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p245 [From the French.] Dear Madame Monthenez, - As for me, I have been detained by a happy motive; it is, that for two months, there has hardly been a preaching without a soul being blessed - led to the Lord, brought back from a state of carelessness or from a fall, or who has found peace. I had no thought of remaining so long in this town, but you will understand that one does not like to leave it under such circumstances. Moreover, in general the brethren are doing well. They are leaning peacefully and with joy on the Lord, and they are blessed. This is the case almost everywhere. I think of going, if God will, to the south before reaching Switzerland.

Do you know I am not so young as I was twenty years ago; and though I work almost as in the past, the spring of life does not play so well, it has lost ever so little of its elasticity. It is no sorrow to me to think that I am nearing the end: very far from it. The long journeys are not so pleasant to me. Besides, England demands a little more of my time, for doors are open in many parts. However, I hope to see you once more, if God will: if He takes us to Himself, that will be indeed much better.

I have much enjoyed the Word all this time, while meditating on it in public and in my closet. What riches it contains! All the fulness of the grace of God is unfolded there, so that we may know Him in the whole extent of His being, and all the better that, at the same time, it is in such a way as to adapt Him to us. The mutual connection of all these minute parts shews that it depends on a living God, who reveals to us these things; like a tree in which the branches are not seen growing detached in the ground, but an assemblage of branches, so that we cannot see the smallest twig that is not connected with the trunk, and united to all the others as parts of a whole.

I have been much struck by the reciprocity of interest about us between the Father and the Son in John 17. They are not separated from each other in their love for us: we are the common object of it. The Father has given us to the Son; the Son has saved us in order to present us to the Father. He prays for us because we belong to the Father, but the Father will keep us because the Son is glorified in us; and so on. This is very precious, and it gives us a profound idea of this love. The Father and the Son are occupied in common about us. The Son taking care that we should know the Father as He Himself knew Him, and He desires to present us to the Father according to His own heart, so that the Father may find His delight in us. But I end my letter, the little room remaining also giving me warning.

In haste,

Yours affectionately in Christ.

Bath, November, 1855.

[51133F]

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