Letters to a Young Correspondent, from 1856 to 1877

(These Letters are printed in sequence, so as not to interrupt their progressive teaching.)

(F. R. H. to a Young Correspondent)

1856.

I am so sorry that I have been obliged to leave youl dear little note unanswered all this while; you must have thought you were never going to get a reply. I am so glad that you are not forgetting to think about and seek the Lord Jesus. But you want something more than that, do you not? You want really to find Him and love Him, and know what His great love to you is. Then if you do, you must just come to Him, and tell Him all about it. If you wanted anything that you knew your dear aunts could give you, you would go and tell them what it was, and why you wanted it, and ask them to give it you. Now, you know that our dear Saviour has great gifts for you, and gifts which you cannot do without — His pardon and His love, His Holy

Spirit and His grace. Well, then, dear, go and ask Him for all these, and He will surely give them to you, and make you His own happy, loving child. You tell me about your stones. What would a little child do who had to go along a rough place over hard stones? Do you not think she would call out to her mother or father, and ask them to lift her over them, or at least hold their hand very tight while she stepped over them? So when you come to a great stone, you must look up to Jesus and seek His help in getting over it, and then you will find the way smoother and pleasanter. Try

and remember, too, not to put any stones in ’s way;

you know what I mean. I have written in printing, so that you may be able to read it quite by yourself.

My darling, ’ be not weary.’ Is not the Lord Jesus always ’ the same,’ whatever you may be? You are looking into your own heart and expecting to find it getting better, and to find comfort and peace in that, and so, of course, you are and will be disappointed with yourself. If you were quite well pleased and satisfied with yourself, you would be all wrong. So give it up, and come back, come continually to Jesus, just as you are. Only you must come; you must not stay away, and expect Him to follow you; you must come to His throne of grace, and wait upon Him there. I think it is Satan’s special device with you, to try to supply you with excuses for not spending calm and unhurried time in prayer. He knows he will not conquer you on your knees, and so he craftily drives you from them. Do not yield to him in this; make it, with God’s help, your special effort to baffle him here. I believe that your spiritual progress will be just in proportion to your ’ continuance in prayer.’ Rouse yourself then, dear, on this point, and so you will grow in grace.

Sitting on the Beach, MALAHIDE, IRELAND,
September 16, 1865.

This is the very quietest place I ever saw. The hotel stands all by itself on the river, not on the sea, so that one does not even hear the waves; all the people in the house seem afraid to make a noise, the very wind is quiet here, though blowing fresh just round the point; you have no shouting from the boats, they glide up to the harbour so quietly; and I have not heard a sound of wheels yet.

About your going to church on Wednesdays, I am very much inclined to think that you ought to embrace the opportunity, as a privilege and advantage. For you have often told, me how your mind gets drawn away from holy things, when you get into full swing with your school work, and that you cannot easily secure any regular time in the middle of the day for thought and prayer. Now, if you really desire to have your heart kept from being drawn aside, and would be really glad to have opportunities of drawing near to God, it seems to me that you ought to be very thankful that there is that one hour in the very middle of each busy week when you may legitimately lay aside the earthly learning and seek heavenly teaching. An hour reclaimed from your studies for God’s service cannot be called ’ neglecting ’ them; and if you go with your governess’ sanction, it must remove every shadow of scruple on the subject. Which is most important, an hour’s French, or lesson of any kind, or an hour spent in nourishing that spiritual life which is so easily deadened, yet which is so infinitely more precious to us than mere intellectual life? I do not think you would hesitate in the matter, if it were to spend the same time with some dear friend in reading the Bible, or to attend some exciting and interesting prayer meeting; but because the church service is an ’ old story,’ one is less ready to feel and acknowledge the privilege of joining in its calm sweet words of prayer and praise, which must always be full of spiritual refreshment to a really thirsty soul. You can hardly have a want, which is not expressed in some part of the prayers; you hear His own Word read; you have the most beautiful words of praise, which ever uninspired pen wrote put into your mouth. Only, in going to church, do not let it be a mere form; there is no magic good in your attendance, we only receive the blessings which we seek, it is ‘the diligent soul’ which ‘shall be made fat.’ If you go desiring and praying that you may find God in His sanctuary, depend upon it you will find it good to be there, and prove the truth of His promise, ‘There will I meet with thee.’

