NOVEMBER 16TH, 1916

NOVEMBER 16TH, 1916

MY DEAR —, — I was very pleased to have your letter and enclosures, all of which I have read with much interest. It is nice that you have come into touch with a soul that evidently has Spirit — wrought desires and exercises, though evidently ^[p. 69] needing a good deal of help as to what is of an elementary nature in Christianity. It is a favour from the Lord to have an opportunity of contact with such, and I cannot but feel that He has given you special opportunities of service in this way with different ones. It is a compensation far your bodily weakness which so limits your activities. How good to be in His hand, and to be found, even in the smallest way, meet for His use! Do we not need, my dear sister, to keep much with Him in prayer, and to cultivate holy watchfulness so that nothing may interfere with the gracious designs which He has to have us here for His service and pleasure?

I think you have answered your friend well and wisely, and I trust that much blessing may attend what you have said so that it may be real spiritual help to her. There is nothing that I think need be altered. The only thing that perhaps it might be well to guard is what you have said as to baptism, lest she might get the idea that it was a kind of private matter only between the soul and God. Of course you are seeking to lead her away from the Baptist thought of “an open confession”, but it must not be overlooked that baptism really puts you in a new position on earth. It is burial; it is a giving up of place and status here — a going out of the world morally as Israel went out of Egypt — to take up an entirely new manner of life here as under the lordship of Christ. And it is the Christian’s privilege to have his household identified with himself in this new position. It is, in a way, the public ground one takes, though not quite as testimony, but as the only true position we can stand in in the light of the fact that Christ has died here. I am not writing this that you should pass it on to her, but just to suggest that you might perhaps modify one or two expressions so that she might not be led to think of baptism as a private matter, but that she might see that it is the public ground which Christians take in profession, and according to which they are responsible, even though they may not be prepared to be true to their baptism. Nothing but affection for Christ will really teach us what baptism means, or enable us to be true to it. I often think of Joseph and Nicodemus returning from the burial of Jesus! I think if it had been proposed to them to be baptised to His death they would have been ready for it. You could not imagine either of them going back to take their seats in the council! They had gone out of the world morally with Him who had became ^[p. 70] Lord to them, and this prepares one to take that ground in a sense publicly in baptism.

I must not add more at present. Please accept my very much love in the Lord, and convey the same to — .

Yours very affectionately in Him,

November 16th, 1916.