, and think of that _one_ eternal unchanging
truth, which can never be inconsistent with itself and
which, though hid from the wise and prudent, is revealed
to babes! Here I think the belief of the identity
of our own character hereafter, comes in well, and
should lead us to consider whether we love truth absolutely,
and not only relatively to the circumstances
which will not exist then; and whether we can be happy
in a land where righteousness and peace forever kiss
each other. And may I, without vanity and just in
illustration, quote from a rhyme of my own?--

While thus we long, in bonds of clay,
For freedom's advent bright,
Upbraid the tardy wheels of day,
And call the slumbering light,

Do we no willing fetters wear
Which our own hands have made,
No self-imposed distresses bear,
And court no needless shade?

While our departed friends to meet
We often vainly sigh,
To hold in heaven communion sweet,
Communion large and high,

Do we, while here on earth we dwell,
Those pure affections show
For which we long to bid farewell
To all we love below?

For no unhallow'd footstep falls
Upon that floor of gold;
Those pearly gates, those crystal walls,
No earthly hearts enfold.

And if our voice on earth be strange
To notes of praise and prayer,
That voice it is not death's to change,
Would make but discord there.

_8th Mo. 10th_. Strange vacillations of feeling; at
one time on the point of trusting the Lord for
eternity, at another, cannot trust him even for time.
At one time would cast my whole soul on him; at
another, will bear the weight of every straw myself,
till I become quite overloaded with them. Oh,
what a spectacle of folly, and weakness, and sin!
A soul immortal spending all her powers, wasting
her strength in strenuous idleness!

_8th Mo. 16th_. Very busy making things tidy,
and resolved, almost religiously, to keep them so.
I think I would not, for any consideration, die with
all my things in disorder. Disorder must be the
result of a disordered mind, and not only so, it
reacts on the mind and makes it worse in turn.

_8th Mo. 18th_. People do not say enough of the
need of _consistency_, when they speak of trusting in
Providence instead of arms. It was consistent in
William Penn, but it would not have been consistent
in his contemporaries, who took the India