3, Howley Place.
My Dear Brother And Sister, -I received two loving letters from you, and from——-the printed abuse. I wish you joy of it with all my heart. It is well to be spoken evil against, and a good mark when they can find nothing against us save in the matter of our God and His truth.
———sent me also a tract he had printed and sent out to you. It had some clear statements in it, and well put; but I am one of the old school, and the slower movements quite within the range of conscience suit me best. The tortoise won the race, not the hare, according to the fable.
It is a great thing to 'let those around us see and feel that conscience is in full play in us, and that we feel we must obey God rather than man. It is this spirit of obedience which has always so struck me in. He has a mind and intelligence, too, equal to any in his day, but they are never allowed their play by him save where conscience and the spirit of obedience have gone first.
This gives such power to his papers on the Roman Catholic and Puseyite questions, and also to those on the infidel questions of the day. One of the learned men of England read his paper in the Present Testimony, in answer to Colenso, while he was dying, and sent me word that he had read everything which had appeared upon the subject, but that those eight pages were the clearest and best of anything he had seen. In the paper, too, on the inspiration of the Scriptures, of an early date in the history of the Present Testimony, conscience and obedience were like the glasses of his spectacles; but the line of thought has been owned by the educated in Europe as being unanswerable. Well, we have young men, and we want such, and old ones too; and I do not mean you to suppose that the old brother that writes to you does not love his younger ones. I find I have to say of many now a days, " He must increase, but I must decrease." I think I say it cheerfully too. J. G. B-, J. C-, and now W. T-, gone home! and some of them that were in the ranks when you and your wife enlisted are aged and feeble.
We need faith to see and own the hand of our God in all and everything that befalls us. Nothing escapes His eye, all is under His hand; everything, from the least to the greatest, we may accept as sons of God at our Father's hands, and so the bitter becomes sweet, and the medicine becomes food.
The Lord's grace too is greatly to be noticed in carrying on work. J. G. B. seemed the standard-bearer in Dublin, and many a cawing word was heard after his removal. " What will you do now you have lost your sweet singing bird, that piped so nicely? " But the Lord has turned it all rather to the furtherance of His work, and I suppose the work in Dublin bears as healthful an appearance as it ever did, and with more marks of vigor about it than it had.
God is God, and remains God, all changes notwithstanding.
My love to the dear sister and all saints.
Affectionately yours, G. V. W.