Someone kindly had a go at transcribing the start of this
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My dear Brother & Sister in the Lord:
You have had to taste of the cup of the tribulations & patience of Christ, and it is well: for His love will not keep back from any of us the individual experience of what He tasted when down here, as the Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief. We love Him, for He first loved us; but since we have known His love to us, we do love Himself. Paul found it impossible to love Him and not wish to be like Him—to taste His sufferings as well as to anticipate the sharing of His glory. We may gather fruit from Him, before we love Himself; fruits of pardon & help & salvation & hope; but when Himself came to be known—our [ ] from Him [ ] quite [ ] & a secondary place. Do without those things we could not; but more than this, Himself is revealed to us by them, and we love Himself then. Work for Him we may, and under Him; but love will also seek to fill up that which remains of the sufferings of Christ in His body's [ ]. [ ] our history as members of His body, one spirit with Himself, is not characterized by suffering with Him. You, what with fever, and isolate [ ], and all the circumstances attendant in your position, have had, perhaps, a fuller taste & the fellowship of Christ's sufferings since you have been out in Jamaica than you had before. Well, if so, you have had what will shine in the Kingdom & glory;—what too, when you come to look upon it in after days, will appear honorable. You might have had the opposite, if you had tarried in England, or you might have had the same if you had gone to Jamaica a — money-[ ],—but then “for Christ’s sake” would not have been in the cup. What have I suffered for my Master—What things have I suffered the loss of, & of what things am I daily still suffering the loss of, for Christ’s sake—These questions that Paul could talk about when, in Caesar’s prison in Rome, ha had to write to the Philippians.—Not that what we have given up for His sake, or that our giving up is ever worth much speaking about, in the presence of all that He gave up, all that He patiently endured for our sakes. Still, His grace does grant us to drink of His cup, and it is a grace from Him, not given to the lover of ease and comfort, but to those that are seeking to walk with Him in white.—It is Christ-like in itself, and, if we know it aright, we shall prize it as a privilege ‘to you it is given’—and shall find in it, that tho’ the outer man perish, the inner man has the consciousness therein, of fellowship with Christ, and of loves approbation. The sight of Paul walking down here in the fellowship of His Lord; sufferings must have been a picture of delight [ ] to God as well as Angels.
You have doubtless heard of Mr. [ ], and his little new daughter. She is doing well—but has had some return of the paralytic symptoms. Goodfellow is leaving [ ] Island for Crewkerne—so they must find a new shake down. Beaumont’s thoughts you know. I have his letter, for my heart longs for the Island and its parts. He has been [ ] Ryde [ ] & Newport too. Well, HE keeps in His hands the [ ] Paul & Barnabas [ ] on. Perhaps, I mistrust a little whether the difficulties of the place of B. have not had some large influence on Him.
I send you from Bn a token of love—W.W.T. [ ] that no better way of doing so is to be found above on a well known London Bank & that [ ] is well known in Jamaica. (Page 4.)
(After this, he starts scribbling and he lost me!)
The [brackets] are words I can’t decipher, and the words in italics are questionable.
Interesting document!
- On page 3 [I mean page 3 of the pdf document!] it is not Tyreman but Tydeman, who is also the WWT in several places (e. g. on page 18).
- The “Child(s)” (page 15 etc.) is probably William J. Childs (in the meeting list of 1877 in Timaru, New Zealand).
- Page 19-22 is the original of an article which was printed in “The Present Testimony” 15 (1867), pages 202-206.
- Page 16 is on Dorman and Hall etc.
Martin
