cribed the services in which she had been engaged. She particularly remarked, that she firmly believed that the seed of God was sown in Scotland; and said that her returning through Wales, and visiting Friends in their cottages among the mountains, were as a cordial in her remembrance.

It was probably soon after her return from this long journey, that she wrote the following memorandum:

1781. As my soul was led into awful stillness and gathered into abasement, I was favoured to feel that in the quiet attentive state, the Lord is pleased to prepare the soul to hear the language which was proclaimed by the angel, Worship God;"-awfully leading under the covering of the Holy Spirit, to adore and worship Him, whose glory the heaven of heavens cannot contain.'

The two following pieces will close all that remains to be added, respecting the exercises of this devoted servant, in the year 1781.

Eleventh Month, 1781. My mind was stripped, and dipped exceedingly low for

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many days so that all divine.comfort seemed to have left me. Under this proving dispensation I was tempted to believe that I was cast off; and as this belief prevailed, the clouds of darkness and distress increased. I then thought I should be thankful to be removed, if I might but die like the beasts of the field. But whilst under this distress, sitting still one evening, the Lord was pleased to cause a perfect calm to cover my mind, and brought before me his wonderful preservations and deliverances, one after another, from my childhood to that present time, as clearly as if written in large characters at the beholding of which my soul was humbled, and faith in the mercy, goodness, and forgiveness of God, began to spring up in my soul; and so, mercifully caused the clouds of despair to disperse. believe my being thus led to feel a state wholly stripped of hope in the mercy of God, was in order to lead me into tender sympathy with poor souls thus tried.'

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"Twelfth Month, 1781. O, that pure stream which is clear as crystal, proceeding

from the throne of God, which impregnates the soul with its precious virtue, by which it becomes heavenly, and, in time, like the king's daughter, "all glorious within!" Thus the soul, being espoused to Christ, how glorious the union! Happy in time, and unspeakably glorious in eternity, where the heavenly host sing, glory and honour, riches and power, to the Lord God and the Lamb, for evermore, world without end!'

CHAP. V.

Visits families at Worcester, and in her own Monthly Meeting-visits Ireland with Hannah Bevington-decease of Isaac Gray-meets with Thomas Cash, John Pemberton, and Thomas Ross various family visits, particularly at Cork.

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THE occurrences of the year 1782 and 1783, of which any account is preserved, are few. Early in the former year, our friend visited the families of Friends in Worcester, and was afterwards engaged in a like service to those of her own Monthly Meeting. In the latter she had Mary Powel for a companion: who was also with her in 1783, on the same service in some other parts of Wiltshire, particularly at Salisbury. The same year, Sarah paid a similar visit to the Friends of some meetings in Somersetshire and Gloucestershire. In these visits,

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she had the company of her sister, Hannah Stephenson.

Hitherto, the travels of Sarah Stephenson, though extensive, had been confined to Great Britain; unless we except her residence, while young in the Isle of Man, which was not on an errand similar to those which occupied her riper years. But in the spring of 1784, she crossed the sea, and entered on a visit to Friends in Ireland: of which visit she has left an account, which is given to the reader in the following pages, nearly in her own words. Some of it appears to have been written almost at the time, when the circumstances took place which it relates; and we may be almost present witnesses of the expression of her feelings.

'On the 9th of the Second Month, 1784, I laid before Friends, at our Monthly Meeting held at Melksham, a concern which I felt for going to Ireland; which being united with, a certificate was prepared, and signed at the following Monthly Meeting, held at Devizes, and also at the Quarterly Meeting the 22d of the Third Month.