to their proper proportion in our view. I
have thought often of the text, "Thy will be done on
earth as _it is in heaven_." Oh, how much that implies,
both of love and joyfulness to be aimed at in our service
of our heavenly Father _on earth_. How high a standard!
Can we hope ever to attain it? Surely we are to ask it,
not as a millennial glory for the world only, (if at all,)
but also as our own individual portion. It is more to be
lamented that we do not realize this than that we do not
realize Foster's idea of the world to come, in which we,
yes, we, our very selves, will be actually concerned.
But I believe the two deficiencies are more connected
than we are sometimes aware of; and perhaps the joys
of a happy death-bed, the foretaste of heaven, of which
we sometimes hear, are as much connected with the
completeness of religious devotedness, often not till then
attained, as with the nearness in point of _time_ to a world
of purity and joy. How striking is the earnestness
shown in John Fletcher's "Early Christian Experience,"
in seeking mastery over sin, not as "uncertainly," or as
"beating the air," but as one resolved to conquer in the
might of that faith which "_is_ the victory;" and how
wonderfully was his after-life an example of "doing the
Divine will as it is in heaven"!

_9th Mo. 17th_. Distress in the country great.
What will all issue in? Surely in this, "the Lord
sitteth on the flood; yea, He sitteth King forever."
Oh! if He be King in our hearts we shall not be
greatly moved. There is comfort to the Christian,
immovable comfort, in having his affections, his
_patriotism_, in heaven. My own heart, I ardently
hope, is not a totally devastated land. There is a
rudiment still there which God looketh upon, and
perhaps, though I know it not, his eyes and his
heart are there perpetually. It is not meant to
remain a rudiment: oh, no; as "sin hath reigned,
even unto death, _so_ grace should yet reign, even to
eternal life."

_9th Mo. 27th_. Perplexed about Irish knitting,
because it is slave-grown cotton. It does not seem
consistent to buy it; and yet I don't know what to
recommend.

_9th Mo. 30th_. Another month is at an end. Oh
that I knew whereabouts I stand in the race! "'Tis
a point I long to know." Sometimes I have joy of
heart, and then I tremble lest it be not rightly
founded; sometimes tenderness of hear