LONDON, FEBRUARY, 1880

LONDON, FEBRUARY, 1880

Dear E L Bevir, — ... Very glad indeed to hear good accounts of Italy. I expected blessing. You were always a pessimist, but keeping aloof, looking to God, one is above the heaving and breakers, and walking on a rough sea is the same as walking on a smooth one.

There is as much danger from those who want to be extra, as from those who were at mischief; but God is above one as above the other. And both lived with their minds in evil to justify their discontent: whereas those who seek simply to serve Christ, and to walk in peace, are blessed of God and in quiet ... . I have seen no sign but of positive progress, and firmness when I did not expect it ... but my confidence is not in progress, but in God. If the testimony is more honestly unworldly, I do not fear: if not, what good is it? Trust in the Lord, and work away for Him. May we be found watching and so doing when the blessed Lord comes! ...

London, February, 1880.

⁺‘Is there such a thing in those days (of Christianity) as private or individual worship, or is everything, properly so-called, confined to the gathered assembly! And, as a collateral point, Can a person, forming part of a meeting for worship, retire from it mentally, if he feels it is below his own state, or the like, and go on with God alone, as it were, though in the meeting actually?’