April 15. From March 12th up to this day we had always a little money in hand for the Orphans, so that there was comparatively no trial of faith. Of the many donations which came in during this period I only mention two, as rather deserving to be noticed, to show what various ways the Lord uses to send us supplies. On March 16th I received from the neighbourhood of London 5l., respecting which the brother who sent it writes, that he was in the habit of giving this sum to his wife, a sister, on her birth days, to lay it out in buying any little thing she liked, and that she this time preferred giving it to the Orphans. On April 3rd a sister gave 5l., which came in most seasonably. She had lost a sum of money, which was afterwards found again, and she felt constrained to give 5l. of it to the Orphans. Now today, April 15, when all was again spent, 3l. came in from Wales.
On Friday, April 30, while I was at Nailsworth, in Gloucestershire, I received the following letter from brother R. B., Master at the Boys-Orphan-House:
"My dear Brother,
"When I wrote last, on Tuesday evening, there was not one penny in hand. But since then the Lord has most graciously dealt with us. Only 1s. 6d. came in on Wednesday morning; but as there were enough provisions in the house for the day, the sisters experienced no difficulty: it was only necessary to refuse to take in what there was not money to pay for. About six I went out for a walk with the boys, and returned after eight, when I found a letter in which was enclosed 5l., with these words; "From the Lord, for the present necessities of the Orphans." It was indeed for the present necessities. Etc.
"Your Brother,
R. B."
This letter came after a previous one, in which brother R. B. informed me about the need in the Orphan-Houses, which led me to prayer. When this letter came from brother B., I received at the same time another from Birmingham, in which was enclosed 10l., from a brother, who had sold some of his books. It was from a most unexpected quarter, as that brother is himself, as a servant of the Lord, depending upon Him for temporal supplies. The same post brought me also information of 1l. 4s, 6d., having been sent from Dublin. The sister in Ireland writes that she sends the money now, as we may be in want of even so small a sum. With regard to the above-mentioned 5l., I mention still further that I know from the handwriting who the donor is; and it is remarkable that he had not given or sent the money to me, as he not only knew I was not in Bristol at the time, but that I was in the neighbourhood where he lives. But this was not only of the Lords ordering, but it was a direct answer to prayer; for knowing the need at the Orphan-Houses, I had been especially led to ask the Lord not to allow the money to be first sent to me in letters or parcels, but to cause it to be directly sent to brother B. How truly precious it is that every one, who rests alone upon the Lord Jesus for salvation, has in the living God a father, to whom he may fully unbosom himself concerning the most minute affairs of his life, and concerning every thing that lies upon his heart! Dear reader, do you know the living God? Is He, in Jesus, your Father? Be assured that Christianity is something more than forms and creeds, and ceremonies: there is life, and power, and reality, in our holy faith. If you never yet have known this, then come and taste for yourself. I beseech you affectionately to meditate and pray over the following verses: John iii. 16, Rom. x. 9, 10, Acts x. 43, I John v. 1.
May 2. A sister who lives near Lutterworth sent me yesterday 5l., which was given for the Orphans by a friend of hers. This 5l. supplies our need today, it being Saturday, for there was only 1l. in hand when this money came.
From March 20th, to May 7th, I spent at Nailsworth, where I prepared the second part of my Narrative for the press, and laboured in the Word. These seven weeks were on the whole, by the help of God, profitably spent in the service of the Lord, and to the benefit of my own soul. There was much love shown to me and my family by the dear saints among whom I was labouring, and I know that my service among them has not been in vain.
Today, May 7, I returned with my family to Bristol.
While I was staying at Nailsworth, it pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, irrespective of human instrumentality, as far as I know, the benefit of which I have not lost, though now, while preparing the eighth edition for the press, more than forty years have since passed away. The point is this; I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might seek to relieve the distressed, I might in other ways seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, not being happy in the Lord, and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit. Before this time my practice had been, at least for ten years previously, as an habitual thing, to give myself to prayer, after having dressed myself in the morning. Now I saw, that the most important thing I had to do was, to give myself to the reading of the word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, by means of the word of God, whilst meditating on it, my heart might be brought into experimental communion with the Lord. I began therefore to meditate on the New Testament from the beginning early in the morning. The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words the Lords blessing upon His precious word, was, to begin to meditate on the word of God, searching, as it were, into every verse, to get blessing out of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word; not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon; but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul. The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that, though I did not, as it were, give myself to prayer, but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or less into prayer. When thus I have been for awhile making confession, or intercession, or supplication, or have given thanks, I go on to the next words or verse, turning all, as I go on, into prayer for myself or others, as the Word may lead to it; but still continually keeping before me, that food for my own soul is the object of my meditation. The result of this is, that there is always a good deal of confession, thanksgiving, supplication, or intercession mingled with my meditation, and that my inner man almost invariably is even sensibly nourished and strengthened, and that by breakfast time, with rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful if not happy state of heart. Thus also the Lord is pleased to communicate unto me that, which either very soon after, or at a later time, I have found to become food for other believers, though it was not for the sake of the public ministry of the Word that I gave myself to meditation, but for the profit of my own inner man. With this mode I have likewise combined the being out in the open air for an hour, an hour and a half, or two hours before breakfast, walking about in the fields, and in the summer sitting for a little on the stiles, if I find it too much to walk all the time.7 I find it very beneficial to my health to walk thus for meditation before breakfast, and am now so in the habit of using the time for that purpose, that when I get into the open air, I generally take out a new Testament of good sized type, which I carry with me for that purpose, besides my Bible: and I find that I can profitably spend my time in the open air; which formerly was not the case, for want of habit I used to consider the time spent in walking a loss, but now I find it very profitable, not only to my body, but also to my soul. The walking out before breakfast is of course not necessarily connected with this matter, and every one has to judge according to his strength and other circumstances.—The difference then between my former practice and my present one is this. Formerly, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as possible, and generally spent all my time till breakfast in prayer, or almost all the time. At all events I almost invariably began with prayer, except when I felt my soul to be more than usually barren, in which case I read the word of God for food, or for refreshment, or for a revival and renewal of my inner man, before I gave myself to prayer. But what was the result? I often spent a quarter of an hour, or half an hour, or even an hour on my knees, before being conscious to myself of having derived comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul, &c.; and often, after having suffered