216 WEST REGENT STREET,
GLASGOW, 26th February, 1920.
MY DEAR MR . . .
I duly received your letter, and am pleased to see that you are conscious of your need of faith in the Lord Jesus.
Your desire to come to Glasgow, so as to be within reach of the means of grace, has my hearty approval. You are certainly at a great disadvantage there, being so far from a place of worship where the Lord promised to meet with such as go there in order to find Him; but, as I said in my last letter, you should make diligent use of the private means, such as searching the Scriptures and secret prayer. The word of God invites sinners as such to seek the Lord while He may be found, and to call on Him while He is near (Is. 55th chap.), and many other parts of Scripture give similar advice.
A beggar must look not to any merit in his asking, but to the mercy of the party implored for relief, so is it with our prayers. Are we to cease asking because our prayers are not of any merit? Surely no. It is our only remedy; a remedy proposed by God Himself. I think often of the prayer of the Publican: “God be merciful to me, the sinner.” It was brief, wanting in eloquence or fine words, but it was the honest expression of a sinner made conscious of his need of mercy, and God not only granted the
petition but placed it on record as an example of a prayer to which He bowed His ear.
Do not think that any outward reformation of life will cause that God will become reconciled to you, but look away from yourself and every other object to Christ crucified as the only ground of reconciliation. Keep constantly before your mind that, until you have exercised faith on the Lord Jesus Christ as the Saviour of your soul from the wrath of God due to you for sin, you can not have true peace with God (Rom. 5th chap.). You must come to Him as you are—a lost, ruined, and guilty sinner; for He came to seek and to save that which was lost.
You may rest assured that you, your wife, and your respective families are not forgotten by me; but no weight should be laid by any of you on anything that man can do. I may say that the condition spiritually of those who came at any time under my unworthy ministry, but especially that of the families of St. Jude’s, has been always a burden upon me at a throne of grace. It has been good news to me when I heard of any of them showing signs of repentance, and a cause of grief and pain when I heard the contrary of any of them.
With kindest regards to Mrs Kelly and yourself, and a prayer that the Lord would make you, by His Word and Spirit, new creatures in Christ.
Yours very sincerely,
NEIL CAMERON.