To Miss C., August 21, 1849.
Dear friend,
I am at school. Yet I am very dull, but happy scholar, with such love upon
love and line upon line from such a blessed Teacher, who says, "I am the
Lord your God who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way that you
should go." Oh, this is a sacred place! I am receiving many private lessons
bearing immediately upon my own experience, conflicts, and mistakes--in
which the Lord my God faints not, neither is weary. I listen for Him, I
listen to Him, and marvel greatly, concluding most certainly that there
never was such an unworthy creature, who was so favored. I think one result
of every new lesson is, "Behold, I am vile!" "I abhor myself, and repent in
dust and ashes!" I see much wrong in all the past, and desiring afresh to
forsake all and follow Jesus only.
My earnest cry now is for guidance--to have any home
where the Lord will bless me, and I may not be corroded with worldly care.
The most humble place, with a quiet mind and the Lord's presence, seems just
what I want—to serve Him in lowliness on earth until the welcome hour when
He shall say, "Enter into the joy of your Lord!" Indeed it must be without a
"Well done, good and faithful servant." It is with me--all mercy and no
merit.
May the Lord give us still to commune freely in that love
which passes knowledge, and changes not. Oh, the blissful heights, and
depths, and lengths, and breadths which are ever here to be enjoyed. Love is
the dear element in which I delight to live. I long to be unloosed from
mortality, and get absorbingly into its pleasurable abyss and fullness of
joy—but until then must seek above all things to live in love—I mean in that
sense in which it is said, "God is love; and he who dwells in love dwells in
God, and God in him." (1 John 4:16) All that would interrupt or interfere
with this must I cast away, counting all things but dross that I may win
Christ and wear Christ, and be found in Him, and find Him in me. He is the
manifestation that God is love; He is the love of God in living power and
revelation. Oh that saints would leave the many things which are behind, and
press on towards simplicity and love.
"Tis love that makes our cheerful feet
In swift obedience move."
"Love is the grace that lives and sings
When faith and hope shall cease;
'Tis this shall strike our joyful strings
In the sweet realms of bliss."
Oh to breathe only and ever in the pure, sweet element of
holiness and love! That will be congenial with the inner man, which will
then no longer be the hidden man; for we shall be all outside. I mean
there will be nothing in us or about us obscure or concealed. Body and
spirit will be pure transparent light, as you know I once saw in a glorious
dream such as mortal words can never fully describe. That glory is
brighter than the noonday sun, fairer than the moon--and quite too dazzling
for mortal sight. Oh that we could disperse these mists of flesh and sense,
and our freed spirits range those fields of light of which the Lord God and
the Lamb are the brightness and glory. Oh to see as we are seen, to know as
we are known, to understand each other fully, without needing the dull
imperfect medium of words. That would indeed be living all on fire, and
glowing as we would wish.
What you say of loving the patriarchs, prophets, and
apostles reminded me of 1 John 3:14: "We know that we have passed from death
unto life, because we love the brethren." Truly, love will flow to all the
members of the living family if we are begotten of God in a new life; and
methinks the most so to those who have most of love, because there will be
most of Him. Oh, indeed, a glorious throng of glorified ones await the
consummation, and are saying, "Your kingdom come." How they welcome each
dear pilgrim who puts off the traveling dress, and comes to rest with them,
until that morning without clouds--when all the redeemed shall at once put
on the full court robes! What high company awaits us! It is almost past
belief for poor unlovely me. I need enlarging to take in the wonder more
thoroughly.
Ah, my beloved friend, all will end well at last, though
the conflict is now often severe. After a toilsome night, and nothing
caught, the morning often brings deliverance—a net full of fish, and a meal
prepared. (John 21:6, 17) Oh, turn in, Beloved, and tarry with us, for the
evening shadows draw on. Come, risen Lord, and sup with us, and we with You.
Stay until the night of this world's woe be past, then take us up where suns
never rise and set—but You are endless day. Quite spoilt for earth, we must
have much of You, until we shall come where You are all in all. I would have
dear saints on fire with His love, vying who can love Him most whom none can
love enough.
To Him I affectionately commend you for keeping and
teaching, and am in Him yours warmly,
Ruth.
"And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in
your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil
of God's marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all
God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love
really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you
will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of
life and power that comes from God." Ephesians 3:17-19