GREENWICH, MAY 8TH, 1902
[p. 186] GREENWICH, MAY 8TH, 1902
Dr. van Someren.
My Dear Brother, — I had your letter of February 10th, and was much interested in the contents. I trust that the return of Stewart to Australia may be for good both for himself and the saints. I fancy that he is a little lacking in the understanding of men, a quality very essential in one who would seek to serve them. Undoubtedly he had a trying experience in this country, where he perhaps hardly received the consideration that he deserved. I feel much for him in his bodily weakness and in the responsibilities in which he is placed at his time of life. The case of Davis is painful, it is perfectly certain that a man cannot make the best of two worlds, they exist together, and their principles are antagonistic, and if a man succeeds in one, he is sure to be diminished in the other. I fear that if he has got in the running of this world, he will never be much use in the testimony of the Lord. When I came into fellowship I quite understood that it meant giving up worldly prospects, and the Lord ordered that this should be true to me, and I am thankful, for I have suffered no real loss in the long run. I am sorry for what you tell me as to the giving up the readings for gospel preaching. I would have thought that Hawkins would have been beyond this. It is impossible to carry on the gospel as at the day of Pentecost, and in those early days I very much doubt if they would have suspended all that tended to edify and feed the saints on the plea of preaching the gospel. Of course, there is this to be said, that the preaching of the gospel in the present day partakes much of the character of a ministry, and saints may need it almost as much as many that come to hear it. But the tendency of many of the preachers is to make all to give way before them, instead of going on with their own work quietly and patiently. I suppose that Mace is still at San Francisco,
[p. 187] he is not a man on whose movements reliance can be placed. I fancy that the uncertainty has been a little trying to Glenny. I am sure I do not know how Mace will get on in New Zealand and the Australias, I hope that they will receive him soberly. I have been compelled by consideration of home responsibilities to put aside for the time the thought of a visit to your side, it may be that the matter may in time be made plain to me, it is not so at present. I purpose going in the coming June for a short visit to France, and in the autumn for a short visit to America, but this latter is not definitely settled. I expect that my son and Miss Mary Reynolds will be married at the end of the year. I have seen the book of Neatby to which you refer, and it produced on my mind the same impression as it has done on yours, it is the work of an Edomite, not a trace of sorrow for the breakdown of that which was fair. He and others had better leave brethren alone. There is no lack of abuse, but at the same time it is being more seen that the old, dogmatic, material way of taking up divine things must go, and that in christianity no one can claim to possess that into which he has not entered, this must be the case when the things presented are moral. Things are generally quiet in England, though there is not anything of striking interest. It is a mercy that we are kept in peace. Moore has arrived from the Cape, and is, I fear, rather a wreck. I hope that Mrs. van Someren and your boy and self are well. I am thankful that it is so with us, though we have not been without little ills.
With our kind love in the Lord, believe me,
Your affectionate brother,
F. E. Raven.
PS. — Mrs. Stoney passed away on the 30th ult., aged eighty-five.