Experience Worketh Hope.
By C. P. A. W.
DEAR BRETHREN AND SISTERS: Very dear you have become to me of late, and as one letter after another teeming with sympathy and encouragement comes, my heart reaches out toward you with love inexpressible. I long to write to you, thank you for all you are to us, and tell you of the blessings ours. I long, too, to write to the unseen friends who do not fail to pray for us; and I want to write to the dear, lone, struggling souls, who are scattered over the land, beset by trials and temptations in every form. Are we not of one family? Shall we not press closely together, and bear each other's burdens? Shall we not watch over each other to comfort and strengthen? So much has been done for us that I want to do something for others. The desire to reply to unanswered letters has led me to group you all together, and write to all. There are many who deserve our thanks; among the many stands a brother, who, nearly one year since, requested us to read some portion of sister White's writings daily. I little dreamed of the days he was helping us to prepare for. But he was so earnest and urgent that we were led to heed his words. We then had only “Sufferings of Christ”—the little tract so full of power. But we soon obtained several volumes, and sought to engraft the spirit of them into our lives. I had thought many times if I were one for whom views were given her, I would be guided by them. As I read on and on, I found so much for me! And even now, though I am re-reading, I seem to find it all new and fresh again, just as I find the Bible. The more I read, the more light comes, and the more readily I find the shoals whereon so many wreck themselves. Just here I want to give quotations. I have reasons abundant for giving them: “Instead of praying to God for strength to resist Satan, we suffer our happiness to be marred by trying to stand for what we term ‘our rights.’” Ah, my friends, how much we need that! How surely the iron enters our hearts if we feed upon injuries, fancied, or real! How surely, too, we grow tender toward everybody, if we pray, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Then we can pray, not only for those toward whom bitterness was felt, but for all whom they hold dear; can watch, too, for a chance to prove our love, and, in our joy, can feel Christ's presence fill the whole earth. Writing of the seasons when the “powers of darkness gather about the soul,” she adds, “Hope seems to fail, and despair seizes upon us. In these dreadful hours, we must learn to trust, to depend on the sole merits of the atonement, and in all our helpless unworthiness cast ourselves upon the merits of the crucified and risen Saviour. We shall never perish while we do this, never. When light shines on our pathway it is no great thing to be strong in the strength of grace. But to wait patiently in hope when all is dark, when clouds envelop us, requires faith and submission which causes our will to be swallowed up in the will of God. We are too quickly discouraged, and earnestly cry for the trial to be removed from us, when we should plead for patience to endure and grace to overcome.” No stranger wandering in a wilderness all full of dangers ever needed a guide more than I have needed such counsel as I found in the foregoing lines. And as that brother urged me once to read daily, so I would urge you all. Read and profit. Not one item of counsel have I been guided by that has not brought its attendant blessing, just as right doing always brings its blessing. A testing time has come more plainly than words can express. My eyes have beheld it. Would I could show it to you all as it is, and urge you to endure with patient submission. No furnace heat can be so intense that God's grace is not sufficient for us. Only worthless dross in us will be consumed. Selfishness, clinging to the things that lead us in the “broad road,” with strong desire to have our will, our way, and our time for everything, must all be given up. We must follow Christ if we would have a part in the great work when the message goes, as it is to go, with mighty power. Moving according to the letter will not prepare us; the spirit of the commandments must be in our lives: the supreme love for God with love for men that clearly links itself thereto. It must be in our daily lives. Total self-abnegation is required. All for Christ. When once we gain that love, how plain the way! We shall gain it when we value Christ's sacrifice for us aright. We shall value it when we lay every idol upon the altar. I do not think that many of you will need what I have needed; and yet, not one feather's weight too much has been my portion. We can not tell what more may be required. All that is, we want. We would not have the anguish taken from our lives, if all the peace, the joy and love unspeakable must be given to cancel that. We have a taste of heavenly bliss, and to gain that we are willing to give all of the earthly. We know how sweet the companionship of angels is, and we want them for our friends. We know, as we never knew before, what Christ has suffered for us, and we do not want his agony to be in vain. We have felt the Father's matchless love, and we want to feel that always. We want you all to share it with us, and we want every soul whose test is in the future to seek for strength to endure. For the comfort of those who cannot see how they are to be cared for through the winter just before us, and for the gratification of a brother who came to us and proved his interest in our welfare by bidding us to let him know if in the future we had need of a friend, I wish to write of our prosperity from a financial stand-point. Although nearly one thousand dollars have been expended since the fatal morning, I think I may safely write that we have not a dollar less than we had then. I have not carefully balanced accounts as yet. Our resources have been like the widow's oil and meal. It is safe to do right and trust for the result. In no one instance have we been prospered in placing dependence upon any human support. Just when we learned the hardest we learned the danger of such learning. Every little source of profit that we had trusted in was mysteriously rendered well-nigh barren or entirely so. Thank God, he brought us where we know our one refuge, the one we all may have, the one that never fails. No shorn lamb ever seeks it and fails to find a tempered wind. We did not realize how and where we leaned until circumstances surrounded us in such a way that we were forced to see. There is no place so full of trial but that the way grows brightly beautiful if we do right and leave our great Protector to care for the result and work out what is best for us in an eternal point of view. Sometimes the darkness around me has been so dense that I—but I do not want to write of that, we have so many blessings now. True, my husband is helpless still, yet he surely gains. So marked has been the improvement of late that even friends who have been without a hope of his recovery are talking bravely, and can just begin to believe that he is being restored. Dr. Ginley's prescription is invaluable, and the “Swedish Movement Cure,” in which Dr. Dio Lewis gave us instruction, after a careful examination of the case, is working delightfully. Of Bro. S. N. Haskell's labor of love for us, time and space alike forbid my writing. He has done all that he could do. We thank the Giver of all our good for such friends as we have found among you. We hope that we, with you, may humbly follow Christ, and be among the happy throng yet to exclaim, “Lo! this is our God, we have waited for him and he will save us.” C. P. A. W.