d MEMOIRS of PERIQD V. thereafter fettled there, where he continues to this day, [1730.7, faithfullydeclaring the gofpel of God. And there feil to my lot, feverai years after, a people fully as conceited of theinfelves as thofe of Carnocli could be. On the 27th, I wanted to be determined what to preach, even after I had prayed to the Lord for his help ; I prayed again, but was nothing cleared ; and fo was much cart down 1 thought of praying again.; but, alas I thought I, what need I go to pray- er ? for I can get no light. I urgedmy foul to believe, and hope againft hope but I found I could not believe. Thus was my foul troubled. Sometimes I flood, fometimes fat, and fometines walked : at length I went to my knees ; and fo I fat a while, but not fpeaking one word. At length I broke out with that, How long, O Lord ?" and, paufing a while again, I cried to the Lord to thew me why he contended with me. Whereupon confcience fpake plain language to me, and told me my fault of felf feeking in fpeaking to a man yefterday, and writing to my brother; for which I defired to humble myfelfbefore. the Lord. the iffue I was determinedwhat to preach. I had many ups and .downs that day. This fermon was for Airth ; and on the mori I ;, when I was going there, I obferved how I was two fe- veral Mmes kept back by storm of weather from that place, and how there two laft times'l have, inmy ftudiesfor it, been plunged deeply ; which made me wonder what might be the matter. But the formwas not yet over : for though the Saturday's night was a good time to my foul, and I think I will fcarce ever forget they;,, relifh the Qitt chapter of John, efpecially that word, " Children, "have ye. any meat?" had on my foul, being the ordinary in the family-exercife ; yet to-morrow morning I was indifpofed both in body and fpirit. I thought I lay a-bed too long in the morning, and that gave me the firft wound. The fweet word aforeíáid I did refle& on ; but now the fap was gone out of it, as to, poor me. The public work was heavy. I had much ado to drive out the glal's with the leóture and fo confounded and defected was I, that I could not fing the pfälm with my very voice. I could fcarcely pray at all. I had neither light nor life in the Srft part of the fermon ; the little light I had in it went a- way by degrees, as ever the light of the fun did by a cloud's com- ing over it, till I thought I ( hould quite have given it over. At that juncture of time, a word was given me to fpeak, and the grofs darknefs was difpelled ; and this continued till the end. In the afternoon I had fame help from the Lord, which I had now learned to prize. As I was going to the afternoon's fermon, I thought the people in that place efteemed me too much, and took that as a. part of the caule of this defertion. 'When I camé out to my lodgings, one Pays to me, You need not Chun to come, to Airth; you are tò well helped to preach there. When, faid I, was I fo helped ? Anf. In the forenoon, (for the fpeaker was not prefent in the afternoon.) The reft faid, it was a fatisfyirig
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