Journal of a Residence at Bagdad Part 6

Almost all the cotton is consumed, so that persons are wandering all over the city to find some, for burying their dead. Water not to be had at any price, nor a water-carrier to be seen. Oh, what heart-rending scenes sin has introduced into the world! Oh, when will the Lord come to put an end to these scenes of disorder, physical as well as moral? In one short month, not less than 30,000 souls have pa.s.sed from time to eternity in this city, and yet, even now, no diminution apparently of deaths. Surely the judgment of the Lord is on this land? One more taken from the little pa.s.sage opposite, making nineteen from the eight houses.

_April 25._--To-day, three more from the same pa.s.sage, making twenty-one from these houses. Such a disease I never heard of or witnessed; certainly not more than one in twenty recovers; every one attacked seems to die.

This has been a heart-rending day. The accounts from the Residency, and the falling of a wall, undermined by the water, obliged me to go out, and I found nothing but signs of death and desolation; hardly a soul in the streets, unless such as were carrying the dead, or themselves affected with plague, and at a number of doors, and in the lanes, bundles of clothes that had been taken from the dead, and put out. The Court of the Mosque was shut, having no place left for burying, and graves were digging in every direction in the roads, and in the unoccupied stables about the city. The water also has increased so much as to be within a few inches of inundating the city. Should this further calamity come on this side, as it has on the other, the height of human misery will be near its climax, for where they will then bury their dead I know not. There seems no diminution in the plague yet, that we can discern. Two of the men we had helping to take Major T----'s things from the water are attacked; one of them is the fourth from a house, consisting of six. The remaining servant of Mr.

T---- had intelligence brought while I was there, that his aunt was dead, which, he says, is the eighth near relation he has lost.

Some of the Mohammedans, our neighbours, were sitting under our windows last evening, and were observing, that while two or three had been taken from every house, we only had remained free. And this is of the Lord's marvellous love. We consist of thirteen, including the schoolmaster's family, and the Lord has given his destroying angel charge to pa.s.s over our door.

The Pasha has sent to desire, that he might have Major T----'s yacht drawn up near the Seroy or Palace to go into, in case the water should increase; and when the man was sent for, who had the charge of the vessel, he with another had run away, three were dead, and only one remained. These are surely the days of visitation for the pride of Edom. The man who sold cotton for burying the dead, the price of which he raised from 45 to 95 piastres, and who lived only two doors from us, died yesterday. There is no more cotton left in the city, and they now bury the dead in their clothes. The price of soap is raised four times higher than usual. I have been enabled, by the Lord's goodness, to get all our water-jars filled, though at twenty times the usual price. The bodies of persons of considerable wealth are now just put on the back of a donkey, or a mule, and carried away to be buried, accompanied by one servant. We have also much anxiety about the people of the Damascus-caravan, of which we can hear no tidings, whether or not they have been swallowed up by the inundation. Whether they have been able to retreat to some eminence, or what is become of them we know not. The poor women who have taken charge of the two poor little infants have sent to us for food for them, as in these countries they have no idea of bringing up children by hand. It may be to be instrumental in saving some of these poor little infants, and in helping the orphans that remain, that the Lord has allowed us to stay here. They are all Mohammedan children.

_April 26._--For many days we have been unable to obtain any account of the number of deaths; but the _Chaoush_ of Major T---- has been with the Pasha this morning, who is in the greatest possible state of alarm, wis.h.i.+ng to go, but not knowing how. One of his officers, whose business it is to inquire about the number of deaths daily, reported that it had reached 5,000, but yesterday was 3,000, and to-day less.

Enormous as the mortality has been, I cannot but think this beyond the truth; yet it must be remembered, that the inundation kept immense ma.s.ses of poor thronged together in the city, who, but for this, would have all fled in one direction or another.

The accounts are heart-rending of little children left in the streets; five were left yesterday, a poor woman told us, near the Residency, and others in different directions. If the wrath of G.o.d is pouring out on the mystical Babylon, as it is on this province of the literal Babylon; the two antichrists are beginning to draw near their end. But for the presence of the Lord in our dwelling, as its light and joy, what a place would this be to be alone in now; but with Him, even this is better than the garden of Eden. These are invaluable situations for the experience of G.o.d's loving distinguis.h.i.+ng care, and here we realize our pilgrim state much better than in the quiet of England, with all its external apparent security.

