Though we were very much of one mind, we did not see alike in everything, yet the intimacy between us not only continued year after year, but it grew in brotherly confidence. And why? Because, as we have said, we bowed together before the Lord in prayer and thanksgiving. Often too, we remembered each other when alone in prayer, according to that Scripture, “Pray one for another.” We have sometimes ventured to say, when we have seen some of the Lord’s people very intimate with each other, that it will not last, but probably be connected with bitter fruits, because it seemed more like the social element of the world than that of “fellowship in the Spirit.” Alas! how often have we seen sad results. For saints to love each other in the Lord, care for each other for His sake as members one of another, and’ in the Spirit of Christ to bear each other’s burdens, weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice, is very different from mere intimacy of association. When the Lord is before souls as to this, we may be quite sure there will be a coming together before Him, and, in prayerful dependence and thanksgiving, owning Him as the alone power by the Spirit for “building up,” and for being “builded together” according to God.
We remember, about twenty years ago, visiting a large city, where two very able and gifted servants of the Lord were in fellowship, and giving themselves wholly to the work of laboring in word and doctrine. We called on one of them, and, in course of conversation, inquired if he and the other brother ever met together for prayer, and the reply was. “No.” We then said, “You may be quite sure that God, however He may bless us individually, will never uphold us as fellow-laborers in His service, unless we come together before Him to guard and bless us as such.” In this instance, we had painfully to hear that coldness and distance seemed increasingly to characterize them. Those who knew the beloved servant of the Lord, the reminiscences of whose last days we are recording, would unhesitatingly say, He was emphatically a man who loved and valued prayer. All those who pursue a path of dependence and prayer because it becomes us and honors God, will surely find that word fulfilled in their happy experience, “Them that honor me, I will honor.” We may be quite sure that God only is the Source and Sustainer by His word and Spirit of all true Christian fellowship; and when this is not practically owned, it proves that such are not going on as to it in faith, without which it is impossible to please God; and if the intimacy should continue, it will sooner or later degenerate into an amiable kind of social or religious intercourse without being spiritual or profitable.