30.) 12 _mo_, 1 .-- The reading meeting this evening has been a precious time.

Our spirits have been much tendered in reading some account of the lives and deaths of our worthy Friends recorded in Sewel's History.

Tears so overpowered the reader and the hearers, that the reading was at times obliged to be suspended until we had given relief to our feelings.
In addition to this meeting, John Yeardley established another for the young, to be held on Fourth-day evening, "in which they might improve themselves in reading, and acquire a knowledge of the principles of the Society, with other branches of useful information." The young women were to bring their work; and it was his delight to interrupt the reading with religious instruction, and such remarks as a father makes for the improvement and gratification of his children.

We see him here for the first time in a character in which he was well known to the present generation in various parts of England, viz., as an instructor and guide of the youth.

In noticing in his Diary the formation of the Youths' Meeting at Pyrmont, he comments with pleasure on the innocent cheerful manners of his audience, and on the advantages which might be looked for from this kind of social intercourse.
The last entry in this year records an occasion of near approach to the throne of grace in prayer in the little congregation at Pyrmont.
12 _mo_.