Rec. ?  May 15, 1867

Dearest Brother,

It seems to me that the Lord most graciously guided our poor brethren in their answer & I bless the Lord heartily for it. The truth is, as I have said, I have no particular or new views as to the Person or relationship of the blessed Lord. Those who have attacked me are ignorant of the way in which He entered into the sorrows of others, & instead of learning what they might, & rejecting anything not proved in Scripture, they attacked me & the truth, & have fallen into, I judge, very grievous errors as to those sufferings. I accuse them of no error as to His Person or relationship so as to make heretics of them. I believe they set up to judge what they did not understand. What led them into it God must judge & I trust they will. I do not doubt details of expression might have been clearer, but I do not doubt persons walking humbly, who did not seek an occasion, would have found. I hoped & wrote to brethren from the outset to that effect, that they would leave it where it was. However we must take things as we find them when they are there.

My work here did not give much occasion to write. It was, as I told brethren, a sowing time, & people do not see much then. But the truth has spread after all considerably, & fruits even now appear, not only in many souls who have found peace & see clear as to grace, of which there are many, I find some new one constantly, so that the truth is bourne witness to & propagated by them, people seeing in them the effect; but the Lord’s coming is planted in many souls, & they have seen, though not all, its connection with the Church, & some have at once seen the state of things around them. One Baptist minister, a very nice man indeed, is, I may say, out, & through very deep exercise on every point. He has not that I know resigned, but is only waiting to do it rightly, & says so, as he is bound to give notice: he rejoices to go to our yearly meeting at Guelph in Canada, as will some others, the Lord willing. Another has received all these things and expects to be off to Arizona in the far, far west. What God will do with him, I know not, he is young but zealous & devoted: I have hope that through God’s care & grace both will be useful. There he will be in a wilderness, he is a engineer & there are mines. There are others less simple perhaps but in heart seeing what is right. Strong as is the influence of belonging to a church for position, & everything depends on it for most, at least in their estimation, the evil state of things is