The utmost number of daily deaths I heard of at Tabreez were 400, and here it is said to be 4,000, and yet the population certainly is not double. In going out to speak with a servant of Major T----, I saw a very decently dressed female lying in a dying state of plague at our door quite senseless; it is almost more than the heart can bear. Yet, that the Lord will even from these scenes prepare ways for the establishment of his truth, I feel fully a.s.sured, and this supports us. A north wind has regularly blown for these four days past, so that we hope the water will not again increase. Oh, may our Father of his infinite mercy take away these heavy heavy judgments, and make their present measure instrumental to the advancement of his kingdom. The Soochee Bashee, an officer of police, has just been here, and tells us, that the Pasha proposes removing to near Coote, a village on the Tigris, half way between this and Bussorah. At any other time, this would tend to most fearful convulsions within the city; but in the present state of things, perhaps, all may remain quiet, without a governor. When the plague, that now desolates the city ceases, we know not what may happen; but this we do know, that the love of our Father, and his gracious providence, will be magnified by all events, and that we shall yet praise him more and more. It seems to me more than probable that the Pasha does not intend to return. By the plague he has lost half his soldiers, and a great number of his Georgian slaves, who are his personal attached friends; he may now remove without obstruction perhaps, from any one, or the possibility of any communication being made to his enemies to intercept him; but time only will show; however this may be, it is certain that should the plague cease to-morrow, the city is in such a state, that no resistance could be made for one moment to any enemy. How invaluable the past proofs of the Lord's loving kindness and tender mercies are at such times, the remembrance of him from the Hill Mizar of the Hermonites. In going along the streets to-day, I saw several poor sufferers labouring under the plague; and a number of places, where clothes had been brought out and burnt.

Our anxieties have been greatly increased by the illness of our dear little baby; but our unerring Physician has restored her to us to-day, we trust in a measure which promises amendment.

_April 27._--To-day all thoughts are turned from the plague to the inundation, which from the falling of a portion of the city wall on the north-west side last night, let the water in full stream into the city. The Jews' quarter is inundated, and 200 houses fell there last night: we are hourly expecting to hear, that every part of the city is overflowed. A part also of the wall of the citadel is fallen. And, in fact, such is the structure of the houses, that if the water remains near the foundations long, the city must become a ma.s.s of ruins. The mortar they use in building is very like plaister of Paris, which sets very hard, and does very well when all is dry; but as soon as ever water is applied, it all crumbles to powder; and in building walls of four or five feet thick, they have only an outside casing of brick work thus cemented, and within it is filled up with dust and rubbish, so that what seems strong enough in appearance to bear any thing, soon moulders away, and by its own weight accelerates its ruin. It must be many many years, if ever, before the city can recover. But it seems to me, that this seat of Mohammedan glory, and of its proudest recollections, has received its death-warrant from the hand of the Lord. This inundation has not only ruined an immense number of houses in the city, and been the cause of tens of thousands dying of the plague, but the whole harvest is destroyed. The barley, which was just ready to be reaped, is utterly gone, and every other kind of corn must likewise be ruined, so that for 30 miles all round Bagdad, not a grain of corn can be collected this year, and perhaps, if all was quiet this might be of no consequence, for from Mosul and Kourdistan it might easily come; but this will be prevented by the enemies of the Pasha who surround us. The poor are beginning to feel immense difficulty in the city, for all the shops are shut, and there is a great scarcity of wood for firing; and should the water now cause a general inundation of the whole city, the heart sickens at the contemplation of the scenes that must follow; for the houses of the poor are nothing but mud, scarcely one of which will be left standing.

For ourselves personally, the Lord has allowed us great peace, and a.s.sured confidence in his loving care, and in the truth of his promise, that our bread and our water shall be sure; but certainly nothing but the service of such a Lord as he is would keep me in the scenes which these countries do exhibit, and I feel a.s.sured will, till the Lord has finished his judgments on them, for the contempt of the name, nature, and offices of the Son of G.o.d; yet I linger in the hope he has a remnant even among them, for whose return these convulsions are preparing the way.

_April 28._--News more and more disastrous. The inundation has swept away 7,000 houses from one end of the city to the other, burying the sick, the dying, and the dead, with many of those in health, in one common grave.[28] Those who have escaped, have brought their goods and the relics of their families, to the houses the plague has desolated, or desertion left unoccupied, and houses are yet falling in every direction.

[28] I have heard of eight thus buried in one house, or rather belonging to one family, the remains of which are come to reside next us in a house, where those who had the charge of it are dead.