I have regularly joined the Rev. Marcus Bickerstaifs Friday Bible class; he questions me the same as the little ones! I like it extremely, and regret very much that I never went before. I prepare Constance for it, and find that I learn a great deal myself in so doing.

OAKHAMPTON, October 17, 1865.

I must send you this time, ‘Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees,’ Heb.

xii. 12. You must not give way to discouragement because you have failed in the rules. The prize should merely be the token of your efforts, not the object of them. I think it would be a far higher victory if, after a few failures, which have naturally disheartened you, you go on striving to keep rules, because it is right to do so, not because there is a chance of the prize. Believe me, dear, this would gratify me infinitely more, than if you had not failed at all. For if you go on now, really trying hard, although you say you have no chance of the prize, it will show me that you can strive to do your duty from principle, and without the stimulus of any other reward, than His approbation who ’ has chosen you to be a soldier.’

You do not yet know from experience how much harder it is to do right and to keep right when one has left school, and has no outward rules to keep, but only one’s conscience and God’s Word to follow. Do not fancy that school-life is the hardest in this way; it is far,, far easier than the after-life. ‘Lift up the hands that hang down,’ dearie; do not let the spirit of discouragement keep you from earnest and confiding prayer. Look up; you are very weak, no doubt, but Christ is very strong; and is not His strength yours, if you will but draw upon it? Your love may be cold, but has His love changed? You find it very hard to stand upright at all; well, that is all right, for we cannot stand alone. Do you remember asking me to write a hymn for you when you could not go home for your brother’s coming of age? These verses have come to me for you.

* Yes! He knows the way is dreary,
Knows the weakness of our frame,

Knows that hand and heart are weary;
He, “in all points,” felt the same.
He is near to help and bless;
Be not weary, onward press. ’

—See Ministry of Song.

January 1866.

I am so sorry to find that I can’t manage to see you to-morrow. I hope you will have a nice school half-year. Remember it is your last; so make the very most of it, as an opportunity of self-improvement which will never again be yours. Seek, my darling, to let your light shine for Him; and I am quite sure that it is by watchful, careful walking in little things that it must do so. For one little slip, one hasty, or idle, or inconsistent word or act, outweighs in the eyes of others almost any quantity of talk and profession....

OAKIIAMPTON, March 14, 1866.

My darling, it strikes me that you are troubled because you are looking at yourself. Give the time and thought which you are now spending in bewailing your coldness, in looking at Jesus, what He is, what He has done. I know you will think that this is ‘easier said than done, but here you are met by ‘My grace is sufficient for thee; ’ and He who says, ‘Look unto Me,’ is also ready to open the dull eye and brighten the dim vision. Do you tell Him all about it, dear? do you try to refer everything to Him? It does not do to sit still and lament only. Jesus of Nazareth is passing by, and therefore ’ rise, He calleth thee,’ yes, thee! ‘I have laid help upon One that is mighty,’ says our God. You have already found it true, and have received help from that Blessed and Mighty One. He is the true, the only source of help, so avail yourself of the help laid upon Him. Our only claim for help is needing it; you need it, therefore claim it, go to Him for it, and you will find His Word true, ‘Yea I will help thee.’ What can I do or say, dear, but point you again and again to Him? For I know that He both can and will ‘supply all your need,’ and His only condition is ‘ASK, and ye shall receive.’ I will pray for you, but oh! pray for yourself; that is the secret of progress, I believe.

June 1866.

I am really so sorry I have not acknowledged the photograph and your letter long ago, but you can’t think how occupied my time seems, and more so than ever now the long evenings are come, because I nearly always spend them in calling on the poor people or farmer folks. But your second letter reached me yesterday, and so I must make time. You won’t mind pencil for once, will you? for I am writing out-of-doors, because the afternoon sun makes my room so hot. I will begin at the end of your letter in answering it. You say, ‘I am not as I would be, and I am afraid I shall not till I leave school.’ Do you know, I can so well enter into that feeling, because it has many times formerly been a temptation and hindrance to me. One feels so inclined to look forward to some fresh outward start, as an opportunity for a fresh inward one. And one thinks one could do better, when circumstances are different, and so one rests on one’s oars in the fond hope of doing better then. But NOW! That is the word for us, not knowing whether any to-morrows are appointed us. I want you to reverse your feeling, to think how only a few weeks remain of one of the great periods of your life, a period whose record will soon have closed for ever. ‘Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost,’ and He will not despise them. Try at least to close your school life, as you would wish to have spent it all. And oh! do believe me, dearest, nothing will be a worse preparation for a good beginning of the next stage, than a careless close of this one.

