Then, season after season, when peace and Independence reign'd, year
following year, this remains to be (1791) a specimen of his personal
labors:
I was from home on this journey four months and eleven days; rode
about one thousand five hundred miles, and attended forty-nine
particular meetings among Friends, three quarterly meetings, six
monthly meetings, and forty meetings among other people.
And again another experience:
In the forepart of this meeting, my mind was reduc'd into such a
state of great weakness and depression, that my faith was almost
ready to fail, which produc'd great searchings of heart, so that I
was led to call in question all that I had ever before experienc'd.
In this state of doubting, I was ready to wish myself at home, from
an apprehension that I should only expose myself to reproach, and
wound the cause I was embark'd in; for the heavens seem'd like
brass, and the earth as iron; such coldness and hardness, I thought,
could scarcely have ever been experienc'd before by any creature, so
great was the depth of my baptism at this time; nevertheless, as I
endeavor'd to quiet my mind, in this conflicting dispensation, and
be resign'd to my allotment, however distressing, towards the latter
part of the meeting a ray of light broke through the surrounding
darkness, in which the Shepherd of Israel was pleas'd to arise, and
by the light of his glorious countenance, to scatter those clouds of
opposition.
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