Letter 11

 •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 6
 
June 18, 1843.
My Beloved Sister,
A.... O.... tells me of your being near him, so that it enters my heart to give you a few lines by way of remembrance; and surely the remembrance is pleasant. Oh! that our bond one to the other, and the bond of all saints together, may be, more than it is, in the bowels of Christ Jesus. There is far too little of this. "What think ye of Christ, is the test to try both your state and your scheme." Thus, sang one of the children of Zion in his lovely simple songs some 40 years ago, and I pray that the echo of that music may soften and form our hearts together. We have got into the high regions of thoughts, and the warmer, calmer air of affection is like to be deserted or contemned as something over which we have soared in our prouder search after loftier objects. The more is the pity, dear sister. Israel was warned to remember their beginnings even to the end: "That thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of thy life" (Deut. 16:33Thou shalt eat no leavened bread with it; seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread therewith, even the bread of affliction; for thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt in haste: that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of thy life. (Deuteronomy 16:3)). And so surely are we (Heb. 3:6-146But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. 7Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice, 8Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: 9When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. 10Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. 11So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.) 12Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. 13But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. 14For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end; (Hebrews 3:6‑14)).
I suppose you got my last letter from Clifton. Give my love to dear Mrs....., and ask her if she got mine also, enclosing a sweet extract from a brother's letter. My dear Mary is but ill today. Indeed, her feebleness is much greater than when you saw her: but faith simple and sure, blessed be His name. Accept all our love. The good Lord keep and bless you, and believe me,
J. G. B.
I do not know whether mother and sister be with you. Christian love to them and to dear... when you see her.