p158 [Mr Slim] MY DEAR BROTHER - I was very glad to hear from you and that you were all safe arrived, and thankful too that none had left to follow those that went out. Dear - will want no spectacles now to see the King in His beauty, and even the vanity which may have hindered him on earth is gone for ever: there is none in the presence of the glory of God, nor with Christ our just and infinite delight. … It is sweet to think that he is, dear fellow, with Christ, and nothing but the new man remains. That is a comfort for us all, though we ought to keep down the old man here, that we may be free fully to enjoy Christ. I am not a perfectionist, fundamentally not, but I believe there is power in Christ to keep the old man down so that the Spirit be not grieved, and thus communion perfect in our measure. …

Christ, is the same, dear brother, in Barbados, as in London, and He and He only is life and power, but He is intimate with us, can dwell in our hearts by faith, and so we can not only comprehend the wide extent of glory, and look down its infinite yet perfectly ordered parts as from a centre, but know, blessed be His name! a love which passes knowledge.

It is wonderful, the place God has given us, yet it is, while we were only sin, what Christ's work was only worthy of, so that while pure and sovereign grace reigns, so that we know perfect love, that is God, yet it reigns through righteousness. It has often, for some time, been a joy to me that we shall all be a perfect testimony to the efficacy and worth of Christ's work which brought us into it, as well as of the Father's love, and that eternally. It is what we ought to be here, but we know how feeble it often is here, but there we shall for ever be adequate witnesses of Christ, by the very glory into which He will have brought us, and that is very blessed.

The Lord be with you, dear brother, in your work: we have only to serve Christ earnestly, and in communion with Him, and all is well; the rest passes and is gone. I have nothing much to tell you of things here. … I do not, as you know, move in and out among brethren, from my bodily state. But God is working on to the result of His own ways. There is the occasional difficulty of letters of commendation, otherwise all around us is as quiet as possible. … May the Lord be with - in his work, and all the brethren. I am very thankful to them that they remember and think of me. They may be assured I do not forget them, and earnestly desire of God their blessing and peace in Christ, and that the whole assembly may be indeed as trees of the Lord's planting. Oh that all His saints were! Christ all to them. Peace be with you.

Affectionately yours, dear brother, in the Lord.

1881.

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