It is impossible to strive too earnestly just now, if you wish to start well then; darling, I do so hope and pray, that yours may be a steady, consistent, holy, and happy home life, but I believe it will very much take its colour from that of the last few weeks at school.

One cannot jump suddenly into warm feelings and a spirit of earnest endeavour. Was not the confirmation prayer, that you might c daily increase in Thy Holy Spirit more and more ‘?

I am afraid you must think I am always scolding you, and am very severe; but I know you like me to say just what I really think best for you.

ILFRACOMBE, August i, 1866.

I do not know whether you are at home yet, but you will be when you get this note. And so the great step from school to home life is taken, and childhood passed for ever. I want to give you a motto for the era you are beginning; only an old common verse, but one which is always full of freshness of life and power, one which ought indeed to ’ work effectually in you that believe.’ ‘Ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.’ If you have, as I believe, accepted God’s offer of salvation, you are ‘not your own.’ Your time, your life, your whole self are His, His by right, and if you love Him you will be so glad that it is so. And if you do but keep the remembrance of this before you every day, it will not only make you happy, but it will make you holy too. In this ’ seeking first ’ to live to Him, because you are His, how many other happy things will be ’ added unto you ‘!

You will be thus far more sure of being a happiness to your dear Papa and Mamma than in any other way, and this I know is your greatest earthly object. Is it not nice, that both lie in the very same direction — your pleasing them, and your pleasing ‘Him who hath called you to be a soldier ‘? One thing I particularly want — that you should not be ’ discouraged because of the way,’ that if you fail in being and doing what you desire, you should not give Satan an advantage over you by thinking ’ it’s no use trying,’ and so forth. The first time you feel like that, look at Micah vii. 8, and act upon it. If you don’t mind, I should so like to see your examination card; would you send it me by post? It would come safely enough, and I would send it you back again directly. Do not send it if you would rather not.

August 1866.

Thank you for your letter and copy of card. I am so glad about your prize. About the word c common,’ all I meant, my darling, was, that I was not sending you an *«commoh verse (i Cor. vi. 20), that I had not chosen one, which might be quite new to you to dwell on, but one which is amongst the most familiar to every one, and among the most frequently quoted — a verse from the highways and not from the lyeways of Scripture. And I am glad that such glorious words may be, and are made so ‘common’ for us, that they are so dwelt upon and known and loved by so many; and again that they are common to ALL whom Christ has bought, that none need be shut out from taking them for their own, and living upon them. May they be life and power to you, dearest, from day to day.

September 1866.

I did not fully know when I wrote to you on Monday, how very poorly altogether you have been, and perhaps I should have written rather differently if I had known. Because, indeed, dearie, I do think it so very often happens that when we are mourning over lack of joy, it is only because our weak frames are holding us back from entering into the joy, which is otherwise free and open to us. And perhaps the Lord Jesus is feeling special tenderness towards you, because you are one of His weak and weary ones. For all your ear-ache and suffering must have unhinged you very much, and He knows it. It is very painful, very weary work to feel chilled and strengthless, to have no vivid joy, no light; but has He not made provision for this in that beautiful verse, Isa. 1. 10: c Who is among you that feareth the LORD, that obeyeth the voice of His servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light? Let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God ‘? He is too kind and too loving, my darling, to have really left you alone; perhaps He is nearer you than ever, and the clouds will some day roll away — perhaps very suddenly — and you will find that it is so. Try to trust and lean and rest, even when you cannot see. I send you now a second birthday text, ‘I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.’

1868.

I have not yet thanked you for your dear nice letter. What a solemn time it has been to me, a strangelymingled one of sorrow and thanksgiving. I loved dear

Evelyn so very much. Dear, you have special

cause to ‘give thanks,’ for you made her your special prayer (Sat. even.). Go on in the strength of this

answer, dearest, and pray on for C. and for any

others, whom God may incline you to feel interest in. Verily, He is a God that * heareth prayer.’

I feel for you very much in all your varied anxieties

about dear. I hope light is arising out of all, and

that you may soon have cause for grateful praise. I am so glad that you so wish him to be ordained, and that you see that to be ‘God’s ambassador ’ is a nobler thing than any other calling. I am very sure of it. And not only here, but we may remember Dan. xii. 3, and wish that glory for him.

