On the 14th we attended their meetings in Kendal.  The forenoon meeting began at ten o’clock.  It is large, and was pretty open and satisfactory.  I had a long testimony to bear therein, first, from John xv. 14.  John Yeardley had a pretty long time next.  He opened from these words:  “O thou, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, manifest thyself that thou yet reignest in Israel.”  I next, from Proverbs ix. 12.

After visiting several other meetings, Joseph Wood came to Lancaster, where he was again met by John Yeardley.

On the 21st we attended both their meetings in Lancaster.  The forenoon meeting began at ten o’clock.  When we got there we were agreeably surprised to find dear John Yeardley, who had walked this morning fifteen miles to meet us.  The meeting was large of Friends, and it proved a time of renewed visitation unto many who were afar off, and of encouragement to those who were nigh.  I had a very long testimony to bear therein, from Matt. xxii. 12.  John Yeardley had a short but very acceptable time next, from Esther iv. 14.  Afterwards I was concerned in prayer.

Elizabeth Yeardley speaks of this visit in one of her letters:—­

J.Y. went to Lancaster, though the day was unfavorable.  He trudged on foot to meet Joseph Wood, and got in good time for the meeting, fifteen miles distant, and returned home the same evening.  J. W. was very much favored all the time he was in those parts; he really appears endowed with astonishing powers.

The same letter affords a glimpse of the social position, which John and Elizabeth Yeardley occupied at Bentham:—­

We are very quiet, have kind neighbors, a very pleasant habitation, and little society, plenty of books both of the religious and amusing kind, and leisure to meditate on the one thing needful, which is to fit us for that place to which we are fast hastening:—­

     “For who the longest lease enjoy
       Have told us with a sigh,
     That to be born seems little more
       Than to begin to die.”

(13_th of Seventh Month_, 1818.)

John Yeardley, no less than his wife, found in Bentham a seasonable retreat from the harassing cares of the world.  A memorandum made in the autumn of this year shows that the doubts with which he was perplexed on the subject of his removal from Barnsley, were entirely dispelled, and that the change in his abode and position had been the happy means of relieving him from the load of anxiety which once seemed ready to crush him.

1819. 9 mo. 15.—­The tender, merciful Father who shelters our heads in battle has covered mine when many things were hot upon me.  He has provided a retreat for me until the fury of the oppressor be overpast.  I have often wondered at the cause which drove me from my former residence, but I now begin to see pointedly the hand of Providence bringing me to this place of quiet retreat.  Should He who has brought me thus far see it to be for my good to set me on the banks of deliverance, may I have no desire to live for anything but to sing his praise!