy Scriptures into
families to whom he speaks concerning the things of God. He and his wife
called upon us in our hotel. On parting he proposed we should pray
together. This gave us the opportunity of explaining our sentiments
regarding prayer; and we proposed remaining a while in silence, and if it
should please the Lord to put words of prayer into our heart, we would
express them with the help of the Holy Spirit. After a time of silence,
Elfenbein prayed for us with unction in a few