p64 [H M Hooke] BELOVED BROTHER, - I thank you for your letter, and thank you for the account of the work. Canada is dear to me for the work's sake, and for the affection of so very many from whom I have received every sort of kindness, beloved ones in the Lord. When I have laboured in a place I always feel it mine, not in possession, but in the service I have to render to the saints. I have a faint hope, but wait on the Lord as to it, of getting to the Guelph meeting. I should be glad to see them once more, but as I have told some of them, I am in my seventieth year, and though through mercy strong still, we know that threescore years and ten closes the title of man's active life, though our God can do what seems Him good. It depends a little on my getting through the work I am about here. I feel how great the privilege of evangelists is. I preach here or in the country around regularly, speaking, unless some special hindrance, two or three times a week, but every one has to do the work and fill up the little niche assigned him by God. My work is more in setting souls free, and now in these last days, when all is going so fast to evil, getting, as the Lord enables me, the word of God in its contents and in its purity among those who profess His name. They need being built up here; the work has greatly extended. And besides, I have undertaken nothing less than correcting the whole Old Testament, working it from the Hebrew with all the helps I can. It is a service underground, but I trust will be a help to the saints. They were really without an Old Testament - either an excessively incorrect one, or by infidel translators. We have done (I have helpers for pure German) the prophets, Job, the most difficult of all, and are in good progress with other parts; the historical are very easy comparatively. I had done the Psalms a few years ago for them. I believe God is graciously helping us. I am very happy in the work, but a little anxious as to the time it will take. Then I have three gospels ready of the English New Testament, that and the French being now out of print, and the French are waiting for the English corrections. But if I get another gospel quite ready, I might perhaps get for a couple of months to America and return; if fine weather, it would be a rest for me, and that I somewhat want. … I accept my present work while it is so important in these last days that brethren should have the word of God, and that they should have it as pure as possible - and we must expect in these days to have the poor as always when the church got into its own place in the world, at least for the great mass. And I feel I am serving the Lord in using the little knowledge I have of Greek and Hebrew, etc., in furnishing brethren who have them not, with the word of God as nearly as possible as it is. Otherwise, the times call for building them up in the truth solidly as once given, so that I am jealous as to how much time I spend on what is means, however precious, for we cannot esteem the word too precious. It is that which God has given us when the church went wrong.

I rest on the Lord's goodness towards His people, though I be a poor intercessor for them. I feel the difference of counting on the Lord's love (that I feel through grace I can do), and using it in the activity of faith, to obtain the blessings it has in store for His people: there I feel weak. God will give surely according to His own thoughts and purpose, but He allows us to have a part in carrying them out, first by prayer and then by service; and while I doubt not all is foreknown and surely ordained, and for those for whom it is prepared of the Father, yet herein comes our responsibility, the place of a single eye that does not confer with flesh and blood. One [Paul] so wrought from the beginning, holding himself dead from that time, and always bearing about in his body the dying of the Lord Jesus. We, alas! have often to learn how to do it, or do so, at least, after much mixture of the living and the dead. Yet he had to be helped, and have a thorn in his flesh, and be delivered to death; but then it was from God and for Jesus' sake: the flesh was not different, but the man was. However, the Lord is all we need, and He is perfect.

I have not doubted a sifting time would come for the work in Canada, but the workmen must not be discouraged by it. I doubt not there may have been some excitement and craving after it, still with self-knowledge. I dread excitement, but I do not forget that when the Lord sowed, only one in four came to perfection [Mark 4; Matt. 13]. I do not mean this as a rule; we do not see it thus when the apostles preached: it is danger, and characteristic, but I use it to check a false judgment upon the work, where some disappointment may come. I am more anxious about what the world and the spirit of it forming a clergy may do, than about the reality of what has been done. I know - too, but I know the gracious Lord is above all our weakness. It is a great point to know how to serve in what we find, not expect all as we would. Christianity works with what it brings, not with what it finds; and we are poor creatures ourselves after all. Give my kindest love to the dear brethren, and I am, dear brother,

Affectionately yours in our blessed Lord.

Elberfeld.

[52040E]