The Lord has stopped the water just at the top of our street by a little ledge of high ground, so that as yet we are dry; and all free from the sword of the destroying angel. Scarcity of provision is beginning to be sensibly felt, so that very respectable persons are coming to the door to beg a little bread, or a little b.u.t.ter, or some other simple necessary of life. To-day, the number dying in the road was much greater than I have before seen, and the number unburied in the streets daily and hourly increases. The Seroy of the Pasha is a heap of ruins, and though he is most anxious to go, he cannot collect forty men to man the yacht, for all fear of him is now past, and love for him they have none; his distress beggars all description, for not a single native vessel is left in Bagdad, every one having been employed in taking down the crowds to Bussorah at the commencement of this dreadful calamity. I have from day to day mentioned the dead taken from the eight houses opposite to ours; that number has to-day reached twenty-four; in one of these, out of nine, one only survives; and I mention twenty-four not as all, but as those which have been seen carried out by some of the schoolmaster's family, who were however very little in that room which overlooks this pa.s.sage. Of another family near the Meidan, out of thirteen one only remains, and I have no doubt there are hundreds of families similarly swept away; yet amidst all these trials to the servants of G.o.d, my heart does not despair for the work of the Lord, for no ordinary judgments seem necessary to break the pride and hatred of this most proud and contemptuous people; but the Lord will bring Edom down, and make a way for the Kings of the East to his holy habitation. We have taken one poor little Mohammedan baby, about three or four years old, from the streets, and are supplying a poor Armenian woman with pap for another; but what is this among so many? We know not what to do. It makes pa.s.sing the streets most painful and affecting, thus to see little children from a month or six weeks, to two or four years, crying for a home, hungry, and naked, and wretched, and knowing not what to do, nor where to go. Thank G.o.d however, to-day the water is a little abated, about a span lower. Oh, may the Lord's mercy spare yet a little longer this wretched, wretched city. Oh, how does the glory of the Chalifat lie in ashes; she seems within a step of falling like her elder sister Babylon, the glory of the Chaldean's excellency, and in how many things has her spirit towards the church of G.o.d been as bad, yea worse, than hers. Missionaries in these countries have need of a very simple faith, which can glory in G.o.d's will being done, though all their plans come to nothing. It was but the other day we were surrounded by as interesting a school of boys, and a commencing one of thirteen girls, as the heart could desire; and now if the plague and desolation were to terminate to-morrow, and our scattered numbers were a.s.sembled, perhaps not more than half would remain to us. Yet dark as all the labours of the Lord's servants in these countries appears, I feel a.s.sured, that prophecy points them out as specially connected with many of the great events of the latter days. Yet it requires great confidence in G.o.d's love, and much experience of it, for the soul to remain in peace, stayed on him, in a land of such changes, without even one of our own nation near us, without means of escape in any direction; surrounded with the most desolating plague and destructive flood, with scenes of misery forced upon the attention which harrow up the feelings, and to which you can administer no relief. Even in this scene however, the Lord has kept us of his infinite mercy, in personal quiet and peace, trusting under the shadow of his Almighty wing, and has enabled us daily to offer up to his holy name praise, for suffering us to a.s.semble in undiminished numbers, when tens of thousands have been falling around us. Neither is this all, for he has made us know why we staid in this place, and why we were never allowed to feel it to be our path of duty to leave the post we were in.

_April 29._--Our situation is becoming daily still more extraordinary, and in many respects more trying, except that our Lord is our hiding place, who will preserve us from trouble, and will compa.s.s us about with songs of deliverance. The Pasha has fled, accompanied by his master of the horse, and his immediate family. His palace is left open, without a soul to take care of any thing. His stud of beautiful Arab horses are running about the streets, and are caught by those who care to take the trouble, and offered for sale for from 10. to 100.

each; his stores also of corn are left open, and every one takes what he wants, or what he can carry away, which is a great relief to the poor, for the quant.i.ties are enormous, in expectation of a siege.

The plague is working its destructive way, apparently with no other mitigation than that arising from decreasing numbers in the city; the inundation however, has prevented this having its full weight, for it has thronged the remaining population into a compa.s.s unnaturally disproportionate. The house next us, which belongs to a Seyd, who left it at the beginning of the plague, in charge of two servants who are dead, is now filled by twenty persons from different directions. The unburied dead, and the dying, are fearfully acc.u.mulating in the streets. So difficult it is now to find persons to bury, that even the priest of the Armenian church here, who died two days since, remains yet unburied.

