13_th_.—­Spent this day at Peterhoff, with W.C.  Gillibrand and wife, with two of their friends.  It is the first opportunity we have had for serious conversation in this place, and I hope it was to mutual comfort.  They took us a drive after dinner to see several of the Emperor’s pavilions, mostly surrounded by beautiful pieces of water.  There was an intelligent man present, who had spent some time in India, ——­ Watson; he now has charge of the British school in Petersburg.  We find the Scripture Lessons are no more in use in the school; nor is the New Testament in the Russian language allowed to be circulated in the country.  The Bible Society is just alive, but can hardly breathe; other institutions languish for want of support; party spirit has crept in to their great injury.  The law is still very stringent in not allowing a member of one religious body to join another; but the different sects are allowed their own worship and schools.

20_th_.—­Left Petersburg by the train at 11 o’clock yesterday, and arrived at Moscow about nine this morning.  The road, with but little exception, is flat and uninteresting.  The forests are immense, mostly of firs and birch, which being thickly set grow small.  Many of the stations are superb.  The line of railway did not conduct us near any towns or villages that I could observe, but by some of the poorest scattered huts I ever saw in any country.

At Moscow, John Yeardley and his companion called on Pastor Dietrich, a German, residing a little out of the city:—­

He is, says J.Y., in one of his letters, a worthy pastor of the Old Lutheran Church, a sweet venerable-looking man with long white locks.  He was at dinner with his family when we called, but he would not allow us to go away, but took us up to the attic story to his study; primitive indeed, but clean, and to him I have no doubt a room of prayer, as well as of study.  He seemed delighted to find our mission was to the Colonies.  “But what will you do about the language?” said he; “they speak nothing but German.”  I wish the dear girls could have seen his countenance lighted up with cheerful brightness, when he found we could speak German:  “Ah, I need not trouble you any longer with my poor English!” He knows a great many of the pastors, and will give us letters of introduction to the little flocks in the Colonies and the Crimea.

As might be expected, it was with a sinking heart that John Yeardley contemplated the formidable journey before him; but, as in other times of extremity, he cast himself wholly upon the Lord, and found his soul to be sustained, and his courage renewed to undergo the hardships that awaited him.

7 mo. 21.—­Rose this morning much cast down in mind at the thought of our long journey, and a want of a knowledge of the Russian language.  Poured my complaint in fervency of soul before the Lord, and was a little comforted in believing that he would still care for us and preserve us in this strange and long wilderness travel.  It is his own cause in which I am engaged, and I am willing to endure any bodily fatigue if I may only be strengthened to do the works to which my blessed Master has called me.  The Divine Finger seems pointing to the place where the people I am seeking are to be found.