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p399 Dearest R T Grant, - I was very glad to hear of - . The Lord can of course take a candlestick away, but with a little patience we will always find the Lord meet us with blessing. He only blesses. No doubt righteous judgment will come, but still as love and revealed as love, His only work is to bless. I trust all may go on there with blessing.

Here infidelity is rampant. McCosh has warned the Free Church of Scotland that it is a crisis, as I told them, which they denied, and recommends the rationalists to leave, but they are too cunning and not honest enough for that. But young men who go to study at the universities are every way in danger now. The work goes on, and doors are pretty generally open. Here we are in general getting on happily. What pressed on me as to return here (two things) I feel was of God. I have had, and still I suppose shall have, to do with infidelity; and here in London - 's persistence in trying to keep gatherings in London unity, which I warned him long ago would break down, did so while I was away; and instead of quietly letting meetings really outside drop into their own responsibility, the whole thing had to be constituted on some known basis, and before I returned they had high discussions as to what is London and what is not, and then came a not surprising thought, to make independent meetings of all. It was drifting into that. But in general there is a happy spirit among the brethren and growing confidence, and patience under the Lord's grace, I do not doubt, will conduct us into a happier local bond than ever.

Morally and spiritually the brethren are getting on happily: only there have been a good many cases of discipline, but - what I am very thankful for - restorations. . . . Meanwhile, thank God, positive work goes on, and there is hunger for the word. The brethren are in a new position: the world and the church's eye is upon them. I had a letter from a politico-religious journal of Paris (the editor a serious man) to know what they are and what is their work.* It is felt we have gospel and scripture. Now comes for me the anxiety - living up to the testimony, so that it may be a real one. What use is full doctrine, blessed as it is, if the saints walk [as if] full truth and worldliness can go together? It is worse than nothing. And as numbers increase, and men of business getting on in the world come in, it is very hard to keep it out. The Independents are generally - at any rate, their clergy - sunk in infidelity: the rest ritualist or time-serving; but the Spirit of God is working manifestly. We need labourers, but we need, above all, more looking to God.

{*For reply see page 431.}

If you are troubled by objectors as to the age of man, there is a book published at Philadelphia by Lippincott, Southall on "The Recent Origin of Man," who has made mincemeat of the Lyells, Lubbocks, Geikies, Evans', and company, and is thoroughly versed in the subject - a much more complete thing than your Blending Lights. I had read enough to throw them overboard, as having no solid foundation, but this man is thoroughly up in the subject, and has not left them a leg to stand on. I have been reading the German rationalists, Ewald, Bleek, and even Kuenen (Dutch), having to meet it everywhere. I find it poor and impudent, rejecting all idea of inspiration out and out, and making a system of legends and compilations each after his fancy, and even changing from edition to edition. - has on his own leave published my (Pacific) notes on Mill, quite unfit to be published.* I only hope they may be useful to some. If a trumpet be blown, the Lord will sometimes come in if it be His trumpet. I have gone through what is material in Kant too, and noted - a real labour from his style, but I have sifted it. I do not wonder, though he did not mean it, in its un-deifying God in Germany and deifying man: his system does it. But we must wait on Him; He only has power, and He works in grace. Prayer and supplication to Him will surely be answered. Constant dependence in the sense of our own nothingness, and in us no good thing, and Christ all, and the utmost simplicity of truth fed by the word, and that in our ministry, and we shall be happy with Him and serve Him.

{**["Collected Writings," vol. 32., p. 80, etc.]}

I have a new tract put out on the Presence of the Holy Ghost, and the Coming of the Lord, being the practical substance of christian truth where His work is relied on. All this, with meetings every day, you may see is not idleness. In Yorkshire I had to stop at conference meetings: speaking all day for a good while, brought my head to a standstill. I am very thankful for the spirit of the brethren here, and I think they are all encouraged.

Affectionately yours in the Lord.

London, 1877.

[52267E]

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