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ENCOURAGING WORDS FROM FAITHFUL WORKERS

OUR DEAR BROTHER AND SISTER RUSSELL:—

Subjoined you will find list of subscribers, so that we may have the remainder of the sheet for personal chat. First allow us to send our most affectionate greeting, and to wish you all the joy of the season. But this, as you well know, is backed by our earnest prayers on your behalf, that you may not only be preserved from all evil but led into all truth. Truly, we need to bear each other up before the throne of grace in prayer, for the powers of evil are even now most malignant and manifest; and well need we take warning and comfort from our Father’s message—”if possible, they shall deceive the very elect.” Ah! thank him, we know that it is impossible; for he will never leave, never forsake; and “no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.” We are finding it a very trying time. The wheat is being sifted, and so, instead of increasing, our numbers are getting rather less; but this brings out a point that it is more and more needful we should keep to the front, and that is, real conversion and consecration, not to a particular work, but to Christ. This is forced upon us when we see some very eager for the “truth,” and who seem most promising for a time; but the novelty wears off, the trials come and they stumble because they have not realized their greatest need; i.e., that they are only sinners at best, until they are wholly given up to and begotten again of Christ. Then, too, Spiritism is spreading so rapidly as to be almost a fashion, and the church nominal is most rapidly rushing to destruction. Here we thank God and you for the help received from TOWER, both on “Higher Criticism” and Parliament of Religions.

But let us always be kept humble by remembering that we are acceptable only in Christ our Lord. I feel there is much danger of thinking that we are acceptable for our works’ sake; and oh! I do pray, my dear Brother and Sister, that you, who have such a mighty responsibility upon you, may be kept from all evil.

Brother Rogers will possibly tell you of my visit to and meeting him and the dear ones in London during my Christmas holiday. But I cannot help feeling uncomfortable and somewhat grieved that the meetings in London are likely to be more disputatious than is compatible with loving and gentle helpfulness. There are some such loving and dear souls amongst them; but some seem to manifest more of the contentious than the Christ-like Spirit. Perhaps it is that they are “freshmen.” But we must pray the Lord to touch them, to search their hearts before them, to teach them and to keep them from divisions.

The dear ones here send most loving greeting, and pray the Lord to keep your steps, and to bless you ever more and more abundantly.

Ever yours in the Beloved,

A. P. AND P. C. RILEY.

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DEAR BROTHER RUSSELL:—I have felt very sorry that I could seemingly do so little, but God knows best. Now I am going to make a proposition to you. I own two forty-acre plots in Orange County, Florida. The town of Apopka lies between them, and there is a railroad depot near each. There are no improvements on either. Now, as I cannot do much any other way, if you will accept them for the Tract Fund, I thought you might sell them in five or ten-acre lots, and make more out of them than I could. Your Sister in Christ,

MRS. M. TURNER.

[We have accepted the Sister’s kind donation, and now offer the land in plots of five acres each, to anyone desiring a Florida home. Price, $100. Five acres in Florida make a good sized orange grove.—W.T. Tract Society.]

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— February 15, 1894 —