FEBRUARY 5TH, 1934
FEBRUARY 5TH, 1934
MY DEAR MRS. —, — Both your dear husband and yourself have been very much on my heart through all the time of his illness. And I am sure you have been succoured in answer to many prayers, and that the grace of the Lord will not fail you in any of the need of the pathway. But I feel moved to send you just a line to assure you of my deep sympathy and of my prayers for you in this hour of so great bereavement. It is part of the great mystery of the workings of divine love that the deepest sorrows yield the sweetest and richest fruit. It has been so with the Lord’s own sorrows, and it will be proved to be so with the sorrows of His own. They leave a peculiar touch on the spirit, and make the Lord more indispensable than perhaps any other experience. And when He is most needed He is most available, and loves to manifest Himself, as He did on that wondrous day at Bethany. May He be very consciously near to you now!
It is a great comfort to recall the devoted way in which your beloved husband laid himself out to serve the Lord, and how much he rendered of direct levitical service even while so largely occupied with his strenuous teaching work. I have always thought of him as one who was truly “in diligent zealousness, not slothful”, and the Lord has honoured him much in blessing his labour in the glad tidings, and using him [p. 225] to help and encourage His people. His departure leaves a gap in the ranks which the Lord would have us to feel, with a real sense of the value of the service which he rendered amongst us. He was permitted to serve during a prolonged period, ministering to the will of God in his generation, and it is sweet to know that his toil has not been in vain in the Lord.
My personal links with your beloved husband are a very happy recollection to me, and were such as to leave a real sense of bereavement in my heart through his departure. But he has the far better part “with Christ”, and very soon we shall be for ever with the Lord as the fruit of redemption, and of that sweet electing love that chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.
With very much love in the Lord to you and yours,
Yours affectionately in Him,
February 5th, 1934.