The water, thank G.o.d, is a little lower, but there seems now every prospect that the moment the waters decrease, the surrounding Arabs will come in, and plunder the city; yet even this is in the Lord's hands--our wisdom has ever been to sit still, and see the salvation of our G.o.d, and until we see his cloudy pillar arise from off our tabernacle, where we feel it has. .h.i.therto rested, and move forward, we shall yet judge our safety to be to sit still. We have in several instances seen, that there was reason to bless G.o.d for remaining quiet. We once thought of removing to the Residency, as a change to the dear children, and as being nearer to the water; but still on the whole we felt it best to remain here; and had we gone, we should have been in the midst of the plague; or had we gone, when the T----s went to Bussorah, what a state should we now be in, without the possibility of removing, and in danger of our lives from the inundation and falling of the walls, if we stayed.

We had again considered, whether it would be right to leave this with the caravan for Damascus and Aleppo, which seemed the only opening there might possibly be for us, so that if we let that pa.s.s by, we must stay whether we would or not; still the Lord made us feel it was our path to stay looking to him. And had we gone, what a state should we have been in? For nearly three weeks they have been surrounded with water, continually increasing around them, so that now we know not what their situation may be, whether they are swept away, or remain; but at all events we bless G.o.d for having inclined our minds to stay.

Why we did not join our dear and kind friends the T----s, in going to Bussorah, we do not yet so clearly see the reason of, because we have received no accounts thence, but it would have cut up alike our connection with our work here, and with our dear friends at Aleppo, with whom we feel it daily of more and more importance to have as speedy a meeting as possible for advice and counsel.

We have just heard of the caravan already mentioned, as going to Damascus and Aleppo. The plague has taken off eight of the Armenians, and four have been drowned. The head of the caravan is dead of the plague also, besides many others; they must therefore return to Bagdad, instead of advancing on their journey; so in this instance at least we see great reason to bless G.o.d for keeping us back. Yea, the Lord will instruct us and teach us the way in which we should go, and will guide us with his eye; this is our confidence and comfort; and in such a time as this of unheard of perplexity, what a source of abiding peace is this. We feel it well to know our G.o.d in such circ.u.mstances as ours. Among the Armenians, thirteen died to-day, the largest number yet in one day.

_April 30._--The report of the flight of the Pasha, it appears was not true, and arose from the two circ.u.mstances I have mentioned, of his horses having been seen running about the streets, and his supplies being open to the people. He has been for several days endeavouring to get away, and had drawn up for that purpose some boats under the Seroy. All his stables were levelled to the ground, and the place flooded with water. When the distress of the people was mentioned to him, he ordered one of his corn stores to be opened to them. However, to-day, blessed be G.o.d's Holy Name, _the waters have sunk more than a yard_, so we trust the great danger is over.

To-day, one more was brought out dead from the eight opposite houses, making twenty-five, and we know there are four more lying ill there.

Our poor schoolmaster, who went in the caravan, is dead, and was buried in his tent.

_May 1._--The Lord has brought us all in safety to the beginning of another month, through the most trying period of my life; yet the Lord has every day filled our mouth with praise, and enabled us to see his preserving hand.

To-day, as I pa.s.sed along the street, I saw numbers of dead bodies lying unburied, and the dogs eating with avidity the loathsome food.

Oh! it made my very heart sink. The numbers of the dead can now be no longer ascertained, for most of the bodies are buried either in the houses or in the roads; yet amidst all this, the Lord suffers not the destroying angel to enter our dwelling; but we feel the Lord has commanded the man with the ink-horn to write us down to be spared, as this is one of the vials of G.o.d's wrath on his enemies.

_May 2._--We have heard nothing to-day to vary the general scene of our calamities; the intensity of this most desolating disease surpa.s.ses all thought. Numbers of families are altogether swept away; in numerous others, out of ten or twelve, only one, two, or three remain; but I hear of none, save our own, where death has not entered.

Yet, while I bless and praise the Holy Name of our Lord, under whose wing alone we came here, and under whose wing alone we have trusted, the things my eyes have seen, and my ears heard, press upon my heart, and make me at times very sad; neither can I chase them from my mind.

I can only look forward for comfort to that day, when the Lord himself will come to put an end to this dispensation of desolation, and introduce his own peace. Yea, come Lord Jesus, come quickly.

