Life and diary of Lieut. Col. J. Blackader

CHAP. XV. CAMPAIGN EIGHTH. 365
reckon no small mercy in such weather ; though it be
but a sad house, for I am sitting in water at the fire-
side, which blows in ; the soldiers having unthatched
one side of it. However, I am very thankful for
what I have.
If I can get time I shall answer Mrs. Cranston's
letter. There seems to be a work upon her spirit — a
sense of sin, and of the wrath of God contending for
sin, and great doubting and fears as to mercy and
pardon. I pray the Lord may carry it on with his
spirit to be a saving work of grace, and make her flee
to Christ.
Let me know as soon as you can what you design
about a lodging. As yet it is not altogether certain
whether Ghent will be our garrison. Some speak of
Brussels ; but it is more than a month to garrison
time yet. We do not know how things will be. I
have seen much of the vanity of far fore-thought
projects, how they are ordinarily disappointed; so
that as we are directed to seek our daily bread from
day to day only, so I seek direction from day to day
without grasping at long tracts of time. Now that
the weather is broken, and the roads become very
bad, and our horses harrassed with foraging five or
six miles, every thing looks like garrison, and every
body longs for it. But the great ones of the earth
will fight against Providence. I pray God to give a
comfortable close to the campaign, and send peace
and truth upon the earth. The Lord's presence be
with you. I am thine. J. B.
To Madam Blackader, care of Serjeant J. Reid, )
of Colonel Preston's Regiment, Ghent. J