CHAP. III.

Visit to Wales, Cheshire, Lancashire, &c.-to Dorset, Hants, London, &c.-Dorset and Somerset-Circular Meeting-London-family

visit in Wilts-Devonshire and Cornwallindisposition, and exercise-family visits in London-in Bristol-extract from a versified address.

IN the Fifth Month, 1772, Sarah Stephenson obtained the certificate of her Monthly Meeting, for the purpose of paying a religious visit to Friends in Wales, Cheshire, Lancashire, and some adjacent counties. In this journey she had a companion, but she has omitted to mention her name. In the course of it, she was again employed in the weighty service of visiting families, namely those of Lancaster, and her relation William Dillworth of that town, a friend in the ministry already mentioned, bore her company in that engagement. She

returned her certificate in the Eleventh Month, the same year, and acknowledged that she had been favoured with divine regard in the visit, and that she had peace and satisfaction in giving herself up to the service.

The next year there are not any traces of her having been exercised in travelling, until the Eighth Month; when she laid before her Monthly Meeting her concern to visit Friends in Dorset, Hants, London, Essex, and adjacent places. Having obtained the concurrence of the Meeting, she set forward on her journey, and was soon engaged in a family visit among the friends at Shaftsbury, Dorset. Her engagements of this kind did not finish here; she was alike employed at Witham and Colchester, in Essex, and at Norwich; and she visited meetings in Dorset, part of Hants, Essex, Norfolk, and part of Suffolk. She returned by London, and through a part of Oxfordshire; and on giving up her certificate in the Third Month, 1774, expressed her great satisfaction.

In 1774 also, she accompanied Jane Ship

ley, a friend in the ministry, of Ashmore, Dorsetshire, in a visit to Somersetshire, and

part of Dorset,

In the early part of 1775,

she was unwell; but on reviewing her late engagements in the course of apprehended duty, she felt comfort and peace of which she gives the following account.

Felt some bodily complaints, which in my apprehension seemed alarming; but the covering of inexpressible sweetness was spread over my mind, with a sense of its being a taste of the reward which the Lord will give for faithfulness. Encouragement thus sprung in my soul, with hope or belief that my late engagements relative to the church did meet with divine approbation. This, succeeded with tender love to the whole race of mankind, did sweetly console my drooping spirit. Under this divine influence, if consistent with the will of my heavenly Father, it would have been com fortable to have quietly departed; but if it is his pleasure to continue my stay here a little longer, I humbly hope he will be pleased to condescend to direct my steps; and then I

ask no more but, at last, a sweet admission into rest."

In the Ninth Month, this year, she had a certificate to attend the Circular Meeting, to be held at Coleshill, in Warwickshire. The meetings thus denominated were annually held in one of the seven counties of Warwick, Worcester, Gloucester, Hereford, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall. They were chiefly large public meetings for worship; and largely attended by persons of other re. ligious professions. They also drew toge ther no small concourse of Friends. have since been discontinued by direction of the Yearly Meeting, and the last of them was that at Gloucester in 1786.

They

In 1776 she again yielded to a concern to visit the meetings of Friends in the metropolis, and was at the Yearly Meeting. In London she had for a companion Esther Marshall, of Leeds, in Yorkshire; but here they parted, and Sarah, going into Essex; visited the families of the Monthly Meetings of Coggeshall and Felsted. She then returned to London, and afterwards visited.

the Meetings in Hampshire; in which county she was joined by Mary Powell, of Nursted, near Devizes. About this time Elizabeth Merryweather, of Rumsey, Hants, (daughter of Samuel and Deborah Waring, of Alton) was concerned to visit the families of Friends at Fordingbridge and Ringwood, in that county, and at Poole in Dorset. Sarah found her mind engaged to join her in this visit; which she accordingly did, and afterwards returned home by way of Shaftsbury. The certificate which she had obtained for this visit, had been addressed to Friends in London and parts adjacent. On her return in the Tenth Month, she gave an account of the different parts which she had visited; and though some of them must have appeared to be rather beyond what might be called counties adjacent, her account was satisfactory to the meeting.

The year 1777 was a busy one with our industrious friend. In the First month she' laid before her Monthly Meeting a concern, which although it was one of those which she esteemed arduous, did not occasion a