My mother wishes to have you here for a visit next autumn (D. V.). I do not think you will say no! Then I shall take you to one of the Y. W. C. A. meetings, and hope you will enjoy it.

1868.

I particularly wanted to have come this week to see you. I hope now, that having rested so long, you will prove the sincerity of all you say about wishing to improve by setting steadily to work. There are plenty of books on your father’s shelves which you have not

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read; choose something and set about it at once. Indeed, I hope you have already done so. This year or two, is the golden time of your life. Take one solid secular book, say a history, and give it a good hour then give half an hour to some solid religious book. I hope you have some really good Sunday book in hand, (I do not of course mean any rubbish in the way of religious tales or slight memoirs); if so, better finish that first. I am going to bring a very nice French book to occupy another hour, and that will be enough for a start. I give you this outline just till you have more real assistance to fall back upon. You are a most fortunate girl to have the chance of such, and I hope you will avail yourself of it as fully as possible. But little home duties are before anything else, and the great point you have to aim at in improvement is to lay aside self in every form. Unselfishness is better than high intellectual attainments, and God’s promised grace places this within your reach. And its rewards are almost infinite. I long to see you perfectly, truly unselfish and humble. I shall come as soon as I feel strong enough to ride over on the pony.

Atigust 19, 1871.

I was so glad and thankful to hear of Miss C. what certainly seems like a beginning of good work. Only I cannot quite understand the first sentence; it begins ‘I am very happy,’ and yet all the rest is anything but ’ happy,’ speaking of dissatisfaction and consciousness of being wrong and hard-hearted, etc.

Did you make a slip of the pen for */«happy? Otherwise it seems impossible to reconcile it.

Why did you not send me another request for prayer for her? As you did not, and your letter came the day before one of my meetings, I wrote one myself, of mingled thanks and prayer.

Dearest, what can one say but the old, old story — Come again and afresh to fesus, and at once? Return to Him, and He will return unto you. And dear one, if He keeps you waiting awhile before He sees fit to let you enjoy again the consciousness of His pardon and love, do not let the hands hang down, but seek Him in ali His appointed ways, * go forth by the footsteps of the flock.’ And where are those footsteps? Where do the flock go and seek pasture, yea, seek and find the Shepherd?

Think and then act. I hope I shall soon hear again that you have returned to your rest, and are leaning on and rejoicing in your Beloved.

I am finishing this at Winterdyne, not sleeping here, but at Lower Park, with Maria.

PYRMONT VILLA, Christmas afternoon 1871. I know I have been practically defunct to all my friends and relations since the hymnal business has been on hand; but now I may be considered come to life again, one of the signs whereof is this writing to you! Since I began the Havergal’s Psalmody in June 1870 till now, I have been steadily and hard at work without intermission (except in my Swiss tour), so I think I have got off cheaply with the penalty of two or three weeks of being exhausted and tired out. I meant to have written to you on Saturday, to wish you a happy Christmas, but was prevented. But the day itself is not all, dear, and so I can still wish and pray that all Christmas blessings may be yours. I have been thinking a good deal of the wonderful exchange, which none but infinite Love would have devised. He made like unto us, that we might be made like unto Him. You will get the other Association papers for 1872, but I thought I should like to send my own New Year’s Message to you myself. Will you pray that God’s special blessing may go with every copy of the 5000, which the secretary is sending out to the members? It is a long time since I heard from you, and I should like to know how your are getting on, ’ being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it, unto the day of Jesus Christ.’

