Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel Part 28

The ancient ruins are exceedingly grand, and raise mingled feelings in the heart not easily described, but tending to humble the pride of human greatness. We saw the Temple of Theseus, the prison of Socrates, the famous Temple of Minerva; but the spot that most nearly interested us was Mars Hill, whose rocky mount was in view from lodgings, where we sat and conversed together of the Apostle Paul preaching the true G.o.d; and in the sweet stillness which covered our spirits, earnestly desired that the pure Gospel might again be freely preached and received throughout this interesting but desolated country.

There are not more than sixty really good houses built in the town; but, including great and small, there may be 1500 dwellings. It is settled that Athens shall be the seat of the Greek government; and the young king, Otho, laid the foundation-stone of the new palace in his last visit to this place.

18_th_.--Being anxious to get to Patras in time to sail by an English packet to Corfu, we set off for the port. J. Hill met us, to see us embark in a boat for Kalimichi. The Greek sailors have a superst.i.tion against sailing at any time but in the night; but after being deceived by one captain, we prevailed, on another to set sail [in the daytime], in the full hope of reaching Kalimichi the same evening. A favorable gale wafted us on for some time, but a slight storm coming on, the cowardly captain ran us into a creek, and kept us tossing all the night in his open boat.

About eight o'clock the next morning we were favored to reach Kalimichi in safety, where we procured mules and reached Corinth to dinner.

Here there are only a few houses standing in the midst of ruins. We took up our abode at the only inn, from the windows of which we looked upon the busy scene of a fair. Our hearts were not enlarged, as the great Apostle's was; for our spirits were clothed with mourning in contemplating the darkness of the place. Many persons to whom we spoke could not read; and on offering a Testament to the man of the inn he refused to receive it.

We pursued our travels, and at mid-day met with a trying detention from the muleteer having neglected to obtain a permission. We were at length suffered to proceed, but arrived late at a miserable khan, where we pa.s.sed the night in a loft. This poor place could only furnish two mules and a donkey, with a man to attend them; but we were encouraged to hope we should find four horses about two hours further on; but here we were disappointed, and could get no horses to proceed. We felt truly dest.i.tute, and took refuge in a loft from the scorching rays of the sun. We had very little food with us, and saw no probability of quitting our desolate abode till the next day at any rate. Thus situated we were endeavoring to be reconciled to our allotment, when most unexpectedly, about two o'clock, we espied a small fis.h.i.+ng-boat sailing towards Patras, and immediately ran down to the sh.o.r.e, a considerable distance, to make signals to the boat-man, and inquire whether he would convey us to Vostizza, a place within a day's journey of Patras. We directly procured a mule to convey our baggage to the sh.o.r.e, and descended by a very rough path to a creek where the boat lay to. Here we were again detained by the guard making great difficulty in allowing the boatman to take pa.s.sengers without a permit, which could only be obtained in the town, so strict and perplexing are the regulations for travellers under the new government. However, after detaining us an hour and causing us to lose most of the fair wind, he suffered the man to take us. We sailed along pretty well for a time, when the wind suddenly changed, and the boatman told us we could not get to Vostizza that night, but added they would put us on sh.o.r.e where we should be within an hour's walk of it, and that we could readily find a mule to carry our baggage. This we gladly accepted, and were soon landed and on our way.

Although sick and weary on board, we seemed to receive new strength for our walk, and arrived at Vostizza at about eight o'clock. Here our accommodation for the night was much like our former lodging; for this large town has also been, burned by the enemy, and presents a scene of ruins. We engaged horses for the next day to convey us to Patras, and were a little cheered with the prospect of being near that place of attraction.

The man of the house where we lodged could not read, but informed us there was a school in the town of fifty boys. We saw a person in the next shop writing, and offered him a Testament, which he very gratefully received, and sent for the schoolmaster, who seemed much pleased with our offer to send him books and lessons. We also gave books to several we met with, who began eagerly to read them aloud, and soon obtained hearers, so that it became a highly interesting scene: boys who received tracts from us showed them to others, and numbers crowded about us, even to the l.u.s.t moment of our stay. If we had had a thousand books we could have disposed of them. What a difference between this place and poor Corinth!

Our trying journey through Greece has given us an opportunity of judging of the state of things, and I hope will enable us to relieve some of their wants. It is cause of humble thankfulness to the Father of mercies that he has preserved us in the midst of many dangers, and brought us in safety so far back on our way with hearts filled with love and praise.

They arrived at Patras on the 22nd, but found that the English steamer had sailed two days before. They employed the interval before the sailing of another packet in establis.h.i.+ng a girls' school, which was commenced soon after their departure. At Corfu they received information of the opening of the school, conveyed in a letter from the sister of the English consul in the following encouraging terms:--

I am sure you will be gratified to hear that the school which was established by your benevolent exertions has been opened under the most favorable auspices. The first day we had twenty-two girls; we have now forty-eight. Nothing can exceed the eagerness shown by the children to be admitted, and their parents seem equally anxious to send them; with very few exceptions they come clean, and on the whole are attentive and well behaved. Of the forty-eight there are only nine who can read. The little Corfuot you recommended is first monitor, and of great use.

