p491 [E L Bevir] DEAREST BROTHER, - I do not expect any large impression to be made on Rome or Roman Catholicism. God has given her time to repent, and she has not repented; but there are precious souls to be gathered out. The agent against popery at present is infidelity, but God is working to gather His own; and how plain it is, that when He opens, none shuts: look at all Europe and everywhere. Here at Pau, a considerable number of Roman Catholics have been converted, and there is a considerable tendency in France towards Protestantism, mixed with liberalism. All this we must leave, and hold fast by Christ. There is a difficulty which I have felt in Ireland: Roman Catholics receiving the truth, and anxious to break with Romanism, but one could not say they were Christians, yet they needed some recognition, some religious place. At - they have formed what they call a parish, a kind of Catechumenal, and thus take them in hand. It is a great thing, in the weak state all is in, to have them out of the hands and power of the priests, and open to receive instruction from the word. If one can bring to the Lord some of those dear to Him - it is already a great thing.

I feel daily more that what we have in grace is a wholly new thing from beginning to end, a new creation, the second Man, a new life, divine righteousness; yet we must deal with souls according to their responsibility on the old ground. The cross meets both the old responsibility, and is an absolute close to the old thing, and the basis of all into which Christ enters as the second Man, the last Adam. We have only to follow and serve, forgetting the things which are behind, and reaching forward to the things which are before. In a little we shall reap if we faint not. … I close. Let us remember Him who suffered for us.

Pau, March 8th.

[52336E]