 
FOOL

AND

FANATIC?

"At God's command I left all that is usually thought to make life worth living ...  
and have been called fool and fanatic again and again. "

Quotations From The Letters Of  
C. T. Studd

Compiled By Jean Walker

WEC Publications, Gerrards Cross

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Foreword

I have just spent hours in the glow of hearing again the inspirer of my earlier years—C.T. Studd. I had lived with him in the Congo for ten years and then, because there was no one else to do it, I collected the records of his life which his mother and his wife had stored up, and wrote his biography, C.T. Studd, Cricketer and Pioneer. It has gone into 28 impressions and 9 languages, and has stirred up hundreds to the same kind of all-out commitment to Jesus Christ that he knew.

But I also had a big trunk of his personal correspondence, written in his small but legible handwriting, in which I knew there would be more of his original sayings that seem to stick like burrs! I had never got down to those, but recently one of the WEC staff, Jean Walker, picked up a few of his sayings from other sources, making from them a sharp-edged, challenging leaflet. I felt that God had so prepared her that I could trust her to do the same again on a bigger scale. So the Lord's guidance came clear to us that she should produce a full-sized book of quotations, and thousands of letters (some 80 pounds in weight) were transported from North America to England.

Jean worked non-stop for two months in a country cottage kindly loaned for the purpose, and she has produced the authentic C.T.! The same fire burns, and burns into the heart of the reader. The fire of his love for Jesus flares up again and again; that reckless abandonment of his life, never to be taken back again, to the One who laid down His life for him; his consuming sense of purpose—so often voiced in his prayers in Africa—to see "Jesus Christ running about in black bodies"; that uncontrollable humour popping out, so that you jump from total seriousness to hilarious laughter; the tender concern for his younger workers in their tough and lonely corners, with exhortations not to turn back.

His love and admiration for his wife, Priscilla, streams out of his letters to or about her, as she shouldered the burden of the then "infant" mission in England and they spent the last 16 years of their married life apart for the gospel's sake.

C.T. loved to quote Paul "who counted not his life dear unto himself", and gloried in being able to share likewise in Christ's sufferings. Then we catch his joy as he saw the light dawning in the Africans; loving them, joking with them, praying with them, singing and dancing with them as they let loose in the songs of Zion. But combined with this, in letter after letter, is his uncompromising stand on the Bible statement: "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord."

I thank God that hundreds will now catch fire from these sayings, as they did from the biography. Those of you who are not familiar with the story may catch on to the man, and the Holy Spirit speaking through him, by reading the biography first. Those of you who have read it can go straight ahead with the quotations. In producing them, Jean has had the invaluable help of Barbara Goodall and Violet Edson in the typing of the manuscript, and is very grateful to them both.

As we see how C.T. "travailed in birth" for his beloved Africans in those early years, it is good to know that today, having come through severe persecution, thousands are following Christ in some 800 churches. And from his "wild-cat" scheme in 1913 — "to evangelize the unevangelized world in the shortest possible time, starting with the heart of Africa" — there are now around 900 WEC missionaries serving Christ in over 40 countries, not including hundreds of our national brethren. Five hundred more are spreading the gospel through print in the Christian Literature Crusade, an out-birth of WEC, and now a sister mission. And who knows how many more, inspired to total dedication by C.T. Studd, are now working with other missions? I can only end with C.T.'s favourite word — which was on his lips when he went to be with the Lord — Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

N. P. Grubb  
Fort Washington,  
Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

N.B. The material is not arranged in chronological order, and little attempt has been made to set dates to quotations; they range mainly from 1913 to his death in 1931. In extracting various quotations every effort has been made to achieve clarity and continuity.

C.T.'s style is easy, graphic and often humourous. Because he was on intimate terms with those to whom he wrote, he was "himself" in his letters.

Introduction

Success in playing cricket for Eton and Cambridge, and in County and All-England matches, allowed C.T. to savour the self-glorifying effects of fame, both as a sportsman and as a Christian. Later, when much attention was focussed upon him as a pioneer missionary and co-founder of the Heart of Africa Mission (HAM, now WEC), he ruthlessly avoided the limelight. Here are his feelings in his own words:

"I was distressed that you had a birthday meeting for me at home. Please keep my name out of all such things, for I dread this thing much. Do what you like in the Name of Jesus, but do please keep all other names out of sight, or the mission will be wrecked and deservedly so. 'I. have kept them in THY NAME.' I appreciate the kind thought but I hate my name coming into prominence and I hope nothing will ever again carry my name, only God's. I dread the exaltation of any human name in this venture.

"I was told that I should get a very wonderful reception if I went home. Yes, I guess it would be so, perhaps a bit warmer than I could wish. Ovations are poor things and are bad for one and for the work, and detract from the glory of God. I fear I have lived too long to care for anything this world holds out in the way of happiness. I know some people think I am queer and mad and wrong in my decision to stick by the sheep, and some would laud me to the skies and declare me to be a man full of the Holy Ghost.

"Many a time I have been pressed to write the true story of my life (and there has been plenty said that is quite inaccurate about it, on platforms and in the press) but now this cannot be. It is better so, lest there be things for which men might admire and glorify me, as there would be many also of which they would disapprove and for which they would condemn."

I have attempted to respect these, his wishes. I have honestly tried to make this book the continuation of his very challenging ministry; so that C.T., now in company with Abel, "by faith still speaks, even though he is dead" (Heb. 11:4 GNB). If, as a result, any reader's heart burns, and he is ready to sacrifice himself for Jesus, then C.T. will shout yet another, but purer, "Hallelujah!" from somewhere near the Throne.

