THE following letters were addressed by Elizabeth Lindsay to various friends during her illness:—
“17 DALRYMPLE PLACE, 18th May, 1835.
DEAR C.,—I felt very sorry on Sabbath that we had so little conversation with each other, and as we have seldom an opportunity, I have taken it upon me to write a few lines to you. Oh, may the Lord give us both grace to feel that our strength is not in ourselves, but that our strength is perfect weakness! You, my dear, have lately come from the mount of ordinances, where I trust you got your faith strengthened. I hope you were there enabled to see, by the eye of faith, that you really had an interest in the Saviour, that He loved you and died for you, and that it was in commemoration of His dying love that you were sitting at His table. Oh, my dear C., what a mercy it was for us, that when we had broken all God’s laws and covenants, and could not pay unto God a ransom, that Jesus stept forward and said, ‘Deliver from going down to the pit, for I have found a ransom.’ Let us think much of the wonderful love of God to perishing sinners such as we are, that so we may be led to cry, ‘Oh, the breadth and the length of the love of God, for it passeth knowledge.’
I was very sorry to see you so cast down on Sabbath. Perhaps you did not get such a feast of joy as you expected; but oh, remember that it is in ourselves we are straitened and not in God, for He is not a man that He should lie. Hath He not said, ‘I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed’? May we therefore seek strength from God, that so
we may be able to guard against the awful sin of unbelief, for it is that sin which leads us into all others. Oh, may it therefore be our earnest prayer to God that He would kindle in our hearts a flame of holy love, that so we may be able at all times to draw water with joy ‘out of the wells of salvation.’
It is now nineteen months since I was confined to bed; and under the varied ways in which God has seen meet to chasten me, what else could have supported me but His grace, and the sweet consolations which flow from His promises, such as these—’Fear not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God,’ etc. Oh, may our wills be centred in God’s will, and may we follow Him with humility and self-denial through darkness and sunshine, through good and bad report; and may we ever remember our Saviour’s own words to His disciples, ‘Watch ye, and pray that ye enter not into temptation.’ May we seek counsel from Him to direct us in every step, and be in earnest that He may ever keep our hearts in a praying frame, for we are in the enemy’s country, and subject to many doubts and fears, to backslidings and temptations.
But I find I must now stop. Gladly would I have filled up the paper, but this clay tabernacle in which I am chained needs repose. Before leaving you I commend you unto the Shepherd of Israel, who slumbers not nor sleeps. May He never leave you nor forsake you, but watch over you in your going out and coming in; and that He may teach you in the way that you should go—even guide you with His eye—is the desire of your affectionate friend in the love of the everlasting Gospel,
ELIZABETH LINDSAY.”
“17 DALRMYPLE PLACE, 24th July, 1835.
MY DEAR FRIEND,—. . . All the doctors who have ever seen me have given me up, saying they never had a case like mine, and that all has been done that man can do. But it is a great mercy that although earthly physicians may say they can do no more, Jesus, the good Physician, never says so. He is not ‘an high priest which cannot be touched with a feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.’ I have now been twenty-one months confined to a low couch, and under the various ways in which God has seen meet to chasten me, nothing but the sweet consolations which flow from His most blessed Word could have supported me. It is a wonder to all that I have been so long in this world. Often has my mother watched over me, expecting every moment to be the last; but the Lord is still sparing me. Oh pray, my dear friend, that it may be for His glory! I suffer much from difficulty in breathing and acute pain in my breast, but ‘I reckon the sufferings of this present time not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed.’ . . . I dare say you will think I have
forgotten you all; but no, dearer to my heart are the friends of Jesus than to forget them. But I find I must stop. May the Lord bless thee and keep thee in all His ways, is the earnest desire of your friend in the Lord,
ELIZABETH LINDSAY.”
“17 DALRYMPLE PLACE, 24th February, 1836.
DEAR AND LOVING FRIEND,—Having a desire to write to you I have now taken the pen in my hand, but He who is the wise Sovereign-ruler and disposer of all things only knows whether I may be able to finish it. I have several times attempted to answer your most kind and affectionate letter, but through weakness I had always to lay it aside. But the Lord ‘giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.’ Glory be to His great name, He has given me to feel that in Him only I have righteousness and strength. I am weakness itself, but He is strength itself; by nature I am darkness, but He is light, for with Him there is no darkness at all. Oh, to have a glimpse of His glory! The apostle, speaking of it, says, ‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.’ . . . Oh, may we be much at a throne of grace! May we learn to be wrestlers with God there for the outpouring of His Spirit, for there is a great withdrawing of the Spirit at this day. There is much declension in true religion; and until the Spirit be poured out from on high nothing shall come up upon the heritage of the Lord but briers and thorns. Oh, for the happy time when all shall know the Lord, when the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea! Then shall the Church be like unto Christ’s seamless garment—all in one.
I was much obliged to you for your kindness in desiring your friend, Mr. K., to call on me. I found much pleasure in his company. Well does it become me to say, ‘Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits’; but my heart is so hard, and my affections so cold, that I too often make idols of the gifts and forget the Giver. . . . Write to me soon, and tell me if religion flourishes among you. Tell me if there be any asking their way to Zion, with their faces thitherward.—Yours affectionately in the bonds of the Gospel,
ELIZABETH LINDSAY.”
“17 DALRYMPLE PLACE, 15th July, 1836.
DEAR AND LOVING FRIEND,—I hope you are all enjoying good health; but if not so, we know that it is well. Afflictions, if sanctified, become the greatest covenant blessings. I have found them to be so in my sweet experience; and oh, never let any one think for a moment that I regret being excluded from the world, and stretched upon a bed of languishing. No; I rejoice that God, for Christ’s sake, did not count me unworthy of correcting love. I have to regret that my life has been so useless, and that
so little of my time was devoted to the glory of God while I had any little strength. Oh, my dear friend, may Jesus give you grace to be active for His glory, that so, by your good example, you may encourage others to be active in His service also. Though the way in this howling wilderness be often a wearisome one—often dark and stormy, and through much trouble and perplexity—still the yoke of Jesus—the longer it is borne—becomes the more sweet and easy because He gives strength to bear it. ‘They go from strength to strength; every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.’ And oh, what a glorious and fair company will that be when all the redeemed shall meet around the throne of God, having their robes washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb! They wonder here that God should make such vile, sinful worms sharers of such boundless love; but there they will wonder far more, when they get to the full fruition. It will tend to heighten the song throughout eternity—‘Worthy is the Lamb that was slain; and has washed us from our sins in his own blood and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever.’ There no distance shall separate them from one another; and what is far better, no clouds of unbelief shall ever arise to come between Jesus and their souls. . . . There was a beautiful statement in the letter I received from you, which has often given me comfort when under clouds and darkness. It was this—‘We have nothing to give for the blessings of salvation, and nothing is asked.’ Oh, the wonderful love of God in giving up His only and well-beloved Son to the ignominious death of the Cross, that we might be saved! But He foresaw from all eternity that there was no other way of escape; therefore His eye pitied us and His arm brought salvation. Oh, to be enabled to draw all our joys from the covenant relation in which we stand to God through Christ Jesus! He is a fountain that never fails, even when all creature-comforts are dried up. . . . May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit; and may the presence of Him who dwelt in the bush, and the love of Him who died on the Cross, be ever with you.—From your very affectionate but unworthy friend,
ELIZABETH LINDSAY.”
(To be Continued.)
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