Letter written thirty years ago.
My Dear Sister, -I have borne you on my heart and mind with much anxiety through all your tide of trial, and now feel anxious that the fruit of it should appear.
That which I desire for you is fellowship with Jesus in that which distinguished Him so pre-eminently above His fellows-repose of character. Quietness of spirit from a mind and heart shut up and engaged in divine love and glory is my ambition. How blessed and how unearthly the calm, quiet, unruffled composure of the Lord's course!
No haste, no hurry, because, though on earth, yet still in heaven. His mind, His heart, deep buried in His Father's love. And may we not thus abide in Christ, and Christ in us? In real fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ; walking in the same Spirit, abiding in the Spirit, led by the Spirit?
May the unction which you have received abide in you. Indeed, I count myself your brother in Jesus, and therefore as well free as bound to be anxious for you. More than this, there is a stake risked on every saint by Jesus, which makes the walk of every brother and sister as our own. For the glory of Jesus has been given us-not fellowship in the outward glory only, when our co-heirship shall be seen, but (much above this) a present investing with the glory of Jesus -" The glory which thou gavest me I have given them." May Enoch be your pattern, so far as you have any earthly pattern, who walked with God, and was not.
I have learned lately much of the value of a life of communion with God. Close communion, and nothing else, should content us, though the flesh has no glory in it, and therefore would fain, as Satan also, pour contempt upon it, and lead us to any or every other object. Yet why should hurry or perturbation be our badge, if indeed we have Christ as our anchor within the veil?
Again I would say, May the unction which you have received abide in you. I feel a great jealousy about you, that you should have much communion, much interchange of thought, with God. It is easy to run here and run there, to speak to this one and that one; but how much may be will-worship of our own inventing, not growing up out of, not appointed us by, the Spirit.
May the Holy Ghost be your life You know much of truth as to the Person and work, past, present, and future, of Jesus, embodying the moral character of Him with whom we have to 'do. I would desire to see your mind brought by the Holy Ghost into nearer and closer contact with that character thus exhibited, inhaling the sweet fragrance of the garden of the Lord.
As a brother I write freely. Satan has tempted you, will tempt you, to be unwilling to be subject to vanity. Remember this, that one of the Lord's great objects is, to show that He keeps us; therefore we are subject to vanity. To pride it is humbling to have to give so much time to sleep, to rest, to food, even to prayer, to say nothing to the littleness of life. Yet these are our glory, because His will.
Be much found in needlework for the poor, or some such littleness of female domestic life; for our glory is to do His will. The saint who is used by Him through sickness of body to draw forth the love of others, is as much honored as a Paul or a Peter. But we have wretchedly ceased to have His will within us, and consequently how wrongly do we judge by man's thoughts, instead of God's. G. V. W.