Kingston, Jamaica, February 23rd, 1872.
My Dear——, Among changes many-of circumstance and of place-you nave oft been before me, and that not only as one dear to me individually, but also, and the rather, as a vessel fitted for and called by grace to carry the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to present it and Him to men around you.
The Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, the living and the only true God, is He whose perfect image has been presented to us in Jesus Christ; and not only so, but in grace most abundant it has all been written down for us in human language, so that amid all the failure of man as a bearer and reporter of truth, we have in the written word the exposition and presentation to each one of us of God's view of Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
I have been on South American shores, Demerara, and after that in Barbados (visiting brethren, laboring among saints and sinners), and am just arrived here with the like object. My heart has had to own the grace of God wheresoever I have been, but oh, the awful state of the mass professing to be Christians! and, alas! the little knowledge among true believers of the full and finished work of atonement; of how God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become God's righteousness in Him. That truth becomes more and more precious in my eyes, and the knowledge of it through faith more and more distinctive of the blessing and blessedness wherewith God has made me to differ from what I was when I was in nature, and from my fellows all around me.
"Christ died, then I'm clean!
Not a spot within,"
is often my morning song. Oft as I rise I sing that 22nd hymn.
" How bright, there above, is the mercy of God!"
and follow it with the 327th-
"Lord Jesus! are we one with Thee!"
I find amid the wear and tear of life piety to be like oil on an overworked machine. " Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord," prepares the soul to give thanks always for all things. That is a fine test to the state of one's soul, and though the result of the application to my own soul oft humbles me, yet rather would I be humbled thus than cease to think that among other privileges this is one which Abba's love has prepared for us, even so to walk with Him that we can say, " All things work together for good to them that love God; " and if so, " In all things more than conquerors," and that enables one to give thanks always for all things....
Heaven is opened on us, that we may look up and see Himself, Jesus, who sits there, our Anchor and Forerunner, fixed within the veil; may see Him who is the object of our faith, the giver of the Holy Ghost, and watch Him till He rises up to come forth and fetch us HOME; then all together, forever with the Lord!
Yet a little while, and He that shall come will have come; then Himself will have the joy of being surrounded by us, as fruits of the travail of His soul, and we shall then know how great a deliverance and how full a portion we owe to Him.
Shall we meet again here below, my dear -, ere we have seen Abba's house and-better than it or the golden city around it-His own beloved self? I am getting the old man, just sixty-seven; not far off three score and ten, which is the life of man. May Christ be magnified in my body and yours, whether it be by life or death; and it shall (D.v.) be so.
In faith yours, G. V. W.