Jean Walker

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter1—Towards The Heart Of Africa

Chapter 2—New Beginnings

Chapter 3—His Better Half

Chapter 4—Where The Action Is

Chapter 5—God The Fund Raiser

Chapter 6—The Cricketer Speaks

Chapter 7—Mixed Bag

Chapter 8—Rings And Stings

Chapter 9—The Devil And His Den

Chapter 10—Heaven Is Real

Chapter 11—Holy Living

Chapter 12—Extravagant Love

Chapter 13—A Sanctified Funny-Bone

Chapter 14—Apt Illustrations

Chapter 15—Paul-His Hero

Chapter 16—Aches And Pains

Chapter 17—A Call To The Comfortable

Chapter 18—A Farewell Letter

### Chapter One  
Towards the Heart of Africa

Our dog Joe has a "proud stomach". He will eat all sorts of trash but he will not touch the Egyptian army biscuits that Alf and I so much relish on the march. To be sure they have not so far made their appearance at a Lord Mayor's lunch or city company dinner, but when you are on the march they are noble food. You can carry them in your pocket with a knife, a pencil, a whistle, a ring of keys, a compass and other things without the biscuits receiving the slightest damage. Your teeth must be sharp, your jaw strong and your appetite good to tackle them at all, unless a fierce rain wets you through, under which circumstances you find the biscuits have become cakes. I remember in 1911 on trek with Bishop Gwynne in Bahr El Ghazel how we relied on them. When in good health and hungry and nothing else to hand, try an Egyptian army brick biscuit and an uncooked cooking banana. Think of the heart of Africa, and you are in heaven on earth in a jiffy. An absolute cure for dyspepsia and liverishness of the legal profession! By the way, can you guess the best place to store them in the rain? Under my helmet!

In the train A. took a quinine tablet, threw back his head to swallow it, and off went his helmet out of the window while the train was moving. We have been unable to recover it. Luckily I had a spare one for him to use.

This morning after about an hour we arrived on top of the hill on the east of Lake Albert and looked across the lake at the hills on the other side, the Belgian Congo—our promised land. Can you imagine my feelings? It was a lovely sight and there sure enough was the pillar of cloud above them. I took several photos.

If hope deferred makes the heart sick and sorry, hope substantiated and arrived makes it well and merry in a moment. As exercise restores the body by quickening the blood circulation, so moving forward towards the goal seems to quicken heart and soul, and one's whole being.

A great luxury is a private bath! Two of us in a tent, limited to a large sponge-and-towel affair and a basin of real hot water, with thoughts of a glorious bath at home. We then change into "dress clothes", which here means one's pyjamas and canvas mosquito boots, overcoat and skull cap. Dinner is then served "all fresh-oh" in the blue chamber (i.e. outside the tent). A cup of tea, some bread and treacle, and perhaps a bowl of Oxo spells luxury. A wood camp-fire close to our festive board (camp table) is a treat that one never tires of. Lastly, the day ends with a dive into the middle of two red flannel blankets in the tent and into oblivion. One awakes next morning to see a bright moonlit world outside and on striking a match one finds the day has begun in luxury because it is only 3 a.m.—and one need not rise till 4! So there is time for prayer and meditation and a biblical "Chotahazri" (Hindustani for breakfast) before one jumps out of the red into the khaki, and out to the blue outside. Very soon the whole camp is awake and it's up with the bed-rolls and off for another march.

Regarding just one aspect of trekking. My porter carried me on his shoulders to cross the river. It was a very precarious position for one felt like a monkey up a swaying stick. My hands held his forehead, I sat on his shoulders and twisted back my legs to grab his ribs, expecting to go sprawling into the water every second. But we got through safe and sound. This chap was too fat and short to run very fast, but he was as strong as a bull. As he perspired so profusely it was real slippery work sitting on his shoulders.

Saved, these Africans would be model missionaries, for their total belongings weigh about a quarter of the weight that an average Englishman carries about his body daily (supposing he has no handbag with him and no nails in his shoes). Like the bees they gather food as they march all day and eat it all night.

Every night the rats and mice run around my tent and bed and wake me up, while dogs crack bones at the tent door which always lies open for fresh air. Sometimes I think of home and its comforts and, oh, I long for that bath, but it is better to be here in the service of Christ.

This part of the river at Niangara is superbly beautiful and I can understand Schweinfurth describing it as paradise. We saw lovely palm trees and all kinds of other trees, and frequently giant perfectly-proportioned trees raising their tall capacious heads above the others. We landed, and started out to take the letter to the Chef de Poste who ordered a house for us, gave us coffee, eggs and bacon, and wound up by inviting us to dinner! Our tent life of one year was at an end, so imagine our joy to have quarters under a fixed roof. We sorted out our clothes for dinner. I rigged Alfred (Co-founder and fellow traveller–Alfred Buxton) up in my puttoo suit and I went in the grey cloth one (enhanced by my having only khaki mosquito boots to wear!). However, it did not affect our appetites. We had soup, fish, entree and bird, and ended up with coffee and egg flip (without the whisky). My word, it was good! The Chef de Poste was very kind, but you should just have heard my French! Chinese, English and Bangala mixed up with it, plus plenty of dead stops—because I couldn't get any further and didn't know how to retreat gracefully or otherwise. How the Chef kept a straight face I don't know; he was wonderfully polite.

### Chapter Two  
New Beginnings

Now is the time to build. "I will be with you, that is my promise" (Hag. 1:13). What more do we need? I go on gambling for all I'm worth for Jesus all the time, till He tells me to quit and come up aloft. Now, mind, our objective must be the evangelization of the whole world, nothing less. Hallelujah! I've plumped for it. We'll help every other man or society who is on the war path to do their utmost, but we must have Christ back at any price. I'm on pins and needles till He comes. I'm in the thing neck, crop and heel.

