To Miss C.
My dearest Anne,
My heart yearns over you, and much do I long that you may be comforted.
Jesus can and will relieve your aching heart. What is it, my beloved friend,
which distresses you? Is it the absence of Jesus? Ah! that is
a sorrowful condition; but He loves you just as much as when you leaned on
His bosom, and He will come again and embrace you, making you ashamed of the
jealousies you now feel; for surely it is not knowing a friend to trust him
only so far as we can see him. Oh, then, may the Spirit enable you even in
the dark to trust in the Lord and stay upon our God.
Is it sin which breaks your heart? The blood of
Jesus cleanses from all sin (I am a living witness of it); from heart and
life sin, indulged and repeated—sins of ingratitude and carelessness, sins
against light and knowledge, and a thousand others. Do not, therefore, be
cast down. Since I have found mercy--none need despair. Venture with all
your guilt upon Christ; you know He has borne the curse due to it, and He
will restore peace to your conscience.
But, perhaps, you have been looking over your
evidences, and by reason of the mist which now envelops you they appear
so dim that you question whether they are genuine. I have found it sometimes
well to give Satan a little ground here: throw evidences away, and suppose
what he says is true, that we have been deceived. And then fly to Christ
just as we are, without one plea, hanging simply upon His blood and
righteousness as a helpless sinner, determined, that if we perish, it shall
be in venturing upon Him. Thus shall we prove whether it is true that He can
and will save to the uttermost all who come unto God by Him. You cannot
think what relief I have had in this way.
But, whatever be your case, the remedy is in Christ.
May it soon be feelingly applied. I feel ashamed to give you these lispings,
for you were in the way of believing long before I was—but we both remember
the child who said to its mother, when she wept for her husband, "Is Jesus
Christ dead?" Whereby her inordinate grief was reproved. So may my simple
strains, by the Spirit's power, touch the discordant note in your soul, and
if not, you must pardon and accept the attempt in proof of the love and
sympathy of your unworthy but attached,
Ruth