y soul longed
for light and life in the assembly.

Of our dear father's safe arrival in Liverpool we
heard on our way to the train in the morning, and
now we settled in to expect him we had so long lost!

And, after meeting him in London and alluding to conversation with
friends who called to see him, she says,--

"But with father the fact of presence, real
meeting, actual talk, seemed more engrossing than
the thing talked. Oh that I had a really grateful
heart to the Lord for these His mercies!"

_7th_. [Alluding to a meeting at Devonshire House.]
It is, indeed, "looking not at the things which are
seen," when we really accept with equal, nay, with
greater, joy, His will to speak by the little as by the
great, or by His Spirit only, when communion of
truth is preferred to communication of the true.

_5th Mo. 29th_. And now that my London experience
is over, as to meetings, preachings, prayers,
what, oh, what is the result on this immortal spirit
of mine, which has on this occasion been brought,
as it were, in _contact_ with some of the honorable
and anointed messengers, with that which is good?
And yet it is possible that contact may not produce
_penetration_, and that _penetration_ may not produce
_assimilation_. I can unhesitatingly say, the first and
second have been produced; but then these are but
transactions of the time, not abiding transformations;
and if these are all? But, surely, it cannot be;
surely, when my heart melted within me, especially
on Second-day morning, and I heard the word "and
anon with joy received it," some depth of central
stone was fused into softness; some actual change,
effected, that I might not have altogether "no root"
in myself. Sometimes predominated a fear that intellectual
interest interfered with spiritual simple
reception of good, that _this_ would vanish when _that_
was over; sometimes the responsibility of being thus
ministered to was truly a weighty thought; for never
more than on that morning did I so understand, "Go
preach, baptizing." Sometimes I thought that God
had indeed brought me to this Yearly Meeting to
make me then and there his own; and when I heard
of passing by transgressions as a cloud, I was ready
to think my own were indeed dissolving as one. I
felt strongly the superiority of religion to every
other thing, not merely for its external aim, God,
but for its