14 ROYAL CRESCENT, WHITBY, October 1875.

You will wonder at having no answer, but the fact is I have watched and waited to see what the Lord would have me say, and I seem to have no message whatever for you! I believe this is as distinctly His doing as if He had given me some unmistak cable word of help for you, and it may be that He thus withholds me, because He would have you give up all expectation of help from others, and say ‘my expectation is only from Him.’ I can tell you nothing which you do not already know, and therefore it can only be the ’ fresh springs ’ which are in Jesus Himself which can ’ revive ’ you. You have heard pretty well all that human teachers can say — far more than I; for remember, I have never been to any convention, nor any single meeting on these subjects, nor had any human word of help whatever, except those letters of Mr. W. And yet, dear, I find Jesus Himself is enough; and His blessed Spirit is as free to you as to me. I have been immensely struck with Rev. iii. 12: ‘Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God,’ etc. Now a. pillar stands only on the foundation, and on nothing else, it has no other support, it does not even lean against any other pillar; but because it stands thus straight and upright on the foundation only, it is the means of support to other parts of the building. Now I have long been praying that God would fulfil this promise to me, and it may be one reason why for nine months He did not let me have even the most ordinary means of grace; and I want you to set about pleading for it too — it is just what you want, isn’t it, dear? — to be made a pillar, not in the least dependent for your spiritual life and tone upon means or influences, or helps, or friends, or meetings, or any thing, but to be firmly ’ rooted and built up in Him] without any more bandings or quiverings, and able to be yourself a ‘means’ and influence and help to others.

LEAMINGTON, Christmas day 1875.

DARLINGS, — I only came home on Thursday evening, and had lots to do yesterday, and it was just a question to whom I should send Christmas greetings out of an impossible list. So I decided to send to those who have no one or very few to wish them ’ a merrie Christmas,’ and let my own pets who are pretty sure of that same (by God’s great goodness) be left out in the cold as far as my postal communications are concerned. And I suppose you know I did not really forget you! and I took it for granted that sisters are not jealous of brothers, either!

I awoke this morning with, I think, a God-sent impression on my mind of the connection between all those five glorious titles in Isa. ix. 6 and Matt. i. 21. He could not be the Jesus who ’ shall save His people from their sins ’ without each one of those titles: each was necessary to His being our perfect Saviour. I can’t stay to scribble all about it, but I wish you would all work it out for yourselves, it seems to me so particularly full and precious.

March 28, 1876.

I cried for joy over your letter — could not help it! Can it really be? After all my longing that one of my relatives should have the glorious missionary call, and none seemed to hear it except Clement, who I hope will follow it — that it should come to you! — My longing answered at last in you!

I too, do not wish to be hasty in counsel, yet I see not why I should not write at once, what I do not in the least believe I should alter if I waited a year! Well, then, it seems to me, that if anybody may give up home and all for Jesus, you may! It is all very well for good people to think others may go, but perhaps few ’ others ’ are really so free to go as you, except the rare cases of having no home ties at all, and really nothing to ’ leave ’ for Christ!... Could any one but an orphan have a more open path! So much for ’ free to serve.’ Now as to * fitness to serve.’ That I believe is altogether the Lord’s affair. If you whole-heartedly put yourself into His hands, as a willing instrument in this great service, I think no Christian ought to question whether He will use you or not. He can help you over language, and everything, as much as He helps others,

Why not? Only expect everything only from Him, and nothing at all from yourself, and He will undertake. Never mind about comparative supposed fitness in yourself — quite as well, nay better, that you should see none! so that you may only lean upon Him and His grace and power in and upon you. It is not as if your desire to serve Him were anything new. For a good while now, so far as I know, you have been honestly, really purposed to * let Him take all: ’ it is no new and sudden principle springing up, untested; it is only a new opening, a new door. My own feeling rather is, Life is short, and we owe it all to Jesus; and if we can and may give Him next year, why withhold it, and say, ‘No, I had better not give that, but see about giving Him the year after! ‘I do not mean going to the other extreme and hurrying, but every year delayed is a year less devoted to His work, as we cannot add it to the other end of life.... I will not write more now. I little thought what glorious news this morning’s post was to bring me! it’s the very, very, very best I could have. Nothing could rejoice me more!

LEAMINGTON, April 23, 1876.