1) We have vowed to run this mission according to the Bible and not according to human reason or tradition.

2) Whatever the Scriptures say we will do.

3) Whatever the Scriptures forbid we shall forbid.

4) Whatever the Scriptures do not forbid we shall not forbid.

5) We will at once alter any method that can be shown contrary to the Bible.

6) We allow no other authority than the Bible and never will do so. Our resources are a full realization of our own impotence, a simple trust in God's omnipotence, wisdom, faithfulness and the direction of the Holy Spirit. The work to which we have most solemnly pledged ourselves is to proclaim Christ only.

Humanly speaking the losses we have suffered put us into the well-known position of being up a tree: the devil told me so, but Jesus at the same time added in a whisper, "The top of the tree reaches up to heaven." Hallelujah! One more anchor flung into the rocks of heaven; one more summons to look up to Jesus and not around.

I have no ambition to start another waterlogged craft in the huge stream of Central Africa, but to evangelize the world and have Christ back. I've no ambition to be a Christian globe-trotter sort of missionary. I'm here for the real thing not for that kind of skylarking, earning a reputation as an explorer. I know now where to plant a dozen men. What more can any rational man want?

Here God has given us a field second to none in all the world, the densest population by far in all the Congo and perhaps in all Africa. He has opened the hearts of the people and given us the choicest sites for stations. Who can doubt He will send the right men? Personally I would sooner have a few dare-devil care-for-nothing-and-nobody soldiers aflame with love for Christ than a million workers just 10% below this standard.

I am persuaded that when we WECers see our duty as it is written plainly over the NT, and go in to perform it, we shall conquer all and have a chance to glorify God. But if not, I am equally convinced that we shall be just one more humdrum missionary society, and had better never have started out thus upon God.

God is the head of WEC, the government is on His shoulders and we have given Him our word to walk in His paths. Before I left England God made me declare on many platforms that we went trusting neither in man, nor in committee, except in that of the Committee of the Eternal Three. In His great love God has allowed us to suffer desertion, detraction, defamation and the loss of many friends, so-called, but He has only bound us closer to Himself and held our heads straight for the next fence, so to speak. The greatest honour God has ever given to me is that He had confidence in me, the most foolish and weak of His children, that I would not turn tail, lie down, whine or sulk, but just take His bit in my teeth and forge ahead. Do you wonder my soul jumps for joy? Jesus is with us, hallelujah! There is glory in my soul at the thought of this glorious proof of His presence. At my reading today God said to me, "Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward." When did He say this? When they were on the shores of the Red Sea, with Pharaoh and his hosts behind them, and they were like rats caught in a trap.

Our recruits come out from home vastly raw and are largely parrots. They have been crammed with religion as though for an examination, and seem to come out to carry on their education rather than finish it. So many are just taught doctrines without ever having thought them out or searched the Scriptures for themselves. They come out like infants with pop guns. They need to be trained into soldiers with real devil-defying weapons. Some arrive thinking they are the last thing in high-class Christianity and have to find out they know little. That is why I keep the newcomers here at the base for a time till I can make them really think out things and settle questions, not from hearsay but from Bible-say.

Be sure to teach all who come out here to just take hold of the Bible and read it again and again, and to abstain from seeking to acquire other men's ideas. The Bible is so unerring in judgement and proportion, whereas all other books are so often out of true proportion. In churches formed of pagan converts one can see the object of what may seem two contrary lines of truth. The man of judgement takes both truths and enhances them, and waits the time to use both. The man of poor judgement takes up one violently, will have none of the other balancing aspect, and he comes a cropper. One of the best verses to go upon out here, one which will make a man sane and practical is: "Let God be true and every man a liar."

Let our main principles prevail and the world is conquered for Christ. But if our main principles go overboard, the world becomes unconquerable and we ourselves are conquered, and we and Christ's cause would be found retiring amid the jeers of the cheering hosts of hell. John Wesley said, "If I could have twelve men like-minded with me we would move the world."

I took the morning service in the worship shed at Deti. It's a grass hut with 4-feet-high walls so that the needed air can circulate. The place was packed with black shining bodies closer than peas in a pod. Each body seemed to touch four others, just as lemon drops exposed to heat run into each other. Oh the heat of the seething mass of people! Everybody shone with oil well rubbed in and every face shone with an intensely eager gaze as when a child expects the bird to fly out of a camera lens. It took minutes to arrive at my standing place, having to raise each leg high and plant the foot most carefully to avoid the bodies of these brethren. Then, as one stood on the advanced leg, the other had to be carefully and slowly raised and dragged forward with great care and sent on to its path of forward exploration. I turned to see how I had come, but there was no track, as when one treads on the sand on the edge of the tide.

The service began. It was in Kingwana, an unknown tongue to me. E. read out each line of a hymn and all sang it, and behold the temperature rose. The singing was accurate and went with a snap. You could hear each word which to me is the test of good singing and not merely emitting a pleasant sound or trill or buzz. Then the Lord's Supper, prayer and Scripture, all interspersed with hymns. E. has a very high-pitched voice, a great gift, so all have to blow their bellows at high pressure to get any sound. When it comes it is loud like a bugle; you can't blow it softly. If you don't let yourself go, there is no music—only a rush of ridiculous wind. Then came my stint. I had to give a short talk but it turned out to be somewhat lengthy, for I had to speak through an interpreter. I began a bit nervously (I hate interpreters) but the sight of that eager listening crowd soon produced the proper fervour and I felt I may not see these folks again. It became the experience of that framed verse I once saw: "I'll preach as though I'll never preach again, as a dying man to dying men." If every preacher only heeded that verse there'd be no dull and lifeless sermons, or fashionable and artistic essays or lectures.

