(XVIII.)
HARBOUR OFFICE,
WICK, 17th January, 1893.
WE hear often about you from friends coming and going, and they all agree in one thing—that you have not yet got deliverance through the Word, and that you refuse to take it from man. This is as it ought to be, and you must hold on to it, and tell your friends and advisers that if they are able to advise you in so important a matter, surely they must have access to a throne of grace, and if so, let them carry your case there, and plead for your deliverance through the right channel. He who said, “Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity,” is the only one that can command your deliverance. Bonds and imprisonments are peculiar to the people of God, but you say, “My case differs from anything on record.” Perhaps it may, as every child of grace will have a different experience to record, but you will allow that the Church triumphant in glory will be at one in singing to the praise of redeeming love, that He brought them by a right way. It may be—as in your own experience—a rough, round-about way, and the soul discouraged because of the way, yet wait on the Lord, asking for faith and patience—those noble graces that enable the soul to fight the good fight; even the worm Jacob overcame by the use of such weapons.
Unknown to myself I have become one of your advisers, the very thing reprobated at the beginning of this scribble. . . .
Yours very faithfully,
W. C.
(XIX.)*
HARBOUR OFFICE,
WICK, 5th April, 1894.
Seeing in our local papers a paragraph intimating the death of your beloved brother, and well knowing that tender affections would, by this sad bereavement, be wounded and cast down, my heart yearns over you, and more especially in recalling the waves of affliction in body and mind through which you have already passed. But do not be cast down, or overcome by these fiery trials, but rejoice inasmuch as ye are made partakers of Christ’s sufferings. And yet it is natural for you to mourn, and it is matter of solemn reflection in parting with those dear ones brought up in the same family and associated with your tender years, with childhood and youth, with all the endearing ties relative thereto. When these tender ties are severed, a wound is left bleeding, and
* This letter was written to the late Mrs. Harper, Thurso. See Vol. ii., page 427.—ED.
nothing can bind up and heal this wound but to consider Christ; a healing virtue flows out from His wounds. May that blessed balm be applied to your affections!
We are getting old; the frail tabernacle is bending earthward. We have out-lived most of our early associates and friends. The world is becoming colder; yea, the love of many is waxing cold. Strife and contention are severing former friendships. The adversary of souls is gloating over the divisions of Reuben. Unblushing heresy is lifting its unhallowed head in the sacred places where we had our dwellings in times past; and those that we trusted to as witnesses are faintly turning back, carrying along with them the mixed multitude that came up out of Egypt. We are seeing the faithful removed from pulpit and pew, leaving congregations so infatuated that they are ready to accept of sound without substance, and they refuse to suffer reproach for His name, holding on by a Church that has forfeited all claim to the name. Rainy, Dods, Bruce, and company have thrown a soul-destroying charm over the once protesting Free Church. Thurso, once ornamented with choice cedars—giants who were never known to cringe to popular applause, “how is she become tributary?”
I must not continue longer in this melancholy train of thought,
. . .—Yours very faithfully, W. C.
(XX.)
HARBOUR OFFICE,
WICK, 11th May, 1897.
We are all sorry to hear of your suffering, yet how helpless to render you any aid. Our sympathies cannot give you relief, but if we were what we ought to be, we would be sharers of your afflictions. Wearisome days and anxious nights have been measured out to you, causing you to say, with Job, “When I lie down I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? And I am full of tossing to and fro until the dawning of the day.” You find bitter ingredients mixed in the cup put into your hand, with wave upon wave, yes, and deep calling unto deep; yet be of good cheer, these billows will be soon over, and a morning without clouds will soon dawn in on you, and dispel the dark clouds that have so long darkened your sky. Your sorrows will then be for ever swallowed up in the ocean of His redeeming love. Saving faith touching the promises will even now beget a healing balm amid all your disquietudes. The Lord will not break a leaf driven to and fro, nor pursue the dry stubble.
My wife sends her kind regards. We are both finding passing years telling on us, unwilling to leave home, and unable to undergo much fatigue. . . . Have you wholly given up writing? My own scribble is now becoming difficult to read. You should make a strong effort to leave a memoir of your chequered experience for the use of the Church. The modern Free Church would have little sympathy with your experience yet there are those left after
the gleaning of the vintage that would prize it. As you are now laid past from looking in on the afflicted, and able only to pray, see that your prayers have a wide range. Visit old haunts of early and endearing associations, the Zion hill where you had your dwelling in times past. Although these haunts are now desolate, yet the very rubbish and stones are more precious than the costly Free Churches of the present day.
Be of good courage, holding on, by faith and patience, to the end.—Yours very faithfully, W. C.
(XXI.)
I WELLINGTON STREET,
PULTENEYTOWN, 8th March, 1898.
I am in receipt of your kind letter of sympathy. It is when one is under the rod that sympathy from one who has been long experiencing trouble is doubly dear. I have had a sudden and alarming call, yet mercy has been mingled in the cup. I have no pain, only extreme weakness, and find a difficulty in writing these few lines. But being carefully nursed, I fondly hope to be able to resume my duties in a few days. . . .
My wife wishes to be kindly remembered to you and L—.
When I can write with ease, you will hear again from—Yours truly, W. C.