I have got the two books about which you spoke to me. They contain a mixture of old religious notions and new light obtained second-hand. I have no doubt at all as to Mrs. S.'s uprightness, nor of her desire to serve the Lord, and very likely her book may be useful to some souls. But it does not seem to me that the tone of the book is quite according to the Lord. It savors rather of the school to which she belongs: she hardly rises above the condition of her soul, and the circumstances in which she is. A. S., not the Lord Jesus, is the principal figure of the picture. Experience holds the place which redemption and the Redeemer ought to hold. Jesus becomes the servant of the soul, in place of the soul being at peace, serving the Lord. And so it ever is; I have never seen a soul living in its experiences and occupied with itself, with whom the "I" had not a place, without the person's being aware of it, and even without his having a suspicion that it was so. The Lord Jesus, in His infinite grace, uses us, but it is a bad thing to be occupied with ourselves and not with Him. We do not become acquainted with ourselves by thinking about ourselves; for, while we think of Him, the "I" disappears; one is in the light, where one is not when occupied with oneself.
You will think me cold and hard, but this book is just a study, and one does not write a book when one is occupied with one's own history without self appearing far too much. I do not quite admit that all these things take place in a Christian, but when we are occupied with Jesus, the littleness of all that one is, and of all that one has done, remains in the shade and Jesus Himself stands out in relief.
I do not question the sincerity nor the christian truth of this book, but rather its christian reality. The harm which I see in it is the importance which it attaches to what one has done oneself—the making and publishing a book about oneself; though I do not deny that more than one detail may be useful to other Christians. Still, the system which induces them to work because others have worked, instead of confiding in the Lord, because He sends us, and His love and His Spirit constrain us, is, according to my experience, a bad system. One works with a degree of lightness.
Your attached brother in Christ.
London,
May 2nd, 1871.