p127 [To the same.] Dear G V Wigram, - Matters are changed, as I intimated in my last. Error and the love of error are very distinct things. The assembly and leaders must be treated as loving error if one has to deal with them now; individuals may be different. But the world and Satan are at the bottom of it all. …

I trust the Lord may enable the brethren to walk peacefully in the simplicity of the gospel, through the hubbub the enemy may make about religion. Ebrington Street was an awful school to come out of, but the Lord is mighty and gracious. I reserve all my dealings for the time the Lord may bring me into them, and trust His grace to order by the way. … Discipline supposes moral competency. Whatever tenderness I may feel towards individuals, and I trust it is most fully my feeling and my heart joyfully open to them as it is, as to things I feel I am on the ground of testimony against known and convicted evil, a ground I do not feel disposed to leave, save so far as the evil is done with, and then of course it is remembered no more. I am very glad you spoke so strongly of the Table, it was an omission in mine. But I return with full quiet abiding conviction to my original statement. I do not, as I never have from the time I left, own it as the Lord's table at all, but indeed quite the contrary.

The work opens here, and even at Nismes, apparently the most difficult, but the place for which I have perhaps the greatest confidence. We want a positive testimony in work, for nobody defends what exists - all hold it bad, though not leaving it; but I wait on the Lord. At Nismes I have a growing beginning of work, where it is in spite of the world if they come. In the village large congregations come to get blessing, where a while back they were determined not to let us in, but it is blessing to souls, including growth in apprehension, without question of principles - as far as I am concerned, at least.

Ever your affectionate.

Montpellier, February 16th, 1848.

[51062E]