Never could I forget that service, the living anxious look on their faces, intent on catching every word. Then my mind wandered back to just a year ago, when Deti was just a hill-top with elephant grass and the jungle undergrowth of Africa. Sitting on a tree trunk we thanked God for His gift of land on which to begin another station. Then we gave it back to God, for Him to do His work in His own way and to rescue these people from the devil. As we sat there we could see all around the country for endless miles. Then came the trying time of cutting down the jungle and building houses, and all the work that followed since. My heart was drumming with wonder at what God has done.

### Chapter Three  
His Better Half

From USA, universities and colleges tour—1896.

Ask God for the souls of Dr and Mrs H. and then go right for them with all your heart and God will give them to you. Think of hell and be pure from their blood, plead as for your own life or those of our children. Darling, don't let the opportunity slip of trying to win people to Jesus by prayer and by your life. Don't be muddled by folks at home, but be moulded in the silence of your room by Jesus each morning. I have been feeling so much that I have been like clay in the hands of men rather than in the hands of God. Let us be real gamblers. Only believe and be preparing yourself and the little ones for some mighty work in the service of Jesus. Unite with me in asking God to guide us surely, for we want no blind alleys. We want only to know and do His work. He will show us if we will only surrender and wait. I want you as hot for Jesus and souls as you were in Shanghai and hotter, so hot that all around you will feel the touch, not of you, but of Jesus. Do personal work, work for missions is not enough: there must be the personal salvation of others for that keeps one bright as a mirror and so joyful.

I want Mrs G. to give the children an extra hour which I want occupied with a daily Scripture lesson. Tell her that I don't care a rap about cleverness; I have no fear of them being donkeys, but I would sooner have them believers than worldly and clever. Please tell her just what I say. I want her to know that they are God's and to be brought up as His. They are not wanted to catch lords, dukes or moneyed men, they are wanted to do God's work and save souls. I want their education to be practical and useful.

I went with S. to one chapel but only he was scheduled to speak. The Lord seemed still to say I should speak, but He kept me quiet; then Dr M. got up and to my surprise said he had two, not one, speakers and he hoped they would both speak. I shouted hallelujah inside my tummy. S. said I would not speak as I was unprepared. But God stopped him speaking ten minutes or more before the end of his time. He could not think of another thing to say though he had prepared to speak for twenty-five minutes. Every idea left him and he had to sit down. Dr M. then asked me if I would speak and I walked up as fast as I could lay legs to the ground and started right in. I prayed first just these words, "Oh Lord, make my tongue go as fast as my heart", and He answered abundantly. I spoke with all the gusto of making a century at cricket against the Australians.

After the meeting I had three young students who gave up all in full surrender and received the Holy Ghost. Then S. asked to come for a chat with me. (He is the one travelling around with me but is not very spiritual and greatly in need of a blessing.) Well, he came right full out, surrendering and receiving the Holy Ghost. Oh, such a change in him! We were just drunk with the Spirit. Such freedom in prayer; we laughed and thanked and prayed before God and just enjoyed ourselves on our knees and asked until we had not one more request. And then we thanked God for all He had granted, as we knew He had heard. Darling, this life is just lovely, lighting up souls everywhere, God has so prepared them. I feel I am just upheld by others in prayer. I am nothing and have no power but thank God none can look at me and see anything attractive, so they shut their eyes and see Jesus. Hallelujah to the Lamb of God! Glory, glory everywhere.

To his son-in-law, Martin Sutton, en route to Congo—1913

My whole heart goes out in gratitude to you for all you have done for my darling Priscilla. You seem to have lavished loving-kindness upon her. I hear of the specialist, nurses and all the special arrangements and caring, and all your watchful care and love over her. God indeed bless you a millionfold for you have treated her as you would have treated our Lord Jesus Himself and so I am in an utterly impossible position. I desire to thank you with my heart's whole gratitude and am unable to do so. I can only ask our Father to repay, and with interest, the debt I can never begin to pay. Our God is gracious and loving beyond our ken. Here is a marvel of His love and comfort ... your first letter about Scilla's dangerous illness arrived after your second letter which told of her recovery! God sorts all our letters after they are posted and arranges when each shall reach its destination so that our hearts may be in peace. To His name of Wonderful, Counsellor, we must now add "Postmaster", hallelujah.

I am glad you wrote so fully of Scilla's condition. I realise how seriously ill she is and I wish I could be with her to love and care for her but, as you say, I could not reach England for six weeks, when I hope God will have so completely finished His wonderful healing as to make my presence not really necessary.

And has God not been far better to Scilla than I could have been? I trusted her and the girls to Him and He has indeed not failed but has been true to His Word. You will understand, I feel sure, that I can only best love her by best loving Jesus, for they are inseparably linked. Her life and recovery must be a superhuman thing which God only can bring about; by serving Christ best and by sacrificing to the utmost for Him I can best ensure Scilla's life and health. In His own good time—which is best—He will take me back to her. That meeting must not be brought about by any other than Jesus Himself, then our joy will be full and without alloy.

To his wife.

Darling, I hate to think of you having been so seriously ill. Thank God He has once again spared you to me and to His work. He will also strengthen you. How good He is! He doesn't intend you to be an invalid. He does nothing by halves; is it a greater work to save one from death than to give you complete convalescence? Trust Him. He will do it. Hallelujah!

