p95 Dear Mrs. Brown(e?), - I hardly know how to answer you, save to say to you to look to the Lord, and to do so myself; but that is a great comfort. Labourers in the harvest we have a crying want for here, and the Lord recognises it as a kind of known want, and tells us what to do. For who can send them but He, or raise up such as can go? I know none. In these countries there is far and wide an open ear, and very few to tell the glad tidings of salvation and a Saviour's love, yet there ought to be a sense of it which would urge us to bring it forth to others. After all, you are better off than many a place; yet I recognise the need, and earnestly pray the Lord to supply it. He cares for His church better than we know how. Yet I do not at all deny our responsibility in being exercised before Him for called-for blessing. It would have been a great joy for me to see you all at Boston, and indeed elsewhere, again; but I am forced to remember that I am within a few months of eighty, and have had the gout to boot, and though, thank God, fresh and happy in spirit, and labouring as usual, long journeys become a greater burden, but one is nearer home - not, I hope, weary of what is here, certainly not of His service, but feeling it the deepest grace and mercy to be allowed to serve when I know what I am, though all around brings the presence of evil home to me, but - the thought of seeing Him, being in my Father's house and where holiness is and evil cannot be, where every saint will be exactly what Christ would desire they should be, the manifested proof of the travail of His soul, an eternal witness to the efficacy of His redemption.

The door is very open in these kingdoms for the word of God, and everywhere I hear of there is a thirst for it; so that besides study work there is plenty for all the labourers there are, and more too, if the Lord were pleased to send such as He would have.

Belfast, June 19th.

[53082E]