p458 [C Wolston] MY DEAR BROTHER, - It is a long time since you wrote, but I have been in journeys on wagons and cars through south Illinois, besides some 1,800 miles of rail, and labour in the word wherever I went, nor was I disposed to answer anything on the subject of your quotation from - 's letter. I have preferred going on with my work and leaving these attacks to God, and such is pretty much my purpose. … Since I returned I read the papers through, not in respect of passages objected to, but to see the doctrine of the papers as a whole; the result has been even to myself deep edification, and such, I am persuaded, they may be to those who seek it. There are three passages (I think) where I should change a word, to take away the opportunity from those who seek it, of troubling simple souls; and there are parts into which those who are not spiritually minded will not (I dare say) enter, but the instruction I believe to be most true and profitable. I am, of course, sorry if any who cannot estimate it should be cast aside, but I must leave that to the Lord, humbling and searching myself as to how far I may have given occasion, but persuaded that for those who seek the truth, the papers, as they at once or gradually enter into them, are most timely and profitable. I am content if the heart rightly receive the sufferings of Christ, and the atonement be clearly held; but for those who can occupy themselves with the ways of God and the perfect love of Christ, the view of these papers will much deepen the sense of the Lord's sorrows, and intelligence of what those sorrows were, and I know not what greater gain there can be. Strange to say, though a page or two may require spiritual apprehension to see its bearing, there is nothing I have looked over of my own which has interested me so much, nor, I think, from which I have received so much edification. Nor indeed do I see any difficulty for those for whom it has not been sought or made. But of this I will not speak. …

I have written to others of the work, so I do not add much. The doors are opening in the west, and gatherings forming and a measure of conversion. Had I time, I should return there. I am now going east. It sometimes has a dreary look to begin, but if we wait on the Lord's leading there is always blessing goes forth. We have to meet here with all sorts of things, particularly the denial of the immortality of the soul, wherever people pass out of the ordinary routine of the churches as they call them; and all the neutral party if they do not hold it, accept those who do, and join them freely. This which is defining itself pretty clearly, will so far be a mercy that it will free us from them, for they seek in many places to be amongst us. Hitherto we have been kept. At a distance it will seem impossible to you, but people get used to evil when mixed up with people that hold it. I had not heard from England since I was out, till I came here, save, I believe, your letter, till I found some here, but I believe some are somewhere or other in Illinois.

Tracts and books we cannot get enough of for the States.

Your affectionate brother.

Toronto, October, 1866.

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