He viewed this time of suffering as profitable in assisting his resolution to undertake the religious mission to which his mind was still continually directed.

In a letter to Thomas Yeardley, of the 1st of the Ninth Month, he says, "Such is my stubborn will that I am not to be effectually pleaded with, until I am brought down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, or judgment." His wife, who was too ill to leave her chamber, has a memorandum respecting her husband's illness, under date of the 29th of the Eighth Month.

It seems to have been the last which her pen ever traced.
Since I wrote, my dear husband has had an awful attack; but the Lord has again been merciful in restoring him to ease once more.

Yesterday (may the Lord enable us to keep covenant) we laid our _Isaac_ on the altar.

O, to be wholly our kind, our Heavenly Master's, who cares to provide for us, for soul and body; who takes nothing from us but what he knows would harm us, and gives us a hundred-fold of that which is good in lieu.
Prior to this time John Yeardley had not confided to his brother the thought which so long had occupied his mind.