In the Ninth Month, he attended the Two-months’ Meeting at Pyrmont.  It was not without emotion that he visited once more the place which had been so familiar to him in earlier days.  The hopes he had then conceived, and which, as we have seen, he had so fondly cherished, with regard to the Society of Friends in that part, had been disappointed; the little company had dwindled in numbers and declined in religious influence; and when he took leave of Pyrmont for the last time, it was with a sorrowful heart.

From Minden, accompanied by Sophie Peitsmeyer, he went southwards, and took up his abode at the little town of Neuveville, on the Lake of Bienne, in Switzerland.

I spent, he says, two or three days at Neufchatel, and visited many of my old friends in the place and neighborhood; but it was affecting to find how many of those I had known years ago were no longer on this earth.  Madame Petavel was as warm-hearted as ever; the professor, her husband, is ripening for heaven.

John Yeardley had gone to Neuveville with the intention of passing the winter in Switzerland.  After remaining a month, however, he returned to England; and this change of mind was the result of a remarkable circumstance.  He became silent and reserved, with the air and manners of one who is not at peace with himself; until one night, when he was heard to cry out in a loud tone, as though speaking to some one.  The next morning at breakfast he appeared subdued and full of tenderness; and on his young friend inquiring what had made him cry out in the night, he told her that he must return home, for there was more work for him to do.  He said that a prospect of service in the gospel had latterly opened before him, and that as he had greatly desired to remain in Switzerland, he had striven against the sense of duty and refused to yield; but that during the night he had had a vision, in which he heard the command repeated to return home and enter again upon his labor, and that he felt, as he thought, the touch of the heavenly messenger’s hand.  This caused him to call out; and when he awoke, he found that willingness of spirit had taken the place of his former obstinacy.  Thus turned from his own purpose, he set about to accomplish the will of his gracious Master with his usual resolution, and they made the best of their way back to England.  The nature of the service which he saw before him is touched upon in the following passage from a letter, dated Neuveville, the 14th of the Tenth Month.

My home duties press heavily upon me....  Very long have I thought about the young men, and the younger part of our Society; and I have a hope the way will be made for my finding access to them, in a religious and social point of view.  Should it be permitted, the Lord grant that it may tend to mutual comfort.

John Yeardley returned through Paris.  He spent a day or two in that great city, which he never saw “so quiet and free from soldiers.”  We extract from his Diary a short note of a conversation which took place at the table d’hote of the hotel where he lodged, and which appears to us to be of an instructive character.