Brethren Archive
21st April 1909

Letter - 21st April 1909

by W.J. Lowe

8 pages.

Incomplete - Needs help !!

Transcript:


                               34, Woodside,

                                                   Wimbledon.

            London, S. W.  21 Apr. 1909

 

Beloved Brother,

    It is always a delight to hear from you.

How often I wish we were nearer, so that

we might confer instead of writing! While

I think of it, have you received your

18 clean copies of letters Li to Lvii, all

right? We are getting short, & I should

not like you to be missing any number.

I always try to keep a few till I hear you

are served _

    Do you know a brother named M'Miller

at Stanley, Wisconsin? Is he with us? And

the brother named R Page (I think) who

has corresponded with George Phayre & has

I understand with drawn from the gathering

he was connected with, partly in consequence

of what G.P. wrote to him. Our much be-

loved & valued G P. is under the weight of

matters & has much difficulty in rising

up tp God. We always damage others when

we get under the power of evil. Our hope

is in God. "What hath God wrought?" was

the summing up of Israel's history at the end

of the wilderness, & What is God doing? is

the word for us today, & would keep us

very quiet.

    One more sorrow. Three brothers have

written me a joint letter purporting[?] that

they have separated from the gathering

at Kingston, Jamaica, taking, themselves,

the highest ground of being or representing

"the assembly of God" in the place. I have

written shortly, endeavouring to point out

their mistake, & that they, in so doing, commit

the very sin for which they complain of

John Lawrence. Their names are

J. A. Foster, G. S. Hyatt, F. R. Barker.

Foster would seem to be in a solicitor's 

office at 3 Duke St.

    Certainly it is a lawless day, but God will

bring good out of evil, I am persuaded,

to all concerned.

    Now for your letter, which reached me in

Belgium among the coal miners, where we had

an interesting reading on Ephesians, greatly

blessed to us all, I trust. They have been &

are having pretty sharp conflict with the

loose or Bethesda brethren in those parts,

in which I got my share of abuse, as you

will see if you cast your eye over enclosed

two tracts. But God is working to exercise

the younger generation. We shall have to answer

the "Refutations", to explore its subtlety. These

loose brethren are I suspect supplied with

funds, which are not lacking with the O.B.'s,

as any one may see from their fortnightly

missionary report, "Echoes of Service" I think.

    Now as to your questions. The reports are

so far from the truth, that I am continually

reminded of my dear mother's advice, "Believe

nothing of what you hear & only half of what

you see!" Our Streatham meeting, last

October, was a very happy one, - no element

of looseness about it. Dr. Evans of Dublin,

for long inclined that way, was specially

invited by myself in the fervent hope that

a little kindness & godly intercourse would

keep him from finally severing his connection

from the gathering in Dublin. In that hope

we are for the present disappointed, but I

cannot say I am sorry for our having done

our best to talk to him, & set quietly before

him his want of faith in God, in giving up

Truth, which never changes in spite of all

our failure. Bedsides that, my own brother

John was there, in as far as shattered health

would allow. He is a sort of free lance &

has lost ground spiritually, but is full of

Christ & the Lord's coming. Was that wrong?

Everyone who cares, knows the intense grief

of heart his position causes me, & none,

I suppose, more than himself.

    What these "private & educational meetings

held in different parts" are, - I know not.

I have not heard of anything of the kind

amongst us. They probably refer to sections[?]

of the Ravenites & others who have gone

out from us.

    Another little 3 day reading meeting we had at Brighton

February last, has also been harshly criticized.

Why I cannot tell, except that the devil is

jealous because four from outside have

lately come into fellowship at Brighton,

two from the Kelly fellowship, the other

two, Dr Molson & his wife, floating about,

both of them most interesting, & desirous

to learn. We also had Dr Bergmann who

was only too thankful to set aside his own

meetings in order to be present at the

readings, & was most useful to us. He

has laboured for years amongst the Jews

with marked blessing, & has translated

the Bible into two different dialects of

so called Yiddish or the Jew's Jargon.

I felt it quite an honour from the Lord

to have such a man with us. The

meetings were wholly in our hands,

without any effort or jar of any kind,

& acknowledged to be most profitable.

You yourself would have most heartily

joined in; but if we are never to seek

to serve & help those who are not with

us, what are we coming to? The truth

of Ephes. iv is given up. And that is what

I feel so grieving to the Holy Spirit of

God, in this ultra-ecclesiasticism which

is being pressed by some, & is practically

little else that beating the men-servants

& maid servants (end of Matt xxiv).

Alfred Burton has protested against this;

I quite admit that his statements in C.

Library need qualifying often, & rounding

off as J.N.D. used to do. But in heart,

he is right, and not loose. Few men

have been more blessed of God. I

heard him say, (not to me), "If the

brethren were to receive the Kelly people

in a block today, he should leave

fellowship tomorrow."

    We need patience with one another,

& to hold fast the truth in communion

with God, more firmly than ever.

This I seek to do, while profiting by

all complaints made, so as not to

offend needlessly, but never, God helping

me, give up the care of souls whoever

& wherever they may be, if it be possible

to help them in His fear.

    God is working every where, but very

little amongst us in England, where

a pharisaical spirit has, alas, engendered

much blight. Still He works, & for

that I am thankful.

   Very much love in the Lord, I

have the hymn book by my side, but

am so overwhelmed with work,

I get on but very slowly.

    Yours, very affectly in the Lord

                                  W.J.Lowe

 

Notice one thing beloved brother, which

I believe is a test - Has the unfolding

of the Father's name (the truth of John's Gospel

& Epistle) its proper place with those who

are on rigid ecclesiastical lines?

 

 

 




Comments:
Martin Arhelger said ...

The “Dr Bergmann” of page 5 is מרדכי שמואל בערגמאנן (Mordekai Shmuel Bergmann). After conversion he altered his name to Marcus Samuel Bergmann. He lived from 1846 to 1922. See his biography here: https://books.google.com/books?id=Q9rYwAEACAAJ (readers from Europe have to use an US-proxy-server to download this).
Bergmann’s conversion was printed in Gospel Gleanings 11 (1911), pages 50 - 53.
Bergmann’s famous Yiddish translation is here (1904): https://archive.org/details/sefertorahneviim00berg and here (1912): https://archive.org/details/theoldtestamenti00berg/page/1250/mode/2up also the New Testament (1912): https://archive.org/details/haberithahadasha00berg

Martin

Friday, Aug 28, 2020 : 04:11
Timothy Stunt said ...
The second word on page 7 (queried in the transcript) is, I think, 'needlessly'. Timothy Stunt
Sunday, Aug 30, 2020 : 21:38


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