With our kind and united regards to Mrs. A. and yourself,
MRS. D. WHITMORE has offered to enclose a letter for me to yourself in her frank. I have availed myself of the opportunity thus afforded me, and have the comfort of reflecting that for once, at least, my poor scrawl will not cost more than its worth.
Mrs. D. and Miss Whitmore have lately been spending a few days with us, and they have left us with a pleasing and powerful conviction of the blessedness resulting from the society of those who live near to God. We felt, in the first instance, somewhat of reluctance in inviting them; but, being persuaded that the law of love required that we should seek our pleasure in the endeavour to communicate pleasure to others, we thought it right to break through our cozy habits of retirement, and to welcome them under our roof. I need not tell you that we have been abundantly repaid. Christian intercourse, when sought and conducted on Christian principles, must be productive of good, and I would gratefully adore the goodness of the Lord for all the refreshment of spirit, and the improvement of mind, which have been conveyed to me through them as channels. How clearly, my dear Mary, would the Lord be teaching us, provided that we would learn of him that the faithful taking up of the cross, even in those matters which appear but trivial and insignificant, is the most effectual way of procuring present peace and future blessedness. In short, that the spirit of surrender is the one thing needful, the grand preparative for happiness and holiness here, and for eternal glory hereafter. I do not know how you feel on this point; but I must, with humiliation, confess to you, that this yoke of Christ does not sit so gracefully and so easily upon me as it ought. I would, however, be thankful that I am endeavouring to bear it. I am comforted with the thought, and I may say with the experience, that the effort to accommodate it to my stubborn neck is the most effectual way of making it natural and easy. I have been much helped to this endeavour by a persuasion that the bearing of the cross is not the end, but the way; that humiliations, mortifications, trials, and so on, are only so many means which God is obliged to have recourse to in order to communicate blessings; that he does not wish to harass, pain, and mortify us, but to promote our comfort, and that the moment we are ready to take up the cross, and begin to submit to the only terms on which it is safe in God to bless us, then he cheerfully avails himself of the opportunity of conveying to us, not the pain which we anticipated, but some gracious token of his love. “For the Lord taketh pleasure in the prosperity of his servants.” His name, His nature, is love. In my last, I think, I stated to you that matters were going on pretty comfortably in my parish. I did not, however, enlarge, lest I should be conveying to you a more favourable idea than contingent circumstances would authorize. I now feel that gratitude towards God ought to lead me to speak to his praise. Many persons in the place have, to say the least, been very favourably impressed, both among the higher, as well as the lower orders, and show a considerable change in the whole of their demeanour. The congregation in the church, both morning and evening, continues to increase; and the expositions, both in the town and the outskirts of the parish, are fully attended. If there is one thing more than another which seems to encourage me, it is that of witnessing on all occasions, that the Lord has graciously given to me what I have all along been led more particularly to pray for—the heart and affections of my dear people. They not only tolerate—they evidently love me. I seem to myself the same poor blundering stutterer as ever, and yet they meet me with pleasure, and go from my ministrations with profit. The Lord make and keep me humble and thankful! I sometimes think that all this is too good to last, that the peaceful calm is but the harbinger of the treacherous storm; I feel, however, that this is no necessary conclusion. Could humility and gratitude be the predominating feeling of our mind, we then might be safely trusted with success. But this is the grand difficulty—pride and self-congratulation are ever apt to insinuate themselves into our minds, and then adversity is necessary. “It is difficult,” as the pious Leighton observes, “to carry a full cup even.” Pray for me, my dear sister, that all the will of the Lord may be done in me, and by me, and that no evils on my part may put any impediment to the free course and glorification of God’s blessed word.