fession, the comfort of my affectionate relations, and my future estate in life, been thereby exposed! In midst of deliverances from the flood and from the flame, from the just alarms of an awakened conscience, from feared reproach, from the snares of the designing and the selfish, how ungrateful has my heart been! In prosperous estate, how forgetful of the vows which in my trouble I made to the Lord! Father, forgive what thy pure eyes behold to be base, treacherous, and ungrateful in the past workings of my heart; sanctify me by thy word; preserve me from falling; aid me in the services of to-morrow."

"June 11, 1793. Thoughts on Mrs. Waugh's journey to Scotland, on Sabbath last, with some of the children, for the recovery of ——'s health. Long hath the good providence of my heavenly Father vouchsafed to the family health and comfortable estate: for the space of more than six years have the mother and the children been well, notwithstanding the unhealthy nature of the place, and the daily danger of bringing disease into the family, to which my profession exposes me. But the storm at length begins to gather, and our feeble minds shrink at the prospect of the blast. The disorder which affects our dear child is of the most alarming nature; there is little ground to hope that her constitution will ever overcome the malignity of the distemper. But thou, my Father in heaven, hast done it; and I desire to bow down before thy will. What am I, that I should speak again to God? It is well. O for a more resigned and composed spirit! Thou

art just when thou judgest, and clear of all blame when thou thus speakest bitter things to us. We have sinned, and what shall we say against thee? O alleviate the pressure of the disorder! Strengthen the mother to bear up under the trial; make the means used successful for the end desired; and O disappoint our fears! Preserve them all on the mighty waters, and carry them in safety to the desired haven. May good accounts be received from them, and my oppressed heart be relieved. Thou art my God, and I will lean on thee. In many former hardships and fears, thou broughtest comfort; thou hast never yet deserted me, and my hope is in thee. May I be kept in the path of duty in their absence. May the holy purposes in the Divine mind, of this dispensation, be fully gained in my heart. From this world may I be weaned as a portion, and my soul return to thee as her resting-place. May I be enabled to bring up my children in the fear of the Lord, and my dear wife be helped to take her part willingly and faithfully in the important duty. We both look up to thee as our Father and Friend. We have few to look to on earth, though many, many more than we deserve. But thou art our divine, abiding, and all-sufficient Friend. We would not wander from thee: this were to wander far from our happiness, our honour, and our privilege. May this blast bring in our straying affections and confidence to the covert of thy power, and the well-spring of thy love. Near to thee may we ever walk, on thy arm may we ever

lean, with thy countenance may we be cheered and comforted through all our journey."

"October 25, 1793. Reflections on my safe arrival yesterday with Mrs. Waugh and the children from Berwick.

"Blessed be the Lord God, who hath not turned away our prayers from him, nor his face from us. Under the means prescribed, he hath graciously put a check on the child's disorder, confirmed her general health, and encouraged us to hope that she may yet outgrow the distemper. He whom winds and seas obey hath vouchsafed to us a pleasant passage, and brought us all in perfect safety to our peaceful home. May Jehovah, the healer, mercifully heal our spiritual maladies, our unbelief, our pride, our worldlymindedness, our indifference about the concerns of the soul, and restore our nature to its primitive soundness and beauty. O that our dear children may live before him, and we be enabled to educate them in his fear! Many are the dangers that surround us in this ensnaring and wicked place. May the Lord, who preserved Lot in Sodom, preserve their young minds pure and unsullied, in midst of abounding iniquity and bad example. We are required to bring them up for God. May our vows at their baptism be felt in their obligations on our souls, and it be our daily care to pay them. Strengthen us, our Father, with all might in the inner man to do thy will; for thou art our God."

The following extract of a letter to Mrs.

Waugh will be found interesting, from its connexion with the extract from his diary immediately following:

"By a letter from Berwick on Saturday, I was informed that Captain Ramsay would sail that afternoon, and that he had promised to hang out a signal for me whenever he should come within sight of Whitby. I have had a coble-man looking out last night and this morning, but there is no appearance of the ship yet. My things are all put up, and I am waiting the call to depart: so should our souls ever be in readiness to leave this changing world, when God shall summon us away. Yesterday was our communion Sabbath here, and, like the first communion, it may be the will of God that I shall no more drink of the fruit of the vine with the church below. The will of the Lord be done. I leave you, my dearest friend, in the care of your Father and your God. He will not leave nor forsake you.

"Lean on Him, and your soul shall attain divine composure. He is a rock, and, as Dr. Young says,All, all is sea besides.'”

66

September 26, 1798. Went on board the Louch, a sloop of Whitby, bound for Hull, on my return to London, whence I had gone five or six weeks ago for the benefit of my health. Before we were off Robin Hood's Bay, the wind began to blow high from the north-east, and was accompanied with rain. As the vessel was designed only to run along the shore to Hull, she had but two men and two boys to navigate her. About midnight, the master thought himself off the Spurn Lights, but not daring to venture in, he kept the vessel out to sea. The wind increasing

next day, and the rain continuing, he still bore out from the land; and at night saw the Dudgeon Lights; we passed on the outside of them, so near as to hear the men conversing with each other. By this time the hoops of the mainsail were almost all torn from the mast, though there was no more sail than was necessary to keep the vessel steady in this state we drifted all the night. I was the sole passenger; and, whether it was from the fatigue and extreme sickness of the preceding night, viz. the 26th, or from my solitary situation, in which there was nobody to hold any religious converse with, or from the apprehended danger, I do not recollect ever to have endured such sensations of distress. The thought of leaving this world and appearing before the judgment-seat of God, is at all times a most solemn thought; it was rendered additionally impressive at that time by the suddenness of the journey, it having been resolved on at the time of dinner the preceding day; by the absence of my religious friends, whose conversation and devotional exercises might have soothed and assisted the enfeebled mind; and especially by the absence of my beloved wife and children, over whose future bereaved condition my heart hung with inexpressible tenderness.

"On the morning of the 28th, the master not knowing where he then was, and seeing a brig making her course to the southward, he concluded that she was steering for Yarmouth Roads: he resolved to follow her; and the more so, as he himself had never taken a vessel into the Roads.