Greetings
Yes, beloved friends, greetings, with a new meaning to the word. For a while it seemed as if the sweet relations of teacher and taught were to be severed, but God has answered the prayers of His beloved people who seem in many places to have pleaded for our continuance with them, and how can God fail to answer the prayer of faith ? Acute suffering has not been wanting, but the Lord has sustained and proved His tender compassions. Such sweet relations has grace formed with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ, that every circumstance of life becomes a means of precious intercourse. In the sufferings, God's stamp of death upon the flesh has been realized afresh, while the soul has answered Amen with sincerity. What a rich blessing to have been brought early in life to agree with God against our flesh ; to take sides with Him against every form in which it can manifest itself; to have escaped the delusion that it was eradicated from our being; but that though present in us, it was no longer a part of us. The cross of Christ had parted us from it forever, henceforth to serve the Lord in freedom, while in the daily judgment of it.
The work of our little monthly has linked us in heart with thousands of Christ's sheep in various parts of the earth, and the thought of continuing still with them makes one truly grateful, as with a measure of returning strength we turn to our task -substantially helped, however, by others, in preparing this number.
Oh brethren, what a path of praise belongs to us! Our sins forever blotted out by the blood of Jesus;
no guilt upon us any more; justified as fully from all our sins as Christ-is justified from them, and He Himself our righteousness there before God, giving us our place there; possessors of eternal life too, and thus able to have fellowship with God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord in all their thoughts and glorious purposes! Besides all this, having for the closing of our day here on earth "that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ" (Tit. 2:13). What a glorious sunset this is for us ! And nothing between it and the present moment. It is the immediate hope of our hearts. The sweetness of the tie between us, also, is that it is not some Shibboleth, or some pet doctrine, but Christ Himself, the Shepherd of the sheep and the Bishop of our souls. Our soul truly sings with joy as we think of this tie, formed upon earth, but never to cease! The better we know Him the closer we are drawn together; for the flock thus formed is not sectarian, but divine and holy. Let us ever remember one another at the throne of grace.