2, Upper Pembroke Street, Feb. 19, 1864.
I thank you, my dear, long-known sister, for your word of living sympathy. I have had a sore bereavement; thirty-nine years of sweet and pleasant and edifying communion may well give me to know that. And though, in all feebleness of mind and body, it was my joy to look at her, and see and hear the expressions of her simple and ever-unclouded faith. May the Lord give me to find more in Himself, I am sure I ask Him, than ever I have done. For the most that way has hitherto been small surely.
My dear ... . from the neighborhood of T ... . happened to be with us on a visit, the first time we had seen her for twelve years, just at the time when we were visited by this sore and painful loss; and it was a gracious arrangement for us under the hand of God. And how glad I should be, were I again in Devonshire, again to see you. My recollections of you at Exeter are still fresher with me than those at Torquay, but if the good Lord have kept us with Himself, He has kept us with each other. My love to dear Mr. and Mrs. W ... . Truly can I add, renewed communion with them would also be very grateful to me. Mrs..... is the only one from those parts I have seen of late, but her visits have been very pleasant to us.
I never hear of L.... M... I was invited to the Torquay meeting, but I felt unequal to it at the time. My dear.... is in better health than she was some years ago, I am thankful to say; but our tabernacle has been emptied of its choicest Israelite. May it be a moving wilderness one, I pray, till Canaan be reached. The tents must have gathered soil and fractures, as they passed from the Red Sea to the Jordan, but they were better in their relations on the banks of the Jordan, though worse in their conditions, than they had been on the banks of the Egyptian sea. Though torn and dirtied, they were nearer to being struck for the last time.
My child has just come in, and desires me to give her love. Our aged Aunt who lives with us—ninety-four—is still wonderful in mind, and body.
The Lord be with your spirit, my dear sisters.
Ever yours affectionately in Him,
J. G. B.
I would have heard better of your health than your letter allows me to do. But there is One who sees the end from the beginning.
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