They reached Corfu on the 12th of the Fifth Month, and were kindly accommodated at the office of the Commissary Ramsay.

Immediately on our arrival at Corfu, our young friend the Count Sardina renewed his visits. We saw him almost daily; our conversations were often truly spiritual; he opened his heart to us, and we rejoiced to believe that he had attained to a degree of living faith in his Redeemer.

It will be recollected that their inability to collect the inhabitants in a meeting for wors.h.i.+p was a source of discouragement to John and Martha Yeardley in their former visit to Corfu. Now, on revisiting this island, they had the satisfaction of holding two meetings for wors.h.i.+p with Isaac Lowndes' congregation.

6 _mo._ 1.--Isaac Lowndes had now obtained leave to hold his meeting for wors.h.i.+p in the large school-room, and I felt at liberty to propose having an opportunity to address the congregation. This he gladly accepted, and gave notice of our intention. It was pretty well attended, but not full; a good feeling prevailed.

15_th_.--We had another meeting with the little company who meet in the school-room. The room was better filled than on the former occasion: it was a precious season of divine favor; utterance was given to preach the word, and I trust there were some into whose hearts it found entrance.

A few days before we left the island, I.L. took us to visit the Jewish Rabbi, who, though full of argument, appears extremely dark and bewildered, dwelling on mysterious words whose interpretation is confined to the rabbinical office. He said they looked for a temporal king, who should give a temporal kingdom to Israel. It was a truly painful visit, and we left him with the desire that he might be instructed even out of his own law, which, if properly understood, would prove as a schoolmaster to bring him to Christ.

After spending about five weeks at Corfu on this second visit, they again crossed the Adriatic to Ancona.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE THIRD CONTINENTAL JOURNEY.

1833-4.

PART III.--THE RETURN FROM GREECE.

Of the numerous letters which John and Martha Yeardley received from England during this long journey, very few have been preserved. We shall extract short pa.s.sages from two which came to their hands not long before they left the Islands. The first is from John Rowntree, and is dated the 13th of the First Month, 1834.

On my own account, and on behalf of the Friends of our Monthly Meeting, I feel grateful for the information respecting your proceedings. There is some difficulty in satisfying the eager anxiety of my friends to know all that is to be known about your engagements, and I may truly say that the kind interest which you feel about us is reciprocal. Often do I picture you to myself, laboring in your Master's cause, receiving as fellow-partakers of the same grace all whose hearts have been touched with a sense of his love, who are hoping to experience salvation through Him alone.

Our reading meetings are pretty well attended this winter. We have been reading James Backhouse's journal: he was still engaged, when he sent the last account of his proceedings, in Van Diemen's Land. Like you, he and his companion rejoice at meeting with those to whom, although not exactly agreeing with us in some respects, they can give the right hand of fellows.h.i.+p as laborers under the same Master. Like you, too, they devote considerable attention to the improvement of schools, and the improvement of the temporal condition of the poorer cla.s.ses among whom they labor.

In a letter from William Allen, written the 31st of the Third Month, occur the following words of encouragement:--

I have heard, through letters to your relations and others, that you have been much discouraged at not finding a more ready entrance for your gospel message; but really, considering the darkness; the sensuality, and the superst.i.tion of the people in those parts, we must not calculate upon much in the beginning. If here and there one or two are awakened and enlightened, they may be like seed sown, and in the Divine Hand become instruments for the gathering of others. Should you be made the means of accomplis.h.i.+ng this, in only a very few instances, it will be worth all your trials and sufferings. And again, you must consider that, in the performance of your duty, seed may be sown even _unknown by you_, which may take root, and grow, and bring forth fruit to the praise of the Great Husbandman, though you may never hear of it. Be encouraged therefore, dear friends, to go on from day to day in simple reliance on your Divine Master, without undue anxiety for consequences; for depend upon it, when he has no more work for you to do, he will make you sensible of a release.

The pa.s.sage to Ancona was tedious.

We embarked at noon, and had a long pa.s.sage to Ancona of twelve days. We landed on the 29th, and soon found ourselves occupying an empty room in the Lazaretto, without even the accommodation of a shelf or closet. The term of quarantine is fourteen days, but four days are remitted by the Pope. The heat is oppressive, and the mosquitoes annoy us much, but we are preserved in a tolerable degree of health; and in taking a review of our visit to Greece and the Ionian Islands, we are still sensible of a very peaceful feeling, under a belief that we have followed the pointings of the Great Master, and a hope that the day is not far distant when the way will be more fully opened in those countries to receive the gospel. The preaching of John in the wilderness has often appeared to us to be applicable to this people,--Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

7 _mo._ 6.--We left Ancona, and took the route through Foligno and Arezzo to Florence. That part of the Pope's dominions through which we have pa.s.sed is highly picturesque; hill and dale continually, and the whole country cultivated absolutely like a garden. Most of the towns are on the hills, and nothing can exceed the beauty of their situation. But as to vital religion, the spirit of those who desire the promotion of the Redeemer's kingdom, on the broad and sound basis of common Christianity, must be clothed with mourning in pa.s.sing through this superst.i.tious and illiberal country. What we have seen of Tuscany is not so fine, but the appearance of the peasants is much superior. The inns are much more agreeable than we found them on the road from Geneva to Ancona.

