About Manuscripts Profiles Maps Map Gallery Credits

Jacob Lindley's Account, 1793

SW_JL1793_Page_121

this we were for the present obliged to rest satisfied,in our probationary tribulated allotment. I can trulysay, I travailed with many pangs to be delivered,with breathings to Him who alone can help and in-terpose, when all human aid is utterly unavailing. It is wheat harvest; the grain is well filled; but inmany places, it is much injured by a kind of smut,or blast. The grain is as large as good wheat, but appears of a dusky color; and being bruised, or cutin two, the contents are like soot, black and dusty.Sometimes ten blasted ears for one sound one. In divers instances, wheat fields are rendered entirelyuseless. When one-half, or one-third, or even one-tenth, is smutted wheat, it spoils the whole. Thefarmer is obliged to wash all his wheat, throughthree or four waters, before it is fit for bread. 17th. No admission being apparent into the In-dian country, as the best expedient, we concludedto send by Capt. Elliott, Friends' Address, accompa-nied by a short epistle of our own, to the Indians:also, a letter to Col. McKee. We remain daily ex-ercised in a patient, fervent travail, that the SupremeController of events, may bring to pass his hiddenpurposes, according to his own sacred determination,to the exaltation of his own great name, in thesedark regions of violence, murder, and licentiousnessof almost every kind. The awful language of theMost High to a backsliding people formerly, hasfrequently impressed my mind, as applicable to theinhabitants of these countries, with some few ex-ceptions, “My soul loathed them, and their soulsabhorred me.” This day a cannon was fired, for the direction of aman supposed to be lost in the woods. It frequent-