To Mr. Hugh McKaill, Minister of the Gospel — Letter 19

Reverend and dear brother.

I bless you for your letter. He has come down as rain upon the mown grass; he has revived my withered root, and he is as the dew of herbs. I am most secure in this prison; salvation is for walls in it, and what think you of these walls? He makes the dry plant to bud as the lily and to blossom as Lebanon. The great husbandman's blessing comes down upon the plants of righteousness. Who may say this, my dear brother, if I, his poor exiled stranger and prisoner, may not say it? However all the world should be silent, I cannot hold my peace. O how many black accounts has Christ and I rounded over together, in the house of my pilgrimage! And how satisfying a portion has he given to a hungry soul? I had rather have Christ's four-hour meal than have dinner and supper both in one from any other. His dealing and the way of his judgments pass finding out. No preaching, no book, no learning could give me that which I was required to come and get in this town. But what of all this, if I were not bewildered, confounded, and astonished how to be thankful and how to get him praised forevermore? And which is more — he has been pleased to pain me with his love, and my pain grows through want of real possession. Some have written to me that I am possibly too joyful of the cross, but my joy overleaps the cross; it is bounded and terminated upon Christ. I know the sun will overcloud and eclipse, and I shall again be put to walk in the shadow, but Christ must be welcome to come and go as he thinks fit. Yet he would be more welcome to me, I think, to come than to go, and I hope he pities and pardons me in casting apples to me at such a fainting time as this. Holy and blessed is his name. It was not my flattering of Christ that drew a kiss from his mouth, but he would send me as a spy into this wilderness of suffering, to see the land and to try the ford. And I cannot make a lie of Christ's cross; I can report nothing but good both of him and it, lest others should faint. I hope when a change comes, to cast anchor at midnight upon the rock (which he has taught me to know in this daylight) to which I may run when I must say my lesson without the book and believe in the dark. I am sure it is sin to be tardy about Christ's good meat and not to eat when he says, 'eat, O well-beloved, and drink abundantly.' If he bears me on his back or carries me in his arms over this water, I hope for grace to set down both my feet on dry ground when the way is better. But this is slippery ground; my Lord thought good I should go by a hold and lean on my well-beloved's shoulder. It is good to be ever taking from him. I desire he may get the fruit of praises for fondling and thus dandling me upon his knee, and I may give my bond of thankfulness, so that I have Christ's counter-bond again for my relief, that I shall be strengthened by his powerful grace to pay my vows to him. But truly I find we have the advantage of the hill upon our enemies; we are more than conquerors through him who has loved us, and they know not wherein our strength lies. Pray for me; grace be with you.

Aberdeen. Your brother in Christ, S. R.