We dined at S.S.’s; and after dinner I could not quit the room without expressing what I felt towards him, which melted us all into tears.  S.S. joined me, and we went to Skipton to be at the meeting at five o’clock.  Before we came there I felt such a sense of poverty that it seemed as if my spiritual life was going to be taken from me; and even when I got to meeting, the same feeling remained, which introduced my spirit into a state of suffering not easily to be conceived.  On our sitting down I felt there was something on the mind of S.S., and I feared lest, by suffering the reasoner to prevail, he should be unfaithful; but he expressed a few words which seemed as the key to the treasury.

I went that evening to Addingham, and had a meeting next morning, where I sensibly found a little strength:  we seemed to sit under our own vine and fig-tree, where none could make us afraid.  We lodged and dined at our kind friend J. Smith’s, in whose family I had something given to me to minister.

From Addingham they went to the Quarterly Meeting at Leeds, where John Yeardley received intelligence of the sudden decease of his beloved friend Joseph Wood.  J.W. had been engaged in testimony and supplication in the meeting at Highflatts on First-day morning, and was taken unwell during the evening, and died in a few hours.  After the Quarterly Meeting John Yeardley went to attend the interment, and on his way had a meeting with the Friends at Barnsley.

It was, he says, a favored time, and we were humbled and instructed together.  We went to Highflatts to tea; when I got to the place where the remains of my dear friend were laid, I stood silently by the coffin in tears, saying in spirit, If it be thy mantle I am designed to wear, may I receive it with humility, reverence and fear!  This feeling awfully impressed my mind, because my dear friend had said more than once to me, If I have any place in the body, I bequeath it to thee.  The meeting was very large and was a precious season; the occasion on which we were met seemed to give wings to our spirits to fly upwards.

This spring Elizabeth Yeardley’s disorder began to assume a serious form.  A short memorandum from her hand discloses in a touching manner her state, both physical and spiritual.

3 mo. 29.—­“Regard not distant events:  this uneasiness about the future is in opposition to the grace received.”  This sentence from my old favorite, Fenelon, was much blest to my spirit this evening, when I had foolishly been thinking about future sufferings.  O, sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.  Perhaps a few rolling suns may, through the merits and mercies of my Lord, see this poor worm translated to his Paradise.

The first direct allusion to anxiety on her account which appears in her husband’s diary bears date the 5th of the Fifth Month.  Her debilitated state seems to have been the cause of their deferring to a future day their contemplated removal to Germany, which was otherwise to have taken place about this time.