We have just heard melancholy tidings of another caravan, which endeavoured to escape into Persia from the plague, but has been forced back again by the Arabs, the floods, and the scarcity of provisions, and besides numbers among them have died daily of the plague, so still we can bless G.o.d we did not leave our present position by this last opportunity. Let us then again bless him for not allowing us to make haste.

_May 3._--To-day we trust the Lord has a little alleviated the virulence of the plague; many attacked yesterday, and the day before, have been rapidly recovering, and fewer deaths have taken place to-day--a great deal so far as we can ascertain. May G.o.d's holy name be praised, who is a hiding place from every storm. We had our water jars filled again to-day, when many, even of the rich, who have connections in every direction, find the greatest difficulty. "Your water shall be sure." We who are alone, and without a friend within hundreds of miles in any direction, have been supplied by our Lord's gracious ordering; thus he puts a new song into our mouths, even a song of thanksgiving. To-day all are well, even our dear little baby is quite recovered.

_May 4._--The weather has for these two or three days past been beautifully fine, and clear, and hot, by which our G.o.d seems to have mitigated the symptoms of the plague. All accounts to-day are encouraging; the number of new cases few, and the number of those recovering many. Our eyes have also been rejoiced by the sight of three or four water-carriers pa.s.sing again, after an interval of ten days; many more people have also been pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing than before; so we trust the Lord is now taking away this desolating judgment, which, in less than two months, has carried away more than half the population of this city; for, allowing that it had been silently making its deadly course three weeks before it was discovered, it does not exceed eight weeks, and by far the greatest portion of deaths have been within the last four weeks.

_May 5._--In my journal yesterday, I mention more than half the population as having been swept away in the inconceivably short s.p.a.ce of two months, but every account I have received, convinces me that this is within the number; certainly not less than two thirds have been swept away, and this seems to have arisen from a complication of causes. At the time when the great ma.s.s of the population would have fled, and thus have thinned the city, the waters rose so high, that they could move only with great difficulty; they waited in the hopes of the water subsiding, instead of which, it so increased, that those who had left the town and could get back, were compelled to return; those who could not, were driven to seek some high ground where they might remain safe from the water, but in all cases they were crowded together without the power of moving their position.--Again, in the city, when by the death of immense mult.i.tudes the population became greatly thinned, the inundation of the water laid more than half the town level with the ground, and drove the remaining people to congregate together wherever they could find a dry place or an open house, so that often twenty or thirty came to reside together in the same house, as was the case next door to us; thus again the deaths became awfully great. Inquire where you will, the answer is, The city is desolate: around the Pasha four Georgians alone remain alive out of more than one hundred. The son of our Moolah, who is dead, told me to-day, that in the quarter where he lives, not one human being is left--they are all dead. Out of about eighteen servants and seapoys that Major T. left, fourteen are dead, two have now the plague,[29]

and two remain well. Among the Armenians, more than half are dead. An Armenian who was with us to-day, tells us, there are not more than twenty-seven men left in one hundred and thirty houses. I, however, think that this is exaggerated.

[29] Those two died.

At Hillah, the modern Babylon, (population 10,000), there is, Seyd Ibrahim told me to-day, scarce a soul left, and the dogs and the wild beasts alone are there feeding on the dead bodies. This Seyd Ibrahim is one of the surviving servants of Major T.; and is the only one of a family of fourteen who remains alive.--His four brothers, their wives, his own wife, their children, and his own, are all dead. If mystical Babylon is suffering, as the seat of this Archbishopric of the literal Babylon, the times are not far off when the river Euphrates shall be dried up for the kings of the east to pa.s.s over.

For digging a grave they ask a sum that equals in England three pounds, in consequence of which numbers have remained unburied about the streets, so that the Pasha has been obliged to engage men, paying them at the same rate for each body they will throw into the river.

In all the villages the desolation seems as complete as it is here.

When day by day I rise and see our numbers complete, and all in health, my soul is indeed made to feel what cannot the Lord do? though ten thousand shall fall at thy right hand it shall not come nigh thee.--I do not yet see what effect all this is likely to have on our labours here--whether it will break down or build up barriers; yet we expect it will break down, for the Lord seems thus breaking to pieces the power if not the pride of this haughty people. I have been struck two or three times lately, in going out, with the intense hatred that lurks at the bottom of the hearts of this people against Christians; my dress manifested me to be one, and some Arabs I met, particularly the women, cursed me with the most savage ferocity as I pa.s.sed, two or three calling out at me as though I were the cause of all their calamities; and the people who are come to live next door to us, are bitter against us, especially one man among them, who seems to have his heart quite corroded, because they are dying and we are preserved by our Lord's love; he sits and talks under our window, saying, "These Christians and Jews alone remain, but in the whole of Bagdad you will hardly find one hundred Mohammedans." This is altogether false, for though in proportion as many Christians may not have died as Mohammedans and Jews, yet the deaths among them have been enormous, as the preceding accounts will have shewn.

