p205 [A farewell word at the Priory before sailing for America. Aug. 1st, 1862.] * * * If our hearts are not close to Christ, we are apt to get weary in the way. All is a vain show around us; but that which is inside abides, and is true, being the life of Christ. All else goes! When the heart gets hold of this fact, it becomes (as to things around) like one taken into a house to work for the day, who performs the duties well, but passes through, instead of living in the circumstances. To Israel the cloud came down, and they stayed; it lifted up, and on they went. It was all the same to them. Why? Because had they stayed when the cloud went on, they would not have had the Lord. One may be daily at the desk for fifty years, yet with Christ the desk is only the circumstance; it is doing God's will, making manifest the savour of Christ, which is the simple and great thing. Whether I go or you go, I stay or you stay, may that one word be realised in each of us - "steadfast, immovable!" In whatever sphere, as matter of providence, we may be found, let the divine life be manifested - Christ manifested. This abides, all else changes, but the life remains and abides for ever, aye, for ever.

Not a single thing in which we have served Christ shall be forgotten. Lazy alas! we all are in service, but all shall come out that is real, and what is real is Christ in us, and this only. The appearance now may be very little - not much even in a religious view, but what is real will abide. Our hearts clinging closely to Christ, we shall sustain one another in the body of Christ. The love of Christ shall hold the whole together, Christ being everything, and we content to be nothing, helping one another, praying one for the other. I ask not the prayers of the saints, I reckon on them. The Lord keep us going on in simplicity, fulfilling as the hireling our day, till Christ shall come; and then "shall every man have praise of God" - praise of God! Be that our object, and may God knit all our hearts together thoroughly and eternally.

[1873.]

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