You will think me lost, and that I have forgotten the West, but it is not so, so I write a line to give sign of it. I have been a couple of months at New York, and there has been blessing, whether through others or myself. I was knocked up the last few days. The brethren are getting on happily. At my age I should like it to go faster, and see the fruit, but it is the Lord's work, not mine. Here at Boston ministers and all sorts come, and the great truths of Christianity have been fully out in daily readings. The effect the Lord knows. Perfectionism has been useful in rousing Christians to the sense that there should be something better; but it is accompanied with error, and some points which have deadly mischief in them, but by weighing it all calmly it finds its level. It has been accompanied with wild exaggerations, and pretensions which its leaders disown, but which are the fruit of their principles. The truth of it is merely getting out of Rom. 7 Into Rom. 8, but grace is little owned in it, and man made a great deal of.... I often say, were I younger I should look for protracted work, if the Lord spared me in this country, but in one's seventy-fifth year one must leave it in the Lord's hands, as it always really is.... Have you heard that the Japanese Christians have left the missionaries as being sects, and meet together?... The missionaries, however, are seeking to form their own churches. Poor Christendom! What a sovereign mercy to be out of the camp!...
Your affectionate brother in Christ.
Boston,
February, 1875.