Our God will bless you, darling. I fairly laugh at the idea of the huge reward you shall get; may He speak through us to His people these days. The sacrifice of His real children is the only hearing-aid which enables His deaf and sleepy people to hear. I love to think of you at home fighting for God and for me. With you there my heart is at rest. You have had the biggest sacrifice and you shall be the greatest warrior of all. You and I have climbed down for God and have sacrificed our very all and God knows it, and men too. And now you can imagine how I rejoice most of all because you are at the back of it all and shall receive all the honour; you have had the drudgery, but without you it could not have been done.

I do praise God for the grand work that He has enabled you to do in Britain, nay in the world. I loved you in Shanghai because of what you were, not only for the good looks you were so abundantly blessed with, but because you so loved Jesus. I adored you, but never so much as now. That I can so utterly trust you is a confident joy that I can't describe. God is putting on us an amazing great honour. May He make us worthy of it. He seldom gives to anyone the chance to sacrifice all a second time. Now darling, let us make this one more sacrifice of separation and our reunion will be the sweeter. When I find Crusaders coming out who are homesick within a month, it needs us to show that we at the head of affairs scorn to put our own personal things in the first place. We must lead the way.

If I can get things fixed up here I will come. Somehow I have no taste for anywhere but home and you; it is home sweet home for me and I long for it, but I want the sweetest of 'sweet homes' in God's time. I do love you and long for your comfort to deaden the pain of separation, and the pain of perpetually overcoming this old body when it ought to be laid resting in the grave. Oh that I could whisper all I feel and have your answering assurances, but I can't. Well, darling, I love you with all my heart, and long for you, oh, so much. But this is dangerous ground; I dare not think too much. Well, I love Jesus and He is with me and that is my great comfort. I had a terrible dream three nights ago and awoke in an agony because of the vividness and nature of it, and my heart cried within me, for it concerned you, Scilla. God let me see how much I loved and was wrapped up in you and then He took all the agony away and made me cry aloud for joy. I am still perpetually under His chloroform.

Written when Mrs Studd wanted to go to Africa

You ask should you come out? I can't agree for the following reasons. Nobody can do your work at home or hold folks together, you could never stand the journey and the climate would kill you. The risks you would run would be very great indeed and for no proportionate benefit, even if you got through all right. Now one attack of fever would very badly affect your already weak heart and might easily make you an invalid again and so put a stop to the invaluable work you are doing. Were I to care little for your life, or think lightly of your work, or selfishly desire to have you here (which I desire very, very much) I would say, come. But no, I say don't come. I could not have a moment free of anxiety if you were not at home.

Never mind what folks say about us being apart. We can't please everybody and we will follow only God. Remember the miller's donkey. It is a lesson to those who, instead of doing what they believe to be right, chop and change according to the opinions of other folk. The fable runs: the miller, son and donkey went to the market. The miller rode the donkey all the way and people exclaimed, "Cruel man, riding himself and making his son walk." So he got down and his son rode; then people slanged, "What a lazy son for riding while poor old father walks." Then both father and son rode, and people then said, "Cruelty to animals, poor donkey." So they got down and carried the donkey on a pole, but folks said, "Here are two asses carrying another ass." Then all three walked and people said, "What fools to have a donkey and not ride it." So let's go ahead with our work for God and not care what folks say.

Tell the man who asked you if I was still in love with you: "Why yes, but he is still more in love with Jesus, and that when C.T. Studd loves his wife more than Jesus and listens to her more than to Him, then C.T.S. is a wash-out and the biggest fool alive. So he is willing to suffer ill-health, weakness, everything rather than move off before the cloud of God lifts. Tell him that C.T. has no desire to run in harness with the young prophet who paid heed to the old prophet (rather than to the voice of God) and courted disaster.

To daughter Pauline Grubb, on hearing of Mrs Studd's death.

My it was a shock! Mother is a great loss but she has won her reward; she needs no sympathy, though it was sad work hearing of her great pain before she became unconscious. "That ye sorrow not" is a command, for death is gain; it means vision of Christ and heaven. To sorrow is to deny one of the very chiefest tenets and foundations of the faith of our Lord Jesus, viz. that death has passed for ever and we are in the train to Glory and just this short sleep in the sleeper and we have arrived. Shall we cry? No, but there is something to cry our eyes out for. The souls going to damnation. Yes, we can weep while here at work, but when the work is over we shall go into the King not weeping but rejoicing and each saying, "The Lord has done all things for us and we are glad." We must now make good mother's place, we will not let the Lord's work fail or drag because God has so honoured her.

To Stanley Smith—one of the Cambridge Seven who went with C.T. to China.

Very, very many thanks to you and Gracie for your love and sympathy. I was only writing to a lady the other day and telling her of Scilla's and my contract when we married: that we would not keep each other back from any work that the Lord gave us to do, even though it might mean separation for a time. I was saying to her (for it is nice to be able to bear a testimony to God's unspeakable grace) that God kept us together all the early years in China, England and India. Only when we were pretty well worn out did He claim our promise from us, but He commenced to claim by simply giving us an extra fifteen years' life.

I have done nothing particular, but Scilla did an amazement. In her case it is specially plain because God took away her life before giving her the new one. The doctors absolutely gave her up. Lord Radstock went to Carlisle and prayed for her and she rose again. Then the doctors pronounced that she would be an invalid for life, and it looked as though that was right. Their verdict was quite justified, but you know that the Almighty now and again does things out of the ordinary that men cannot do, and this was one. She had never spoken at any meeting for years; she had never come to any of my meetings, they were too great a strain upon her heart (that was my wild talking, I suppose). But when I came out here and God touched the spring, her life became a cyclone, and whatever I might say about what she did would not be an exaggeration. She was a wonder to many, but most of all to myself. She had such energy, vision and faith and she could capture anybody.

