On resuming his Diary, which he did in the First Month of 1825, John Yeardley gives an account of the events which happened to him during the previous few months.

In the Seventh Month 1824, Thomas Shillitoe and Elizabeth H. Walker came to Pyrmont, and to the latter J.Y. gave his assistance in various religious engagements.  After her departure he again visited Minden, with the neighboring villages of Eidinghausen and Hille.  His visit to the last-named place (1 mo. 13, 1825) was marked by a singular circumstance.

Finding a sudden draft [in my mind] to be at the reading meeting in Hille, to begin at two o’clock, there seemed but little time; however, proposing it to my dear friend John Rasche, he was quite willing to accompany me, and driving quickly we came in due time.  When the [meeting] was over, the Friends told me they thought it very remarkable that we should come unexpectedly on that day, and that what was communicated after the reading was particularly suited to the state of a woman Friend present, who was laboring under the temptation that she had committed the unpardonable sin, and could find no rest day or night.  I could not prevent them from expressing their thankfulness for such a mark of Providential interference, in this way to afford the poor woman a little relief and encouragement.

Four days afterwards, having then returned to Friedensthal, J.Y. adds:—­“Since our visit to Hille, the person above-mentioned is dead!”

The depression under which John Yeardley labored, from the loss of that comfortable presence of his Lord which had been almost from his youth as a lamp shining continually upon his head, seems to have reached its lowest point in the early part of this year.  Under date of the 24th of the Second Month he says:—­

I have this morning once more been enabled to pour out my sorrowful spirit before the Father of mercies in a way that has afforded me some relief and encouragement.  In bitterness, and, I may almost say, in agony of soul have I spread before him some of those circumstances which have been a cause of unspeakable distress to me for many months past, and rendered me unfit for almost every service, temporal or spiritual.

Thou knowest, O gracious Father, I long to have my ways and steps regulated by thy holy will.  Therefore I beseech thee, have mercy on my faults, and blot out from thy remembrance all my sins, and everything wherein I have in weakness offended thee; and be pleased to give me strength to become more perfectly and lastingly thine.  O how sensibly do I feel my own weakness, and that without thee I can do nothing, not for a moment preserve my own steps.

In the midst of his discouragement his mind was directed towards the accomplishment of another part of the commission which had been entrusted to him before he left England.—­viz., to sojourn for a time amongst the Friends in the South of France.  Accordingly, early in the Third Month he went to Minden, and laid before the Two-months’ Meeting, his intention of going to Congenies for this purpose, and also of seeking a religious interview with some serious people in the neighborhood of Cologne.