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INTERESTING LETTERS

DEAR BROTHER RUSSELL:—Your recent favor was received yesterday. Please accept my most heartfelt thanks for your clear and detailed explanation of the 1881 matter. Altho I felt this to be your understanding of the matter, yet several in the meeting have been greatly exercised with respect to the question. These I now rejoice to be able to comfort and encourage more positively than I could before receiving your letter. I trust I am not taking up your valuable time unnecessarily with my little questions. I felt a little guilty after reading your comment on the numerous conventions held during the past year, fearing that my correspondence may have helped to retard the sixth volume of DAWN. I most sincerely trust such has not been the case.

I visited Brother and Sister Davis at __________, Cal., last week, and they asked me to call your attention to a statement on page 16, VOL. V., where you classify the Quakers with Unitarians, which they fear will cause prejudice among the Friends denomination. They fully understand your reason for this statement, knowing that the Friends you meet in Pennsylvania are of that belief; but they are only about one-tenth of the denomination. I send by same mail a “Discipline” of Iowa Yearly Meeting of Friends, from which you can judge of their position with respect to our Lord Jesus (page 30), and I am free to confess that I have for years held the same view with yourself, having come in contact with what I supposed were representative Friends, but who I now see were “Hicksite” and “Wilburite” Quakers, and representing the “Philadelphia Yearly Meeting,” one not recognized by the other Yearly Meetings as sound in the doctrines of the “Friends.” I felt sure you would like to know this, for in view of the statement appearing so early in the volume, readers might feel that you had either misrepresented the matter or were misinformed, and therefore they would lack confidence in the author and not desire to pursue the

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study further. Bro. Davis may write you on the subject too. I feel so jealous for the Truth, that I cannot bear to have any error, however slight or unimportant apparently, go without correction. If I may suggest, I think a foot-note in future copies, or a little slip pasted in the present edition to the effect that you referred to a certain branch of the Friends denomination in your classification, would serve to counteract any erroneous impression. Dear brother, please do not think I am desirous of giving orders to you in any matter. I feel that situated as you are, and with your mind so free from the suspicions and evil surmisings of people in general, even professing Christians, you might possibly not see these matters in the light we do who come in contact with them.

I enclose a copy of a publication which truly seems a device of the Adversary, written as it is by a person of your name, and on the subjects especially treated by you, but from so opposite a standpoint. Nevertheless “no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper,” and the true sheep will not follow the “voice of a stranger.” Only it makes my heart sad to see such things scattered broadcast to further deceive and delude any who may be “feeling after God.”

I wish especially to thank you for the article in the TOWER on “The Song of Moses and the Lamb.” Ever since I came into the knowledge of present truth I have felt that I would really be satisfied even to go into the grave never to be resurrected if only I might live long enough to see the character of Jehovah vindicated, his infinite wisdom, justice, love and power made known to all the world of mankind. How true it is that we alone of all the people of the earth are able to sing this glorious song of Moses and the Lamb! And my heart longs for that blessed time when “the knowledge of the Lord shall fill the earth as the waters cover the sea.” If God has been willing to wait six thousand years for his true character to be made manifest, should not we be able to wait a few brief years to have our motives and lives, now so sadly misunderstood, cleared of every misconception? I have recently been reading the Bible through, the first time since I began to study present truth, and great was my delight at the marvelous harmony of every passage with the Divine Plan. Scriptures once as unintelligible as if written in Sanscrit now flame with light and truth and meaning! Oh, how can I ever praise my Heavenly Father for all his mercies to me! I am overwhelmed with the feeling of my utter unworthiness to have been called “out of darkness into his marvelous light!” Pray for me, dear brother, that I may be faithful to my calling and a more worthy ambassador for Christ Jesus, “approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth;” and more than that, one who not only hears and knows the Master’s will, but also obeys it. I desire especially to be more humble, more like our Beloved, who had no will but that of his Father, for I realize more fully day by day that “this is the will of God (concerning me) even my sanctification,” my complete submission to him in all things, if I would be with him and “see him as he is.”

With much Christian love to yourself, and all the other faithful ones in the TOWER office, I remain,

Yours in the love and service of our King,

W. SEIBERT,—California.

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DEAR BROTHER RUSSELL:—I have long desired to write to you to tell you as best I can how happy I am since I have learned of the true Gospel of Christ. I hesitated about writing for I felt that perhaps I ought not to intrude on your time, even for the few minutes that you will take to read these few lines, but I was assured by the dear brothers and sisters here in Boston that it would be all right, so I write these few lines to you at this time. I thank God, through his beloved Son every day for the true Gospel which has been revealed through the MILLENNIAL DAWN books, and I want to thank you, as the instrument in God’s hands, for writing those books. I cannot tell you what they are to me, but when we “see face to face” you will know. I often wonder why his truth was made known to me, who am the least of all his children, as it seems to me, and while I realize that it increases my responsibility, yet that is not to be compared with the blessed privilege of knowing the true plan of God.

I am a constant TOWER reader, though you will not find my name on the list of subscribers, for the reason that I am blind and cannot therefore read for myself, and I feel that I ought not to have the TOWERS sent to me and be able to make no use of them. They are far too precious for that. I have had three volumes of DAWN read to me, and am now having the fourth and fifth read. I have sent to Scotland to have the first volume copies in embossed type for my use. I have often wondered if there are any more blind people who know the true gospel. Do you know of any?

Enclosed you will find a small Money Order which perhaps will help to send TOWERS or books to some of the Lord’s poor. Yours faithfully,

B. GOULD,—Massachusetts.

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CHARLES T. RUSSELL,

DEAR SIR:—Some one kindly sent me a copy of your paper of March 15 and April 1, 1900, the contents of which I have just read with more than ordinary interest, the matter of which is entirely new to me,—a revelation. Will you kindly supply me with some tracts that I may more fully know whereof you speak. I am truly interested. A great deal of the contents of the paper now before me I read to another professional gentleman, Dr. J. H. Jenkins, whose office is on the same floor with mine. He too is interested.

Yours truly, W. H. WOODSON,—Missouri.

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DEAR BROTHER IN JESUS CHRIST:—Your divine theology is certainly a helping hand to me. I hope, dear sir, that you will let me have many tracts and ZION’S WATCH TOWER for my religious education. I do certainly believe that the “little flock” will be an instrument by whom all the families of earth will be blessed; because all the churches are in a very poor situation and the world in great desolation [distress]. May God give me opportunity to know more about your divine mission. Come to my help and let me take the water abundantly in your publications. I am, dear sir, with much gratitude

Very truly yours,

R. VILATTE, Archbishop of the Orthodox Catholic Church, Canada.

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— February 1, 1901 —