SOME INTERESTING LETTERS
DEAR BROTHER RUSSELL:--
I have greatly enjoyed the past two weeks in the blessed service. None can know the blessedness of the Harvest work but those who are doing their little all in co-laboring with the Chief Reaper.
None can understand your faithful course of self-sacrifice but those who, like yourself, are seeking the Lord's sweet approval day by day. Even as none but Abraham and Isaac could appreciate what the sufferings of Isaac meant, so only our Father and "we, brethren, as Isaac was," can appreciate what the "sufferings of Christ" are.
Be assured of my Christian love and prayers for you and the work the Chief Reaper has entrusted to your willing hands. Many, many friends along the way desire to be remembered to you, and send words of confidence in your labor of love.
Brother Rutherford suggested DAWN-STUDIES and Berean lessons to take the place of discourses. This surely is a wise procedure in many classes, even where they might have talent for speaking.
I would like, however, if more could be done to awaken thought in the importance of testimony meetings. Many classes have not even talent for leading Berean studies (at least they think they have not the talent), and I think where only one meeting can be held, the testimony meeting, up-to-date, considering the past week's experiences, would be the best meeting possible.
I have been hoping that at some time you would consider it profitable to advance this specially in the TOWER and suggest a subject for each week's meditation and for testimonies (each Wednesday night); or, possibly, that the MANNA verse and comment for Wednesday be read in advance at the previous testimony meeting and be considered as the subject for the following week.*
The classes which I have visited and which have Wednesday evening testimony meetings seem to be more up-to-date in both knowledge and spirituality.
God bless you, my dear Brother. Much love to you.
BROTHER SAPHORE.
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*Some of the friends follow the plan of using Brother Russell's
sermon text of the week, which the majority of them get through the
newspapers.
[R4771 : page 63]
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DEAR BROTHER RUSSELL:--
I am still rejoicing in the "feast of fat things" which our gracious Lord is constantly spreading before us.
Your recent relation of the various experiences had with our Jewish friends and how they are reaching out for more and more about the Messiah and his Kingdom, brought me back in mind to the days of John the Baptist, when he announced the Messiah, etc.
In connection with this, in looking up what you had written about Enoch and Elijah, I read in TOWER No. 9, 1898, about Elijah's career, and then in Vol. 2, p. 254, to conclusion of chapter. You speak of the Elisha class not expecting to be glorified. Could this class be the Jews who are now becoming interested?
A further thought, or rather, finding--2 Kings 2:9: Elisha prays for a double portion. Marginal rendering is, "The portion of the first-born."
My recent experiences and the reading of the above, and particularly the chapter on "Elijah shall first come," have energized me to renewed zeal and vigor to press on to the battle of the Lord.
Our prayers go up in your behalf, dear Brother, that grace and strength and wisdom from on high be your portion sufficient for every time of need, until your work is finished and you have heard the Master's "Well done."
Yours in him, E. W. V. KUEHN.
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DEAR PASTOR RUSSELL:
I feel that I must write you a word of thanks for the greatest blessing I have received in my life. I need not go into details, for the seventy-third Psalmexactly covers my experience; and I feel that in allowing me to read "The Divine Plan," God indeed took me into his sanctuary.
Oh, wonderful patience! When I look back I can hardly believe it--he took such infinite pains just to show me his love!
Last year, after many tribulations, stretching over a decade, I said to myself, Well, it may be all right; but if I'm not to grow utterly bad and bitter I must have a little prosperity. I can't bear this incessant going wrong any longer. (My principal temptation was that I wanted my children to have a good time.)
Well, the prosperity didn't come--but your book did. It took some mental compulsion to read it, too. I couldn't really afford the set of STUDIES at the time I ordered them, and was cross, though much interested. So I put them on the shelf and never looked at them for months, till one day I had nothing to do and nothing to read, and took them down.
I can only say they utterly changed the world for me and my family. We were sick of churches--we had been served so many mean tricks by "Pillars."
I have sent out copies of the Plan (five-cent edition) to all of my friends and hope they will benefit, as I have done. I am longing for the other three STUDIES, and hope to send for them next month. We enjoy THE WATCH TOWER so much. Always wishing to be up-to-date in my reading I feel that I am so more than ever now.
My husband has told many men about the book. He finds the poor love to hear about it, but the rich will have none of it. One old man said it was what he had been waiting for all his life. He knew his Bible nearly by heart and said the "Plan" was just what it seemed to say to him.
Indeed, I can say your book has answered the "Why?" I have been asking ever since I was sixteen years old. When I had read it my little daughter (eight years old) asked me a question and I sat on the floor beside her and told her all about it.
When I had finished she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "Oh, mamma, isn't God good! It makes me cry to think of it." And yesterday she said, "If there were any poor people here I would just take my two dollars and give it to them"--all she has--and she's been saving it to buy a doll.
I believe she truly tries to "do as she'd be done by"; so isn't it possible that she might be of the Kingdom, notwithstanding her youth? She has told all her little friends about the Plan.
With many, many thanks for the help you have given me and mine,
Yours sincerely, ELEANOR I. CHILDE.