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EXTRACTS FROM INTERESTING LETTERS

Illinois.

DEAR BROTHER RUSSELL:—Receiving Volume Three, paper cover, Friday evening, answers my inquiry in regard to the same; so I will have some special circulars printed to put out with the Arp slips, and see if I cannot sell more DAWNS than I have of late.

I have read the third volume to the 10th chapter, and every page is full of interest. It all makes me feel as though I would like to be free from all else except to try and interest others in the light. That does not seem to be the order of things, however, and I must continue, apparently, the local work with my other duties; but I want in some way to do more if I can. With the guidance of our heavenly Father and the wisdom he can give I shall, I trust, be shown the way. So may it be. In Christian fellowship, your brother, JOHN H. BROWN.

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California.

MY DEAR SIR:—I am reading with profound interest your third volume of MILLENNIAL DAWN. I have read and re-read the first and second volumes. I am more than convicted of the correctness of your deductions. The Bible seems to me a new book, and yet it has always been to me a wonderful book.

“Thy Kingdom Come” fills me with wonderful emotions. Blessed be God for the assurance that Babylon is fallen and that Christ is setting up his kingdom. Oh, how I have prayed that it might come, and be established in all the length and breadth of this world, casting down all usurpers. Praise God! It is too good, I sometimes say, to be true. God bless you.

Yours for the kingdom in all the earth,

G. W. MORGAN.

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Texas.

C. T. RUSSELL, EDITOR:—Having seen, in a copy of your worthy paper, your generous offer to unfortunates—poor and unable to subscribe for your paper—I, as one of those who am not only poor, but separated by prison walls from the world, beg of you, in the name of him who said, “I was in prison and ye visited me,” for as many or as few copies as you can find it convenient to send me. Not only myself, but all who have read the ZION’S WATCH TOWER, have expressed an earnest desire to read more and to learn from it the way of life more perfectly.

And may you hear the blessed words, when you come to stand before the judgment bar of God, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

May the blessing of God rest upon you and yours. I am yours very truly, __________.

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New York.

DEAR BROTHER AND SISTER RUSSELL:—I received the third volume of DAWN, and have hurriedly read it through. I shall read it all over again carefully, probably several times. I am much pleased with it all, and especially was I interested in the chapter on the Great Pyramid. It is all wonderful! but like all Jehovah’s works. Man could never have planned it. He is scarcely able to comprehend it. Just so with the Bible—when rightly understood it towers far above the ability of any finite mind, and can be comprehended only when the added grace of God is vouchsafed to its assistance.

I am more anxious than ever to send out “this Gospel of the Kingdom” to the hungry and thirsty children of God. I will send you $10. Please send me two copies of Vol. III., in paper, and one package of tracts, and apply the remainder for the spread of the Gospel.

We are doing what we can here. The letters are coming in daily asking for help. May God direct us wherever we may be doing the harvest work. You will, of course, understand what this work is doing for me. When we settle a matter for another by the sure Word, it is fixed in our own minds. Verily it is more blessed to give than to receive. In Christian love,

MRS. J.H. PATTERSON.

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New York.

DEAR BROTHER:—I cannot refrain from writing once more to tell you that I have not lost any interest in the harvest work, but that I am thankful I can say it is steadily increasing, and I desire to engage in it more and more as the way is being gradually opened up to me. From a conversation last spring you know my circumstances, and my decision to continue in my profession till my debts are paid off; and as things look now, it would seem to require several months yet to accomplish this. Meanwhile, I am preparing myself as best circumstances permit, and am stirring up a few of the local preachers, in hopes some one among them may prove an efficient co-laborer in the near future.

Your remark to guard against being blown away by every wind of doctrine, etc., is certainly very timely, and I will carefully heed it as best I can. Let us hope, however, that we will be spared spiritual cyclones, if not hurricanes, or be in the cleft of the rock while they pass over. I will look over the chronology you refer to, so as to get that still clearer in my head. Yesterday it was a stormy day in the New York pulpits, though very deeply significant to me, and all others who know something, at least, of the signs of the times.

I expect ere long to be so busy and burdened with the grand work of the harvest that I will not have time to feel lonely at all. The tremendous importance of the work and the events now so close at hand demands all my zeal, time, attention and talents, so that nothing is left for anybody or anything else. I am pressing towards the mark. Your article on “Strong Delusion” in the April number proved to me strong meat in due season; for I shall need much of it, and trust you will remember me with all the brethren and sisters constantly, that I may be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, fearless and with a clear insight in the truth now due to be revealed to the heirs of the kingdom.

With best wishes and greetings to sister Russell and all the brethren and sisters, I remain your brother and fellow-servant,

A. J. VERKOUTEREN.

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England.

MY DEAR BROTHER IN THE TRUTH:—I have been preaching for the past fifty years (as a lay preacher), but have been blind to God’s plan through Jesus Christ, as taught in MILLENNIAL DAWN. But four years ago, through meeting a brother Cattermole, in London, my eyes were opened. He kindly loaned me “Food for Thinking Christians.” I read it through once, laid it aside for a year, then took it up again. After reading it three times, the light began to dawn.

Two years ago, I received from the same brother the PLAN OF THE AGES, and have been digesting it ever since; and I thank God from my very heart that I ever saw it.

I commenced last September and preached from it my first sermon in a Methodist Chapel in the presence of some of their big men, and was kindly asked not to advance such doctrines again—to which I replied I would preach it to my dying day.

I may tell you that I am a gardener by trade. I am now in my seventieth year, but, thank God, I enjoy the best of health and am so situated that I meet with many people, and I always take the opportunity of setting the Truth before them; but I cannot do as much as I would like. You will well understand the uphill work we have in England. The people here are very ignorant in spiritual truths, and the majority are still under the power of the Romanists.

Sister Garrett has been here two Sundays, and together we have held a meeting on the seashore, and the people have behaved very kindly toward us. But as she is going away, I shall have to go alone as far as human help is concerned; yet I know my Father will support and strengthen me, and I hope to do a work, if he spares me this summer. I request your prayers that God will help me to stand firm though all human friends forsake me.

I find that the people gladly receive the Tracts. And I know, by the questions asked, that they are seeking truth. Truly, “The harvest is great, but the laborers are few.”

I will not write much for the first time, but close with an earnest prayer that God will bless you and Sister Russell in your noble work. May you long be spared to give out “meat in due season.” Yours in a loving Savior,

SAMUEL BATHER.

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— October, 1891 —