p455 [Mr Ulrich] MY DEAR BROTHER, - I desire with all my heart that the Lord may accompany with His full blessing your being all together. You know I never was happy about L.'s step, and I am sure whoever undoes what is wrong will find the blessing of it. I pray the Lord that the blessing may be complete, and all old questions and feelings be forgotten in the sense of the Lord's presence and grace.

You will still find, I doubt not, the difficulties of the way - indeed, we are left here for that, though they are often our own fault. The salvation is complete; the thief could go straight to Paradise, as Christ's companion; but in general we have to go through the wilderness: the wilderness is no part of the purpose of God, but of His ways it is. His purpose is redemption and glory, but we have to learn ourselves (Deut. 8) in the wilderness, and it is a great though a humbling gain. But He has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; our conversation is in heaven, whence we look for Him who shall change our vile bodies. We grow by what we have been brought into in Christ, not by the mere sense of deliverance. …

The Lord is extending the work much in the States, and that down South too: I am very thankful for it. I know not, at my age, that I shall be able to return, as I gladly should, but He can ever, and will, work. Infidelity holds its head high, but the Spirit of God is working sensibly, too, in many places.

Yverdon [1878].

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