Of course, you probably know it was she who ran the home work. I daresay some others got the credit for it, but she was the real one. Some would do a few hours a day and get tired; some could never talk about the work at meals, calling it "shop"; some could not live in the place, must have a change, and not "sleep where you work" ... I believe some call it "eating your work". But she stayed on the premises, knew nothing of a twelve-hour day, and was the whole force of the movement, and she was a reliable and telling speaker at the Annual Meetings. I think you have heard her talk? I have too, you bet, and I never heard a woman, and very few men, talk like her. She got the knack, a Scriptural one, did not speak from memory, nor from the library, but from vision. What she saw she said, made others see it too, and there is no speaking like that.

My wife was terribly tried by the heat when she visited here last year; indeed two days were enough to see that the only one thing to think about was how soon she could get away and reach places cool enough for her to live in. My poor darling did suffer here those two weeks. I was in terror that she should get fever here; that would have ended her.

Well, she is a great loss, but I think she is doing better work for God and for the evangelization of the world where she is than if she were down here, for she is with the Saviour, and I am quite sure He does not do much sleeping and so she won't either. Meanwhile we on the earth are forced into closer communion with the Lord.

### Chapter Four  
Where the Action is

Christ's college for preparing evangelists contains men of the most excellent knowledge of the Scriptures. Christ made them follow Him about for three years "that they might be with Him". That is our best way of training evangelists: let them go out with us. It is hopeless to expect them to battle successfully against infinitely greater temptation, with about one-thousandth part of the training and knowledge of a missionary. We know the fierceness of the temptations of missionaries, even of married ones. Can we expect a cane stick to bear the same strain as an oak beam? Have these men been endued with power from on high? The apostles heard His words and saw endless miracles, and yet had our Lord's command: "Tarry in Jerusalem until you be endued with power from on high." To be filled to the brim with the Holy Ghost a man must look to God only, and know the Word of God and not just a few parrot cries. He must be tried and must evidence love of truth and a positive hatred of evil. "Let them first be proved," said Paul. "Men full of faith, of the Holy Spirit, of wisdom, grace and power." Prove them in small positions first. Moses recommended: "Able men such as fear God, men of truth, hating unjust gain."

Paul's method of dealing with offenders at Corinth was that he commanded the very strongest methods of discipline. The man was never received back into Christian communion until he had become so genuinely repentant as to be in danger of being "eaten up by over much sorrow". So, grievously against my will, I'm compelled to use my authority here. In accordance with God's Word and Paul's method, these who have committed sin will have to be disciplined. I must use my authority to help them to reinstate themselves by their sorrow and repentance before God and all. If this is not done the results must be extremely serious. To devout Jews, and His own followers in a God-worshipping country, Jesus said, "Except a man hate and renounce ... he cannot be my disciple." If such is the only sound foundation for those born in a land with Christian teaching, how can it be anything but folly to reduce the standard to a minimum for a man whose desires and lusts are as naked gunpowder? They can only be sufficiently damped by obedience to the very tests employed by the Saviour Himself.

There is much glitter here: pray that it may glitter because it is gold.

We have had the return of two evangelists who have been away preaching for some six months. They returned with twelve others who wanted instruction, teaching and baptism. They came and sang, prayed and drank in the gospel. Their eager faces were a benediction and gave incentive to speak the words of God. They would have whipped a dumb disciple into speech. They had the craving for God's things fair and square. You should hear these folks at the 5 a.m. daily prayer meeting. They are not supposed to arrive until 5.30 as they infringe rather on my time of reading and quiet, so I have to do a little justifiable deception and postpone whistling for the bugle call until 5.15. But oh, the prayers they pray; no humdrum affairs but red hot shots from their very hearts.

The gospel is a most lovely story when first aired, and captivates all; but then comes the parable of the Sower. Only a quarter endure to the end and the rest, not willing to undergo hardship for Jesus, become hardened against Him.

Here's a pretty decent prayer, "Lord, you know as well as I do what I want; what is the use of my saying more? I want to see Jesus running about in thousands of black bodies and purified hearts. In the Name of Jesus. Amen. Hallelujah!"

One night I was very late at work. It was 2 a.m. and not worth going to bed for an hour and a half, so I thought of just lying down and was blowing out the candle when I saw a black form on a chair close by. As I looked he burst out, "I could not sleep. I must receive the Holy Ghost. Will you pray for me?" Was there ever such an electric shock galvanizing into new life a dog-tired pudding head? Never! This was the real medicine.

I often think it is just the prayers of these people (and of course you all at home) that keeps me alive and kicking. Whatever else escapes their memory in their prayers they never forget to pray as follows: "And there's Bwana, Lord, he is a very aged man, his strength is no use. Give him yours, and the Holy Ghost as well."

One man came to me at 4 a.m. yesterday saying he had a dream and could not sleep because of it, so he had cried and prayed and then he felt he must come and see me about it. The vision was of heaven—the voice said, "Jesus is coming very quickly" and "disobedience is a fraud". It stirred us all up that day.

A chief trumped up a charge against one of our keenest Christians. The official kindly obliged the chief and had the man beaten. The man was evidently surcharged with the Spirit, for in between the fifteen strokes he jumped up and shouted, "Hallelujah in the Name of Jesus! Thank you." At the finish even the official could not repress a smile at this jack-in-the-box scoffing at pain in his joy at suffering for Jesus. And he said, "Did it not hurt you?" "Oh", said Z., "that's nothing when it is for Jesus, and you see, if you had killed me you would have killed Jesus." That last word has many true meanings to it, though it may sound strange to critics at home. One thing at least he meant, viz. that Jesus was with him and in him when he was suffering. All I know about Z. was that when he came and told us of these things, his face shone and his eyes sparkled, and then he showed us some of the marks of the whip. No, we're not downhearted. Winners have no business to be.

