To the Lady Largirie — Letter 64
Mistress.
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you. I hope you know what terms passed between Christ and you at your first meeting. You remember he said your summer days would have clouds, and your rose a prickly thorn beside it. Christ is unmixed in heaven — all sweetness and honey; here we have him with his thorny and rough cross. Yet I know no tree that bears sweeter fruit than Christ's cross, unless I were to raise a lying report against it. It is your part to take Christ as he is to be had in this life. Sufferings are like a wood planted all around his house, over door and window. If we could hold fast our grip of him, the field were won. Yet a little while, and Christ shall triumph. Give Christ his own short time to spin out these two long threads of heaven and hell to all mankind, for certainly the thread will not break. And when he has accomplished his work on Mount Zion and has refined his silver, he will bring new vessels out of the furnace, and furnish his house and take up residence again. I counsel you to free yourself of clinging temptations by overcoming some and disregarding others, and watching over all. Abide true and loyal to Christ, for few now are fast to him; they give Christ blank paper for a bond of service and attendance, now when Christ has most to do. To pour out a little blood with Christ, and to put out part of this dross-world in pledge in his hand, as willing to give it up for him, is the safest place to keep the world. But those who would take the world and all their belongings on their back and run away from Christ will fall by the way and leave their burden behind them, and be taken captive themselves. Well were it for my soul to put all I have — life and soul — into Christ's hands; let him be responsible for all. If anyone asks how I do, I answer: none can be but well who are in Christ. And if I were not so, my sufferings would have melted me away in ashes and smoke; I thank my Lord that he has something in me that this fire cannot consume. Remember my love to your husband, and show him from me that I desire he may set aside all things and make sure work of salvation — that it not be a seeking when the hourglass is run out and time and eternity meet together. There is no errand so weighty as this. Oh that he would take it to heart. Grace be with you.
Aberdeen. Yours in Christ Jesus his Lord, S. R.
