Elizabeth Hudson on Vocal Ministry

… through my backwardness I sat under the burden of the word so long that the proper time slipped in which should I have stood up which was a hurt to both myself and the meeting and I believe made hard work for my companion, for where there is not a keeping our ranks each in our own line of duty, it flings the whole out of joint and the meeting seldom if ever recovers when thus the gospel property is invaded.
       
I have oft compared the ministry to a fountain or spring of water and ministers to pipes through which the water is conveyed to diverse parts of the city, some greater some lesser, according to the distance the stream is to be conveyed ... and very frequently we see one pipe so fixed as to be in some sort dependent on another and if any impediment happens to either it frustrates the grand design of conveyance, and no pipe so small or minute but there is some service or part to act and it’s not acting that part may possibly so disconcert the whole as to incommode a great part if not the whole of the city. 
    
The excerpt above is from the diary of Elizabeth Hudson, a Friend who traveled extensively in colonial America. She’s quoted in Brian Drayton’s Midweek Meditations.

https://library.haverford.edu/finding-aids/files/MC975-01-047.pdf
 
~ submitted by Richard Russell