DECEMBER 9TH, 1939

DECEMBER 9TH, 1939

MY DEAR MRS. —, — I very truly appreciate your letter received on the 7th, and also the text card and other enclosures, all of which are a cheer and refreshment. I thank you for again thinking of my birthday, and I value all the kind thoughts ^[p. 273] you have expressed in relation to it. In one sense it is humbling to have lived so long with so much less fruit for God than there might have been with deeper spirituality. But while this thought has its place rightly it does not diminish the consciousness of how wonderful have been the ways of God in mercy and favour. He has brought before one for many years the exceeding preciousness of those thoughts which were formed in Christ before the world began, and in the effectuation of which He will find His eternal satisfaction and rest. And He has in exceeding favour preserved in one’s heart some desire for the perfecting of that work of His Spirit by which the divine thoughts can be so inwrought in the soul that they result in spiritual formation. It is a comfort to realise that there has been in one’s life some pulling down of confidence in the flesh, and some appreciation of the Second Man. This is all that has value, and one desires to let all else drop out.

Yours affectionately in Him,

December 9th, 1939.