Another page with no "SAVE" button.
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face of things in this land now that the Lord is beginning to do a new work here. Were they indifferent to this thing we should call it strange & unaccountable. But do try & relieve the mind of any one who would for himself be inclined to write to us, making inquiries as to the Lord’s work, but deferred from doing so lest it should seem presuming to write to me “a great man in a far country.” Now I once aspired to be a great man, but it is a long time ago; am, at last, far from it now; think very meanly of myself, condescend to men of low estate, among whom I am willing to be classed for the Lord’s sake, love the lowly; take a special pleasure in talking to children, & in conversing & writing to such as feel themselves to be “the least of all saints.” And should any see fit as you refer to “venture” to send a few words to me from that far away land, dear old England, telling about the Master’s cause there & seeking to know something about it here, he would be the one first to move my pen. This I could do without that restraint which is felt when trying to write to those to whom we are so very much indebted every way, & before whom, as men whom the Lord Himself has made great & good, we from the heart bow, & give God praise; who under God have changed for the better & happier the whole of life’s span to us, opened the Bible to us anew, revealed God with us, in us, wondrous, grace, & power … [missing from the original]. But mark the harvest is great & the laborers few. We cannot report any great thing now, nor perhaps for some time to come. The field is wide, & it is only as one can gather up fragment there & here that he can get enough … [missing from the original].
N.B. would you kindly say to Dr. Machorn(?) that he may enclose me some French & German tracts, books, & Testaments as he may judge suitable. The illness of my brother, & some other things prevented a purpose, which I had cherished of a long journey to Detroit, Milwaukee, St. Louis, & etc., to see the saints. Hope to Lord willing in the spring. Little things come up that are of interest to us here, who sympathize in the truth & work, which with you might be of little importance. With you the field is comparatively old, here it is really new. And from the character of the people, restless, full of activity, lacking your reverence for God’s Word, subjecting their will hardly to God or man, &, I am sorry to say it, too ignorant of the script, & too loose in the great doctrines of salvation, & rigid only in those things which respect their denomination peculiarities & bonds, ignoring the Lord’s coming, & struggling to convert the world to Christianity by their own instrumentalities. You may well suppose that they will treat the truth we bring them either with stoical indifference, contempt, or stout opposition. And so it has proved mostly thus far. Now let the dear children of God, for whom we write, just take a map of the world & notice how far apart we “two” or “three” are who in this country meet in the Lord’s name alone. The utmost limit here one way is St. Paul, Minnesota. With these few I am not in correspondence yet but hope to be soon. Then look down to St. Louis, Missouri; here are a few more with whom I am in correspondence. Let