Here we are in the throes of examinations of candidates for baptism. There is a real red hot revival on. I have heard these people pray and take fire but never like the last two days. I can't stop them praying. They don't pray long and all around the shop, but short and direct. My, if you folks could only hear them. My soul gets so full as I hear that I begin to wonder if there can ever be an impossibility. Short, sharp and to the point come the petitions, two and three rising at once to pray. There is a snap about the thing like the ignition spark which keeps a Ford engine in motion.

You will rejoice to know that God is blessing wonderfully. It's just like one sees on the Guava trees: the stems are bursting out new shoots, and all is life. Of course there are calamities, but God is working and we are beginning to see the fruit we long for; not in crowded churches, though we do get those too, but in some who grow head and shoulders taller than others. These are the ordinary ones, as God brings them forth to be His leaders in life and conduct.

God is working greatly everywhere round here. Every letter from the out-stations is a joy. A great row broke out the other night at B. The story goes like this: a son of the chief died, but rose again from the dead and said he had been in hell. It was a very big place—very many chiefs were there. He also saw Mama Kimber (A missionary who had died not long before) in heaven, she was very happy. He heard them talking in heaven about us here, and they called me and others by name. This has made a tremendous impression all around. May the Lord raise up many other chiefs' sons to tell the truth like this.

Witchcraft is a very real and potent thing and has the devil and his powers behind it. I am persuaded that many deaths are caused by it, and we have to be careful in our dealings with our people about it. A Christian is not immune except when he is really walking with God. Of course, if anyone dies from witchcraft we must tell the Christians concerned to refrain from accusations, but to love their enemies. This is the very high teaching which not all Christians are able to practise.

Here is a hymn dance, the tune is taking, and the words (translated from Kingwana) are good. Here is part of the hymn:How can anyone sing this and not dance? It laid hold of us at one Sunday meeting and all rose as joy got hold of us and we danced in our places, a sort of Highland Fling or Sword Dance. Oh how you would have enjoyed seeing old grandmamas and grandfathers hopping about, their faces all aglow as they sang and danced! Last market meeting we ended up with it. It laid hold of the people. I went slow at first, repeating the words and they repeating after me, then we sang it till all knew the words, and then we danced as well as sang. Result—everyone came surging around. You never saw such a sight, a couple of acres of dancing singing people. How they enjoyed it and didn't the faces of the Christians beam! I'll never forget it to my dying day. Next Sunday we will go out to one of the villages and will have a long procession singing our songs and so have salvation sounding all along the road both going and coming—Hurray for Jesus!

We are having great times in the evening and somehow I feel God near. It is not a belief, it is a sense. How we enjoy ourselves! It's hard to get them to stop singing and there are roars of laughter when we get the glory. Jesus is good to us and gives us glory in our souls. They love the banjo and we play and sing hymn after hymn and then have slide talks and Bible teaching.

We now have over ninety hymns. My word, we can not only translate the text but put good theology into poetry. Jolly fine stuff too! You don't have to think about the noun or verb playing hide and seek with you, as you do with fine poetry. Ours hits you flat in the face and makes good hot texts for preachers.

One evening I got out the banjo and began to play and sing. There was a fire outside and a full moon. The chief and his wife came and sat on the same stool, a good sight to see! Others kept coming as we sang our merry hymns. The chief and some others knew Bangala but most only knew Kingwana, so when I began to talk I called Tweedledee to interpret. (Tweedledee is brother to Tweedledum; one is my chief butler and the other my chief valet and adviser. Each stands a good three feet high, and their merry laughter is a real benediction.) Tweedledee began to interpret, but the Chief thought he could do it better so they both interpreted, one jogging the other when he left out something. We had a real fine time for about two hours or so; then after I had filled in the vacuum underneath my belt the Chief appeared and said, "Bwana, the news of God is very good indeed. I love it much, and I want my people to learn about it so do please send us a teacher."

We now use the word "hallelujah" instead of "amen" at the conclusion of prayer. "Amen" was a very sleepy affair, something like the last moans of a dying cow. I fancy even the angels must have screwed up their faces. Our "hallelujah" lends itself to enthusiasm and is something like the triumphant shout of a herd of hefty bulls of Bashan. Nobody can remain asleep long, for he is obliged to wake up at the end of each prayer. We have also adopted an improved form of finale after the benediction. I ask the people, "Is it not true that God is?" They reply, "God is." I ask, "Is not Jesus coming again?" Reply, "Jesus is coming." Then we all say "Hallelujah." Well, it is a regular raising-the-roof affair. I sometimes wish some of our dear old staid Christians at home could hear it. The shock would produce enough energy and enthusiasm to milk a whole herd of goats and make them give a double quantity.

I love Jesus Christ  
Jesus loves me  
Nothing else matters  
Joy possesses me

To be a child of God  
And soldier of Jesus  
Is better than to live for ever  
As King of the world

How can anyone sing this and not dance? It laid hold of us at one Sunday meeting and all rose as joy got hold of us and we danced in our places, a sort of Highland Fling or Sword Dance. Oh how you would have enjoyed seeing old grandmamas and grandfathers hopping about, their faces all aglow as they sang and danced! Last market meeting we ended up with it. It laid hold of the people. I went slow at first, repeating the words and they repeating after me, then we sang it till all knew the words, and then we danced as well as sang. Result—everyone came surging around. You never saw such a sight, a couple of acres of dancing singing people. How they enjoyed it and didn't the faces of the Christians beam! I'll never forget it to my dying day. Next Sunday we will go out to one of the villages and will have a long procession singing our songs and so have salvation sounding all along the road both going and coming—Hurray for Jesus!