Medicine I have found of no use. If you attack the fever, they die of prostration of strength; if you endeavour to support the const.i.tution, they die of oppression on the brain. Those cases which first affected the head with delirium, have been the most fatal; next those with carbuncles, which did not appear, however, for a fortnight after the commencement of the disease. Among those who have recovered, almost the whole have had large glandular swellings, speedily separating and thus relieving the const.i.tution.

This night, the first time for three weeks, I have heard again the Muezzin's call to prayers, from the minarets of the Mosques.

_May 6._--The water to-day is much decreased. I saw a man also with fresh meat in his hand. I likewise saw many recovering from the plague walking about, leaning on sticks, and sitting by the way-side. The number of deaths, among the Armenians, to-day, amounted to 11, which, considering that their whole remaining numbers cannot exceed 300 at present, is an enormous mortality, and has a little damped our hopes of a speedy conclusion to this awful visitation.

_May 7._--Of the plague nothing satisfactory to-day. Thieves are multiplying in every direction; and news has come from Mosul that a new Pasha has arrived there, who only waited for the cessation of the plague to advance against Bagdad. Great part of his work of destruction is already done for him, as hardly a Georgian is left, and he will find money enough left without owners, to supply his own utmost rapacity, or the demands of the Sultan. The Lord is our only secure resting place, and we know that he who delivers us out of six troubles, can and will deliver us out of seven.

The water is decreasing most rapidly, so that rice is beginning to be brought from the other side of the river; and as all those who monopolized the sale of wood, and not only asked enormous prices, but cheated in the weight, are all dead, every one now that needs wood takes it, so that the situation of the poor seems in this respect a little improved.

There has not been among all the circ.u.mstances of this scene of complicated suffering, any one that has more painfully affected my own mind than the increasing number of infants and little children that have been left exposed in the streets, and the absolute impossibility of meeting such a state of things. We greatly desired to take one or two; but our own little baby was ill, so that by night Mary had hardly any rest, and at best, not being strong in such a climate, we came reluctantly to the decision that we were not able to undertake such an additional charge.

This is an anxious evening. Dear Mary is taken ill--nothing that would at any other time alarm me, but now very little creates anxiety; yet her heart is reposing on her Lord with perfect peace, and waiting his will. A few hours, perhaps, may show us that it is but a little trial of our faith to draw us nearer the fountain of our life. To nature it seems fearful to think of the plague entering our dwelling; in our present situation, nothing but the Lord's especial love could sustain the soul in the contemplation of a young family, left in such a land, at such a time, and in such circ.u.mstances; but we feel we came out under the shadow of the Almighty's wing, and we know that his pavilion will be our sanctuary, let his gracious providence prescribe what it may. On his love, therefore, we cast ourselves with all our personal interests.

_May 8._--The Lord has this day manifested that the attack of my dear dear wife, is the plague, and of a very dangerous and malignant kind, so that our hearts are prostrate in the Lord's hand. As I think the infection can have only come through me, I have little hope of escaping, unless by the Lord's special intervention. It is indeed an awful moment, the prospect of having a little family in such a country at such a time. Yet, my dearest wife's faith triumphs over these circ.u.mstances, and as she sweetly said to me to day, "The difference between a child of G.o.d and the worldling is not in death, but in the hope the one has in Jesus, while the other is without hope and without G.o.d in the world." She says, "I marvel at the Lord's dealings, but not more than at my own peace in such circ.u.mstances." She is now continually sleeping, and when roused feels it difficult to keep her dear mind fixed on any subject for a minute. These are indeed the floods of deep waters, but in the midst of them the Lord is working his mysterious way, yet that way, however bitter to nature, is for the everlasting consolation of his chosen ones. She said to me, a few minutes since, "What does the Lord say concerning me." I said, that you are a dear child of his. "Yes," she said, "of that I have no doubt." May the Lord of his infinite mercy sustain my poor weak soul amidst these heavy visitations, that at least we may magnify him, whether by life or by death; what a relief it is now to my mind to think that her's was so much set against moving, whenever I proposed it, and she often said in reply, "The Lord has given me no desire nor sense of the desirableness of moving, which I feel a.s.sured he would have done had he seen it best."