You may be sure I have been thinking much about you, though I have heard nothing except the bare fact of your aunt’s illness, and your being nurse. It may be that God is going to train you Himself, in ways that we do not know; you will trust Him; you can trust Him — - to do just exactly what is right for you — can you not? You have put yourself into His hands, yielded yourself of Him to be His instrument, and there is the end to your present responsibility about it! Now let Him work, and ‘He will work, and who shall let it,’ and see if the day does not come that you will look back and say He has led you by the right way! Perhaps the shortest cut would not be the right way! Anyhow He knows, and will lead. I want you when that time comes, not to have the regret of looking back and wishing you had trusted Him all along, and seeing at last how you might just as well have been happy and trustful all the time! but to be able to look back in deep thankfulness to His grace, that kept your trust fixed and unfaltering. Do not fancy I think you do not trust! Only I wanted to warn you, because I rarely know any greater pang than regretting that one ever doubted His wisdom or care, when one sees how exquisitely He was working out His own purposes after all. I have been so bitterly sorry more than once, when, in the darkness, I had distrusted Him, and fidgetted, and schemed, and vexed instead of resting. Look the whole thing in the face. Suppose you are kept wearily nursing, with lots of other disappointments for ever so long! Even then I am sure you will say, ‘Jesus, I will, can, must, do trust Thee.’ And of course He will take care to make the most of His own instrument! No fear that He will let it rust and spoil! But He may put it aside, dipped in oil for a little, and then grind it afresh, and then polish it, and make it a ten times more valuable instrument than it could have been, if He had taken and used it at once! I am quite sure He will do right, and so are you!

May 1876.

I only want to send you one verse which has come so forcibly to my mind for you that I won’t write about anything else to-day. Ezek. xl. 4: ‘Son of man, behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears, and set thine heart upon all that I shall show thee; for to the intent that I should show unto thee art thou brought hither.’ Does ‘hither ’ mean — — ? I think so for you! So He has brought you there that He may ’ show unto thee ’ (’ them ’ is not in the original, you see). Show what? Surely Himself, John xiv. 2 1; His glory and greatness, Ex. xxxiii. 1 8, 19; great things, Jer. xxxiii. 3; greater things, John i. 50. And the command is to you ‘behold,’ ‘hear,’ ‘set thine heart upon, It will not be a little, for the ’ all ’ seems to imply a great deal. ‘To the intent ’ — He has brought you hither purposely with distinct intention. ‘That I might show ’ then. He could not have shown you as much elsewhere. He has brought you just where He knows you can be shown most. ‘Art thou brought] does not that just fit? You did not choose or plan or go of yourself. He brought you hither; see ver. i: ‘The hand of the Lord was upon me, and brought me thither.’ So far and no farther just now; but I have no doubt whatever but that in His own time, when He has shown you ’ all,’ He will go on to the following command: ‘Declare all thou seest to the house of Israel.’ Nothing could be a stronger confirmation to my own mind, of the reality of your offer of yourself to Him, and the reality of His acceptance of you, as His ’ chosen vessel ’ for service, than His thus instantly taking you apart — taking you in hand. It is so marked, and so singularly accordant with His almost invariable dealing with those whom He means to use. Oh, you may indeed trust Him, and let Him train you for what He most wants you for, just as He will.

OAKHAMPTON, 1876.

... I have been really ill for several weeks, and all writing has had to be postponed. It is quite out of the question, therefore, to write a choir letter. Almost every post brings me requests which I am obliged to decline. I had just begun some little new books for this winter season, but of course have been unable to go on with them, to Nisbet’s great disappointment; and when I can write, I think I ought to go through with what I felt God had laid on my own heart to do; as, if I break off and perpetually write one little thing for one, and another for another, as I have been in the habit of doing, I find I break the thread, and get my available time all cut up into patchwork, and can rarely accomplish anything but scraps, which does not seem the best investment of what little ability and less strength God gives me. You, I know, will understand me, darling, though some would not; but even you have not the least idea what numbers of requests I get to write for all sorts of causes and societies, and classes and folks in general! And here am I, just two years since I have been able to do any writing worth speaking of at all!

I have been so struck lately in reading 2 Samuel with the exquisite typical touches. Have you noticed 2 Sam. xix. 20? the knowing that we have sinned being the very reason for coming * the first of all ’ to meet the King. No waiting for turns in that court. Darling, how really wonderfully He is training and using you! He has done for you, exceeding abundantly above all I asked or thought for you. I did not expect all this. And more and more may ’ the name of our Lord Jesus Christ be glorified in you.’ I am so glad you gave the address.

Never mind yourself at all. Just as if He would not use your lips, when you have put them at His disposal. Of course He will!

LEAMINGTON, December 29, 1876.

A very happy New Year to you! Grannie came and asked me ’ a very great favour j ’ it was, ‘Might she send My King to you instead of me, as she knew I intended?’ So I resigned in her favour! She loves you very much, and wanted to send it herself. But it will say lots of little things which I should like to say or write to you; so if any chapter seems to suit you, you must suppose it headed ‘Dearest A.,’ and signed ‘Your loving aunt Frances.’ I like your calling me that so much. I Always liked Frances better than Fanny, and Connie nearly always calls me by that name, and so do a good many others.

