The text of a letter written by Alex MacLennan, Muir of Ord, to a friend. THIS is only a few lines to ask about you. I thought at one time you would be married before now. Whatever turn events have taken the only thing I am concerned about is that you would have composure of mind, resting in the Lord, waiting patiently (Ps 37). When I look back on my pilgrimage I find reasons to praise Him for the things and persons I strongly desired to have that He kept from me, sometimes hedging my way with high walls. It is an awful sin to worship and serve the creature more than the Creator, the only fountain of happiness. If we wish to enjoy the creature, the only way to do so is to enjoy Himself above them all. The creature can be nothing to us but as He will make it. May we always stand in fear of ourselves!
How prone we are to unbelief, distrust and departure from God! We must aim at nothing less than plucking out right eyes and cutting off right hands when they clash with loving the Saviour in sincerity. There was an old, simple shepherd in Beauly many years ago, Simon Campbell. He used to have a petition in prayer that stuck to me — I see the wisdom of it as time goes on — “Lord, take away from us everything that must not be with us”. May we pray daily that He would shield us from every influence that would cool our love to Christ, hinder our prayers, lessen our desires after the better country, impede our progress toward heaven. We are living in a world of sin, a world of sin within us which nothing can conquer but the grace of God. Why should you repine for the absence of the springs when you have the fountain-head? Christ is the embodiment of all that is lovely, desirable, beautiful — and worthy that His praise should be on every lip.
My mother used to speak of what a godly minister once said, “See that you marry Christ before you marry anyone else”. How we should praise Him for the richness, fulness and freeness of the covenant of grace sealed with the blood of Christ! The great question is, Am I in the covenant? Yes, if you are daily asking God to fulfil the promises; God’s elect are all a praying people. What a priceless gift is a praying spirit! We may at times be thinking that we would pray more and better if we had time and outward comforts, which are great blessings for which the Giver is to be praised. Yet I find all these are empty if the praying spirit is absent, as old Mr Macfarlane once said to my father in the rocky isle of Rona where I was born, “There are plenty of places for prayer here if we had the Spirit of prayer”. Blessed be His holy name, He has promised the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him. . . .
No doubt the married state is the ideal life when you meet with the right person. However, the fashion of this world will pass away in this matter. I may pass on to you what caught my eye recently: “Although there are no special ties in heaven, I cannot dismiss from my mind the thought that there godly families will resemble a galaxy of stars like the Pleiades, singing the praises of a triune God”. I need not say that I’d like to hear from you at any time.
“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”