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INTERESTING LETTERS

DEAR PASTOR:—

I write you as an Elder of the Church to express our appreciation of your service to us as Pastor during the past year.

We hold at least five meetings each week. The Berean lesson Monday evening, TABERNACLE SHADOWS Wednesday evening, SCRIPTURE STUDIES Friday evening, a lesson on a chapter in the Bible Sunday morning, testimony meeting and lesson in SCRIPTURE STUDIES Sunday afternoon.

In all these lessons, dear Brother, you are certainly with us as Pastor. Then, we have the sermon every week and the dear old WATCH TOWER twice a month, so we do thank our Heavenly Father and our dear Lord for such a bountiful supply of the pure food, cleansed of all poisonous matter. So bountifully are we supplied with this precious food that we have no time nor desire for the things that the world loves so well.

We cannot express, dear Brother, how much we appreciate this loving arrangement that the dear Lord has provided for us through you, as our dear Pastor; and we wish to say that our hearts abound in love to you and our prayer is that your loving zeal may continue, and that knowledge and wisdom may be supplied you to give the “meat in due season” to the end.

With unbounded love to you from each one of the dear ones here, I remain,

Your brother in the precious Faith,

J. H. WRIGHT.—ALA.

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DEAR BROTHER RUSSELL:—

I feel it my duty to write you a few lines to say how thankful I am that, through the instrumentality of SCRIPTURE STUDIES, I have been led to abandon a life of sin and disgrace. I have found that which I needed to give me peace and joy, and, thank God, I know I shall never give it up. For several years I was separated from my family and leading a reckless life, but through his mercy I am again with my family and we are happy and contented.

I had about given up all hope of ever being anything in this life but a drunkard, when I came across STUDIES IN THE SCRIPTURES, also other of your literature, which gave me the light I so much needed. God’s Plan is surely a marvelous one, and it is so plain to those who really seek the Truth.

My prayer will ever be that God’s blessing may rest upon you and your co-laborers in the “Harvest work,” and especially upon the Colporteurs in their work of spreading the Truth. No one knows what good may result from placing the STUDIES even in homes where there is no interest. I believe my first reading of volume one was in the home of a family who had never read a page of it, but were talked into buying it by one of the Colporteurs. I was very much interested in it at the time, and tried to find out where the lady got it, thinking to get more literature along the same lines; but, after leaving there, I thought no more of it until God led me into the home of a Sister where I got more of the Truth, both by reading and from her explanations of points I did not understand. I am intensely interested in this glorious work, and my desire is to live nearer to God, who has done so much for me.

Yours in the Blessed Hope, JOHN HOOPER.—CANADA.

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DEAR BROTHER RUSSELL:—

I am writing a brief letter to tell you that by his grace I am still sound in the doctrine, still abiding in the faith, and am still standing; still rejoicing and praising him for making known to me his wonderful Plan.

Each day I am more satisfied with the food of the Lord’s providing—the Bible with comments, the SCRIPTURE STUDIES and THE WATCH TOWER. These, with the DAILY MANNA and hymns and weekly sermon, are my diet and I do not need nor crave extras. I am hungry for just this and no other kind of food.

Study and prayer are developing in me more of the fruits of the spirit, more love to God and more compassion for my neighbor. I am thankful there is a growing love of righteousness for its own sake, as I begin to feel that by the Lord’s grace my present development would continue along the same line if 1914 did not give evidence of all that I am expecting and believing it will. In brief, my faith in the Plan and my study of the Scriptures would continue as at present.

In so many ways, by your words and your works, you are helping me, and my heart is full of gratitude. I know the Lord is nigh unto you. May he bless you richly and keep you safe until he receives you unto himself.

Your sister in Christ, I. M. F.—PA.

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DEAR BROTHER:—

Enclosed please find five dollars, for which please send to me by mail one of your WATCH TOWER Bibles, and THE WATCH TOWER for one year.

I have all your volumes and have read them over and over and over. This is the greatest satisfaction of my life in my old days. I am now seventy-seven years old.

I remain your brother in the Lord,

N. SHEPHERD.—CAN.

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DEAR BROTHER RUSSELL:—

Owing to much literature being circulated by the opposition within our ranks some time ago, I concluded it wise to discontinue the distribution of the “Questions Answering Questions” booklet. Since then I have received many orders for these booklets from friends who are not advised of their discontinuance, and some do not understand why they are refused.

I would thank you for the publication of this letter in THE WATCH TOWER, notifying the friends of their discontinuance and of my reason for this.

Prayerful meditation upon Mark 9:38-40, leads me to the conclusion that we can be workers in the Harvest, and yet not followers of the Lord. To be followers of the Lord, we must not only be workers in the Harvest, but must also be workers according to his will. The fact that the majority of the Lord’s “little ones” now disapprove of the circulation all literature other than that published by the Society, and my belief that the expression of the majority in such matters is the expression of the will of the Lord, are other reasons for its discontinuance.

Feeling sure that all of the Lord’s faithful ones will agree with me in oneness of the work, as well as oneness of hope, faith, and baptism, and trusting that all may receive a greater blessing by the discontinuance, than by the circulation of the booklet, I remain,

Yours in the Master’s service, A. B. DABNEY.—VA.

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DEAR BROTHER:—

Does it not seem strange that so many of the dear friends worry about the Time of Trouble? How can an event arrive before it comes? What do we know about it? Nothing, by sight, would you not say? If by sight, then when did we quit walking by faith?

How can Gentile nations continue after their lease expires? If they existed before the formal confirmation of the “lease” they were “tenants by sufferance,” it would seem.

You have taught clearly enough that they will resist ejectment proceedings, and this dispossession will be “the time of trouble” and the daily papers will probably not record the event!

Would it not be well for the dear friends to re-read volumes two, three and four—as I am doing with much profit?

With much Christian love, and gratitude and best wishes,

A. M. MERRELL.—OKLA.

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DEAR FRIENDS:—

I have received your kind letter and the second volume of STUDIES IN THE SCRIPTURES. Thank you. I have begun the careful study of the volumes, and find them so good! They help me to understand parts of the Scriptures that I was not able to understand. When I asked questions of those who are teachers of the Bible, they told me, “We are not expected to understand it all.”

I feel that God has answered my prayer for Truth by putting your little paper into my hands by one of his servants. Some one put a paper into my buggy one day while I was in Lawrence. I had only partly read it when it disappeared, and I did not know where to get another. So I asked my heavenly Father to let me get another, and after waiting a couple of weeks, behold! another was put into my buggy. I took better care of this one.

My husband is a Lutheran. I was reared a Quaker, and all my people belonged to the Friends, but I joined the Lutheran Church with my husband. Many times have I come home from listening to a sermon on eternal torment, crying because the minister made God out such a cruel God. Now, I thank his name that I know him as a God of Love, who is able to help us and who will soon open all the blind eyes.

I am sending your books, as fast as I can read them, to my brother. He held up his hands in warning to me when I told him of them. He reminded me of what the Scriptures say about following after false prophets. He, like many others, is afraid to investigate anything for fear of being led away from the doctrine he grew up with.

MRS. VIOLA J. S. SHIRAR.

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— April 1, 1911 —