1.“I went up to— on Saturday, as I daresay you know, and, finding the brethren praying for the Gospel, was happy in joining them, and we found it materially increased the power in the Gospel meetings to have an hour’s prayer before them.”
2.“I had not noticed the contrast of Matt. 5:4848Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:48); Luke 6:3636Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. (Luke 6:36). Might Gen. 17:11And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. (Genesis 17:1), Deut. 18:1313Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God. (Deuteronomy 18:13) be a help to explain why it is perfect in Matthew? As you know, he commends the truth to Jewish consciences, and they were aware that Abraham had been told to walk before the Almighty God, and that the Jews had been instructed to walk with Jehovah perfectly. Now, says the Spirit, carrying on the line, ‘Be perfect as your Father is perfect.’ I merely suggest this.”
3.“I am beginning to long to hear something of you all, for though one prays and trusts that all are well and happy, and going on with the Lord, yet (like Gideon and his fleece), one likes to have one’s faith confirmed by a sign. It was when the nobleman was on his way back the servants met him. Signs are not given to lead us into the pathway, but confirm us when we are in it.
“I conclude you have two readings—one on Sunday, and one on Wednesday—and feel sure you find them profitable and blessed. It makes such a difference when one remembers at each meeting that one goes not to meet man but the Lord; and though at a reading there may not always be the same body of truth brought out, yet it is good that all should be led to search for themselves, and contribute their share to the general profit. The presence of (prominent) gift is so far a disadvantage that it may produce laziness in searching the Word for oneself. In its absence, each one must bestir himself to contribute to the general benefit, and thus individual communion with the Lord, seeking Him to give light, is produced, and the result is positive blessing. It has often been remarked that in, where teachers are constantly present, the saints are much less in dependence upon the Lord than in other gatherings, where they necessarily are, through weakness, cast over on Him.”
4.“I know you will like to have a line from me, and to hear how the Lord has prospered my way. I last wrote, I think, from, and mentioned how happily they seemed to pull together, though in much weakness (the true place of the saints in these times), from the absence of any prominent gift. Y— was my next halting-place, and I stayed there six days, giving them two readings, three Gospel meetings, a lecture, and an address to the school children. Through your prayers I had the Lord much with me in all. The first night we had Ephesians, as I had heard that some of the saints, through ignorance of the principles of the Church of God, had begun to stray away to systems of a Sunday evening. So we took up individual privilege in chapter 1; collective privilege in chapter 2; and individual and collective responsibility in chapter 4, (chapter 3 is parenthetical), to ‘endeavor’ [how sad that, when responsibility comes in, there ever needs an effort—none when God’s counsels and work (chapter 1 and 2) are spoken of] —to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and thus, too; with the Spirit of Christ.
“Several questions were asked as to whether it would grieve the Holy Spirit, whereby we are sealed, to go to any place of meeting but our own, to which I had, of course, but the one answer. They may call it narrow-minded, but Christ’s was a narrow pathway, and His was the path of blessing. They have suffered much in —, strange to say, from the effect of too much ministry. It was for fourteen years the head-quarters of one of the brightest gifts we ever had—dear —. Many of the saints came out, I fear, rather to him than to Christ; and now that he is removed, though outwardly with us, I fear they are not so in heart, and consequently come very seldom to any meeting but the morning one on Sunday for worship.”
5.“The Lord has been much with me since” we parted, and, as you know, His presence is everything. How often are we like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, who, though the Lord was with them all the way, did not know it was He until the end of their journey? For eight miles He was with them, and they knew not He was there. But, when once they had the sense of His presence, they thought no more of their fatigues, but went back the whole eight miles to tell the others of the One who had revealed Himself to them as the First-born from the dead.
“I am sure what we need is to cultivate the sense of His presence all the day long—then the wilderness would be no longer weary; then the longest journey would seem but a short one.
“It has often struck me what a distance the ‘wise men from the East’ (Matt. 2) came to worship the Lord, and how richly they were rewarded! It has also struck me how the One who was weary with His journey’ (25 miles) can, in perfection, sympathize with those who, like Paul, know the meaning of weariness and painfulness, ‘as well as journeyings often’ (2 Cor. 11). May you have the constant sense of the Lord’s presence as your daily and hourly portion!”
6.“Weak is the moral effort we make in the service of Christ; but it has occurred to me lately with comfort, that though weak, service to the Lord by a believer, in this world, is the sublimest moral sight in the creation. For angels serve with a consenting will, a consenting nature, and in a consenting system. We serve against all within and all around, the flesh and the world, and I cease to wonder that the Church is called therefore into such dignity and such nearness to the throne in the Kingdom.
“Yes, and let me ask, Is there not a solemn warning to us in the history of Amaziah, in 2 Chron. 25, to watch the state of our affections towards the Lord, and not to be satisfied by the mere performance of duties or services without a heart engaged for Him in the midst of these? For we read of Amaziah that he did what was right, but not with a perfect heart— ‘that is, as I suppose, not heartily, as unto the Lord.’ He did what he did, perhaps, through fear of the law, or to keep good account with his own conscience; but, in his doings, he had no care about the Lord, or His pleasure, or His glory, and was indifferent as to the state of his affections towards Him. Terribly, indeed, and more than we could easily have believed, he gets a victory over the children of Edom! In this, and in his previous acts—such as avenging the death of his father, and in dismissing the army of Israel—he had done right, according to the letter of the commandment, the voice of the prophet. But his victory became the occasion of manifesting how hollow everything may be where there is no ‘perfect heart’—no reference to God in our doings; no affection for Christ; and no concern about the coldness or barrenness of our poor heart toward Him.
“But to return to Amaziah. He gets a victory, but his heart not being already possessed by the Lord, his victory gets possession of it, becomes the master of it, and seats itself supreme there. Accordingly he is lifted up, he boasts and is proud, and the victory he got over Edom becomes the victor, is the master of his heart, because that heart was empty—not filled with the Lord. He, therefore, as full of his victory, boasts—challenges the King of Israel, and suffers loss and dishonor in the battle.
“But even more, the gods of the conquered Edom become the gods of his heart; he worships them; he adopts the spoils, the captives of his own hand in war, as the deities to whom he bows down! Monstrous folly!”
“Is this not written that we may learn to what a length of blindness and stupidity, as well as to what a length of madness and self-destruction, the heart may be hurried that does not what it does in reference to the Lord? Whatever is done, should be done heartily, as unto the Lord.”