_May 9._--My dearest, dearest wife still alive, and not apparently worse than yesterday. Oh! if it were the Lord's holy blessed will to spare her, it would indeed rejoice my poor foolish heart, but the Lord has enabled me to cast my wife, myself, and my dear dear children on his holy love, and to await the issue. Oh! what wrath there must be against these lands, if not only the inhabitants are swept away, but the Lord transplants also his own, who would teach them, to his own garden of peace. My soul has just been refreshed by these two verses of Psalm 116. "Return unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee. He has taken one of thy olive branches to glory, and is now perhaps about to take another, for precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints, for he only takes them from the evil to come." Oh, but for Jesus, the never setting star of our heavenly way, amidst the wilderness what would our situation now be. Jesus is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, and our heavenly Father's love we have too often proved to doubt it now. But, poor nature is bowed very very low, when I look at my dear boys and little babe, and see only poor little Kitto to be left for their care for hundreds of miles around; it needs all those consolations of G.o.d's spirit to keep the soul from sinking also with the body; but the Lord has said, "Leave your fatherless children unto me," and to him we desire to leave them.

We did feel a.s.sured that the Lord would spare our dear little united happy family; but his ways are not our ways, nor his thoughts our thoughts. Dear little Kitto, I feel for his situation also from my heart.

All the conversation of my dear dying wife, for these twelve months past, but especially as our difficulties and trials increased, was on the peace she enjoyed in the Lord. Often and often she has said to me, notwithstanding the disparity of every thing external, I never in England enjoyed that sweet sense of my Lord's loving care that I have enjoyed in Bagdad. And her a.s.surance of her Lord's love never forsook her, even after she felt herself attacked by the plague. While contemplating the mysteriousness of the Providence, her mind was overwhelmed; but when she thought on her Lord's love, she was confident in his graciousness. From almost the first, her brain has been so oppressed, that with difficulty she opens her eyes, and though she can answer a question of two or three words, Yes, or No; yet, if it involves the slightest exercise of thought, she always replies, "I do not know what you say." When I consider all I and the dear children lose, should we survive her, it is almost more than my heart can contemplate. On any essential point, for some years, we have never had divided judgment on any material point; in every work of faith, or labour of love, her desire was to animate, not to hinder. Such simple truth of purpose, and unaffected love, and confidence in her Lord, as dwelt in her dear departing spirit, I have seldom seen, and those who knew her intimately will not think I say too much. She has been to me in the relation of Christian wife, and Missionary wife, just what I felt I so much, so very much needed. And yet the Lord sees fit to take her to himself, and add one more from my little family to the chosen, faithful, and true company that surrounds his throne. Lord, then, though it cuts nature to the quick, makes me feel its deepest suffering, and meets me under the most complicated forms of trial, yet if it be for thy glory, and her glory, do, dear Lord, thine Almighty will, and we know thou wilt to thy chosen, make light spring up out of darkness.

_May 10._--Last evening my dearest wife was more herself than she had been, till within a few hours of her being taken ill, which was manifested by her asking to see dear little baby, the first thing she had voluntarily asked for, since her illness, without being spoken to.

She again mentioned the subject of her confidence in her Lord, and acquiescence in his will. She asked me what I thought of her situation. I said I had committed her to the Lord, who, I knew, would deal graciously by her. She replied, "Yes, that he will." She continued in this state of improvement till to-day at about nine o'clock, when her mind again began to wander. When I quoted to her, that to the Lord's servants light should spring up in darkness, she said, "Yes, that it shall." She said, "I feel much better than yesterday--don't you see that I am." In fact, my hopes of her being really improving would have been complete, but from that peculiar look of the eyes, which authors who have written on this subject, all denote as most fatal; from this, therefore, my hopes never were very high, yet though I had yesterday been enabled, through the Lord's grace, to lie in his hands like a weaned child, to-day the disappointment of the dear hope, slight as it was, of having her restored to us, has brought my soul again into very deep waters. She also this morning expressed her anxiety about the dear children, and her fear, least in attending her, I should take the plague, and they be left orphans here.

In every respect, certainly the Lord has been most gracious to her.