My eyes are better, but I am obliged to save them as much as possible; so M. kindly answered your dear letter to me, as we were quite of one mind on the subject. Oh, we may surely trust Jesus about it! it does not trouble me an instant for that reason.

1877.

This is another ‘answer ‘! Being at my wits’ end, so many subscribers and collectors lost by death and other causes, and efforts to replace them all failing, I had to tell the Lord that my expectation could be only from Him, and asked Him to send me something ’ quite unexpected y ’ and forthwith ’ quite unexpected ’ donations, thank-offerings, and increased subscriptions came in, and in ten days about £9 has come thus / I prayed yesterday that He would not stop just yet, and so yesterday He inclined you to increase your subscription! The special appeal is indeed sad, is not it? (For the Irish Society.)

I have not seen or heard of the book High Truth. Get hold of Mrs. Gordon’s new book, Hay Macdowall Grant of Arndilly (Seeley); it is most valuable; his letters contain so much that is striking and practical and instructive as to dealing with souls, and the whole thing is intensely stimulating and helpful. Ditto, Our Coffee-Room (Nisbet), which is splendid! and especially shows how God can and does use the very simplest words. The writer, Miss Cotton, really never seems to have said a thing which you or I could not have said, and yet the power of God with it was marvellous. Both are first-rate for lending. How gracious of Him to use

the trying experience you had about P. B ism. I

hope you will take the meetings, for of course He will help you. Is not Jehoshaphat nice in this A.M. chapter, 1 Stand ye still, and see ‘? * See ’ how he will help you! You know I am not in the Stepney Union, but in the Christian Progress Union, which for many reasons I infinitely prefer. But we have the same morning chapter as you. I only use the ‘Stepney’ for those whom it would be hopeless to persuade to read twice a day, and see that it rather encourages the notion, that one has done one’s duty, by reading one chapter a day! All ought to be reading both parts of His Word, Old and New, every day. But many join both, and I rather think I shall also join Mr. Richardson’s just for the sake of gaining any who are too far behindhand to read twice.

LEAMINGTON, 1877.

I can most fully enter into your somewhat complicated trials. I will hand on to you what comforted me exceedingly a night or two ago, though not a text. It is the refrain of an old slave hymn, ‘Nobody knows but Jesus ‘! Does it not draw one very near to feel that? Say that to yourself next time you feel troubled, and have no relief of telling it to a human ear. It is so sweet. Just a secret between one’s own sore heart and the dear Lord’s loving heart! Another thought struck me for you as to the special trial you tell me of. ‘Consider Him, who endured such contradiction ‘! There is a whole mine of cheer and help in that. And consider further — if it is a far keener trial to see — ‘enduring’ it than if you only had it to bear. ‘Consider: how God the Father for His great love wherewith He loved us, saw and endured all the contradiction of sinners to His dear Son, and let them go on contradicting and never interfered, and let Him endure it to the bitter end, all because He loved us, so He ’ spared not His own Son ’ even in this....

68 MILDMAY PARK, October 1877.

Fancy me laid up here of all places, and being nursed with an influenza cold! Nineteen letters this morning, and yours and two more over from yesterday. But I must try and send a line to you. I told dear Mrs. Pennefather, and she is so kind and sympathizing for you. She sends you, ‘Sit still, my daughter; ’ and ’ then? she says, ’ she may go on to the rest of the verse.’ As for ‘never,’ are you not ‘ever’ in your Lord’s hand, and in your Lord’s service? And won’t you — oh, I know you will — let Him do what seemeth Him good ‘? For He will not only do what is ’ good,’ but absolutely best in you and for you and by you for His own glory. Of course, * He will! Only you c let Him’! I don’t see what you have to do with ’ never; ’ you have only to do with ’ now* ‘Now the tuning and the training! ‘If He says ’ never, He will keep you loving His Word and His will; and if He does not say ’ never,’ what matter who else says it? * He will work, and who shall let it? ‘So just leave the ’ never ’ in the dear Master’s hand, and live in His ’ now] and look beyond to His ’ for ever ’ of Rev. xxii. 3, connected with Ex. xxi. 6.

Please thank Miss Holland very much for her lovely card, and do not I like the text!