found willing to be faithful, and to know of a truth that the Lord of Heaven and earth is our God.

Thus has my spirit been drawn to write this evening, not knowing when I took my pen what I should write, nor do I know to what purpose I have written it.

66

During the past few months I have been mostly at home, though I have had some service at meetings in Philadel phia, at Haddonfield Quarter, and in visiting the Monthly Meetings of my own Quarter. Truly it may be said "The ways of Zion do mourn because " so few come to her solemn feasts." At Haddonfield we were baptized together into much nearness and tenderness, and the call was extended to those who were asleep, to awake, and Christ would give them light; the youth were exhorted to bow their necks to his yoke, and their backs to his burdens; while the mourners in Zion were encouraged to hold fast the profession of their faith without wavering.

Oh, the exceeding goodness of God to his creature man! I have to speak of it; my soul must bear testimony to it, for when I was an hungered, He fed me; when I was thirsty He gave me drink; when my soul was sick and under the bondage of sin, He visited me, and poured in the oil and the wine to heal, after that He had purged me by the fire of his love; yea and He continues to care for me still. I would that every sin-stricken and tried soul would come to the Physician of value, and be healed of its maladies. "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him

that is athirst come.

And whosoever will, let him take the

water of life freely."

[This is the last of the Diary. It closes with the year 1843.-ED.]

CHAPTER V.

MATURE MANHOOD.

As the Diary of Samuel J. Levick ends with the year 1843, the leading incidents of the remaining forty-one years of his life were not consecutively recorded. Indeed, many of them were not recorded at all, but have been retained in the memory of those who were intimate with him, and who were interested in his proceedings, as well as impressed by his individuality.

At the beginning of the year 1844 he was a widower, living on his farm at Richland, while his infant daughter was tenderly cared for by his mother and sisters, at their home in Philadelphia.

In the autumn of this year he was married to Susanna Morris Mather, of Whitpain, Montgomery County, Pa., a member of Gwynedd Monthly Meeting. Her parents were Charles and Jane (Roberts) Mather, and her great-greatgrandmother, for whom she was named, was Susanna Morris, an eminent minister in the Society of Friends.

With the approbation of the Monthly Meeting, her marriage was accomplished at the house of Jane Mather, who was a widow and a chronic invalid, being so disabled by rheumatism that she could not get to the meeting-house, and hence had not been present at the marriages of two of her daughters. But as the Discipline had been altered, Susanna could be married at home, an arrangement that was very satisfactory to both mother and daughter, as well as to the company assembled on the occasion. The Mather homestead came from their Roberts' ancestors, and it has been in the family for several generations. The homename of the place is "Woodlawn," and the house stands on a part of the Roberts tract, which is now almost included in the flourishing settlement of Penllyn.

By this marriage Samuel became a double brother-in-law to Benjamin G. Foulke, and between the two there was a bond of brotherhood which only death could sever. A few years later Benjamin became an elder by appointment-for he was already one by qualification-and the two were in close sympathy in their religious exercises as well as in fraternal affection.

Samuel took his wife to "Spring Lawn," his Richland home, where they passed the first four years of their married life. That the union was a happy one need not be told to those who knew them, but if testimony were wanted to substantiate the fact, it could be found in fullness in the unpublished portions of the correspondence.

At this time, though only twenty-five years of age, Samuel J. Levick was a recorded and very acceptable Gospel minister. Having so recently trodden the slippery paths of youth, and not merely encountered, but overcome, many temptations, he was well qualified to address the young, for he could appeal to them as one of them, could point out the dangers to which they were exposed, and then, in a clear, cogent manner, direct them to the one way of escape, and to the terms by which they might obtain an entrance to the pathway of safety. After having thus presented the dangers and hardships of the bondage, and pointed to the means by which they might escape from it, he would, in gentle, persuasive tones, invite them to enter upon the path of peace, assuring them, from his own experience, that they would, in very deed, receive "beauty for ashes," and be ready to marvel that they had even hesitated before making the all-important choice.

In mixed companies, such as assemble at funerals, he was often highly favored to warn, and if need be, to alarm, some, and then to close with a fitting application of the consolations of the Gospel. In the year 1848 he attended a large funeral at Plymouth, Pa. The deceased was a young man who had lived a circumspect life, and passed peacefully away. At the house Samuel sat with the family, and spoke to them in a very comforting manner, but at the meeting-house, to the assembled multitude, he had a message of alarm to deliver, and in giving it, it would seem as

if he had kept nothing back. On the following day (Firstday) he attended a neighboring meeting, in which he was remarkably favored in explaining the position of the elder brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Thus, in less than twenty-four hours, were delivered three discourses, each totally different from the others, and all leaving so good a savor as to bear evidence of their origin, and to convince that each one was adapted to some spiritual state or states present when it was delivered.

Being a full believer in the Friends' idea of a proper qualification for the ministry-that the minister must hand. out to the assembled multitude, or to the individual in private, just what is given him to deliver; and that, to the strictly obedient, the time for the offering, as well as the matter, will be made known-he had faith that he would be sustained in whatever he was called upon to do, though, to the eye of the natural man, the labor might appear arduous and the obstacles in the pathway to its performance almost insurmountable.

In the year 1849, when on a religious visit in Western New York, he was at the house of his friend, Sunderland P. Gardner, when he felt an impression to walk out and meditate upon what might be required of him. Soon after, getting into an open field, he saw, at some distance, smoke arising from a ravine, and was impressed to go in the direction of that smoke, although he saw neither habitation nor human being. On getting nearer to the ravine, he discov