We arrived at Florence on the 10th. The persons to whom we had recommendations were absent, on account of the heat of the season, except the Abbot Valiani, a spiritually-minded man, who showed us great kindness.

He has refused many advantageous offers of promotion, choosing to be content with a little, rather than to be hampered with fetters which I believe he thinks unscriptural, and not for the good of the Church; he is of the opinion that it would be better for the common people to have the Bible, and to be more acquainted with its contents. He conducted us to see the School for Mutual Instruction, founded under the patronage of the Grand Duke, about twelve years ago. The school-room is very large, airy, and well lighted; it was formerly a convent. The system of education differs a little from that practiced in England; but the children, about 240 in number, are apparently under an efficient course of instruction and discipline. The younger boys have a string put round the neck, which confines them to the place during the lesson, but I observed it did not confine their attention. We were much pleased with the countenance and manners of the director, the Abbot Luigi Brocciolini; his heart appears to be in his work, which is by no means easy.

We left Florence early on the 13th, and had four days' hard travelling to Genoa. From Sestri to Genoa, a day's journey, is by the sea, and under the mountains, some of them of a tremendous height, and beautifully covered with olives, vines, and figs: the houses hang quite on the sides of the mountains amidst the olives; I do not remember to have pa.s.sed through any country equally picturesque.

We had packed as many books and tracts as we well could in our wardrobe trunks, which were not once opened at the different custom-houses, but the surplus tracts, &c., we were obliged to put into a spare box by themselves, and this box was not suffered to pa.s.s the frontier of Sardinia. The first officer was embarra.s.sed, not knowing how to act, and sent a gendarme with us to the bureau of Sarzana, the next town. The officer there was remarkably civil, but told us the law is such that books cannot enter except on conditions to which we could not in our conscience submit. We therefore left them in the bureau, desiring that they might be made useful: a person in the office said, in a half-whisper, These are the books to turn the people's heads. We were glad this loss did not prevent us from distributing others out of our remaining store, at the inns, and pretty freely on the road.

Their object in returning by Genoa was to visit the valleys of Piedmont.

They reached Turin on the 19th, and proceeded on the 22nd to Pignerol.

From this place they visited most of the valleys, went into all the families where Stephen Grellet had been, and had frequent religious conversation with the pastors and some of the people.

We spent, says J.Y., five days amongst them. The old pastor Best died soon after the time that Stephen Grellet was there. We met his son, lately appointed chaplain to the Protestant congregation at Turin. He is a young man of talent, lively and intelligent, and desirous of being useful in his new sphere of action. He came to us often at our little inn, and made many inquiries as to the nature of our religious principles; our conversation mostly turned on the necessity of the a.s.sistance of the Holy Spirit in the exercise of Christian ministry. This he fully admitted, but was not prepared to dispense with the necessity of an academical preparation. I fear that sending the young men to Geneva for this purpose has not always had a salutary effect.

We thought it right to attend their wors.h.i.+p on First-day morning at La Tour. The congregation consisted of about 900 clean and well-dressed peasants, many of whose countenances looked serious. The short discourse of Pastor Peyron was orthodox, and the application impressive and edifying.

He afterwards dined and spent the afternoon with us at the widow Best's, with several branches of her interesting and pious family. I humbly trust this day was spent to mutual comfort.

They were disappointed to find that strangers were forbidden by law to hold public meetings, or preach in the a.s.semblies of the Protestants; and although they met with many pious individuals, they thought the life of religion on the whole at a low ebb, and deplored the prevalence of the forms and ceremonies used by the Church, of England. The schools, too, they found to be in a very poor state; the masters deficient in education and badly paid, and the schools conducted without system. The ministers showed them great kindness, and on their quitting La Tour, Pastor Best encouraged them by the expression of satisfaction with their visit. They returned to Turin on the 28th.

Pa.s.sing over Mont Cenis, they directed their course to Geneva, where they arrived on the 3rd of the Eighth Month, rejoiced to be once more on the English side of the Alps. On their outward journey their sojourn in this city had been short, but now they found it needful to make a longer visit, and were thankful in being permitted to mingle again in intimate communion with those who understood the language of the Spirit. They paid and received many visits, and held two religious meetings at their hotel, at the latter of which about fifty persons were present.

One of the most interesting occasions of which they speak was a Missionary Meeting, in which the minister Olivier unfolded his experience of a divine call to leave his country, and go abroad on the service of the gospel. The voice which he described as having been sounded in his spiritual ear, and the manner in which he received it, must have struck John Yeardley as singularly in accordance with the call to a similar service which he himself had heard so distinctly in his younger days, and which, like Olivier, he had for a long time hidden in his heart.