We are having great times in the evening and somehow I feel God near. It is not a belief, it is a sense. How we enjoy ourselves! It's hard to get them to stop singing and there are roars of laughter when we get the glory. Jesus is good to us and gives us glory in our souls. They love the banjo and we play and sing hymn after hymn and then have slide talks and Bible teaching.

We now have over ninety hymns. My word, we can not only translate the text but put good theology into poetry. Jolly fine stuff too! You don't have to think about the noun or verb playing hide and seek with you, as you do with fine poetry. Ours hits you flat in the face and makes good hot texts for preachers.

One evening I got out the banjo and began to play and sing. There was a fire outside and a full moon. The chief and his wife came and sat on the same stool, a good sight to see! Others kept coming as we sang our merry hymns. The chief and some others knew Bangala but most only knew Kingwana, so when I began to talk I called Tweedledee to interpret. (Tweedledee is brother to Tweedledum; one is my chief butler and the other my chief valet and adviser. Each stands a good three feet high, and their merry laughter is a real benediction.) Tweedledee began to interpret, but the Chief thought he could do it better so they both interpreted, one jogging the other when he left out something. We had a real fine time for about two hours or so; then after I had filled in the vacuum underneath my belt the Chief appeared and said, "Bwana, the news of God is very good indeed. I love it much, and I want my people to learn about it so do please send us a teacher."

We now use the word "hallelujah" instead of "amen" at the conclusion of prayer. "Amen" was a very sleepy affair, something like the last moans of a dying cow. I fancy even the angels must have screwed up their faces. Our "hallelujah" lends itself to enthusiasm and is something like the triumphant shout of a herd of hefty bulls of Bashan. Nobody can remain asleep long, for he is obliged to wake up at the end of each prayer. We have also adopted an improved form of finale after the benediction. I ask the people, "Is it not true that God is?" They reply, "God is." I ask, "Is not Jesus coming again?" Reply, "Jesus is coming." Then we all say "Hallelujah." Well, it is a regular raising-the-roof affair. I sometimes wish some of our dear old staid Christians at home could hear it. The shock would produce enough energy and enthusiasm to milk a whole herd of goats and make them give a double quantity.

Did I tell you about A. being ordained? It was a real "serio" with a touch of "comic" at the end. Never was a more solemn meeting and A. is the most solemn of men. His face was a picture as it always is. He is of the "still waters run deep" variety. (Amazed one day at some fresh revelation of the depravity of some people here, we asked another African elder if it was possible for a black man out here to be pure. His reply was, "Not unless he has a heart like A.") The ordination service was very simple and the chapel crowded, and when the time came to lay hands on his head and commission him we were rather taken aback by the whole congregation saying the words after us sentence by sentence (in a loud voice). So A. was ordained, not by one or two, but by the whole Church! Thus ended our first ordination in the heart of Africa.

### Chapter Five  
God the Fund Raiser

Funds are low again, hallelujah! That means God trusts us and is willing to leave His reputation in our hands.

God has the wealth of the universe at His disposal; we will kneel in humility and adoration to our God.

The Lord is testing our faith and love. For years we have been running easily and never known such a crisis. Perhaps we have been taking things too much for granted and He wants to remind us out of whose hand we are fed, or He may think we have thought too much of our work and not enough of Himself. A letter has reached me from the USA asking what did I think could be done with 9,000 dollars to hasten the return of the Lord by evangelizing Central Africa. The writer is selling a patent and hopes to realise 10,000 dollars, keep the tenth and give nine-tenths for the Lord's return. May God guide us right here. I fear money. Mother Hubbard's cupboard is safe; a full cupboard is very risky.

We stand on God. We believe He is true and keeps His promises and we will not degrade ourselves or waste our time begging people for funds when we have the omnipotent God to go to. We will put no slight upon others who do ask of men; they must do as they please or feel led, but we will not do so. It is a wise move not to ask for funds for we shall then be able to enter many churches, chapels and halls whose doors otherwise would be closed to us through fear that we might carry off money that would ordinarily have been applied to their work or missionary society. We will go to them to give the Word of God only, but we'll ask for money from none but God. Is not George Muller's God our God? Was he a crazy fanatic? God sent over a million-and-a-half of money to him in answer to prayer alone; he never asked a penny of man. Where is our faith? Our faith is in God and God alone. We are children of a King.

It is no test of faith when we are full and abound. The test comes when the scarcity comes; then can be seen the faithful and the others. The faithful take the five loaves and two small fish and give God thanks. The others begin to grouse at Peter for maladministration, as though they had contracted with Peter instead of with Jesus. Of course the flesh always wants its pound of flesh and taboos the Spirit, and so we are very apt to cry out, "Show me the man who has done this?" when if we cry at all we should be saying, "Where is now my God?"

There are no funds. It may be God is answering our prayers in one of His higher ways. These people know much of the facts of the gospel but they imbibe little. They know all about the cross but have never seen it: may it not be that God is going to put the cross visibly across our lives so that they may realise the Cross of Jesus, and then their "chest stones" become hearts, and so their lives change? Anyway we are willing for it. We are not going to let Shadrach and Co. outstrip us. "We know that our God can deliver." If it is a fiery oven we will walk in it with HIM. If it is starvation camp we will abide with Him there till the gate opens to Glory. We have often shouted "hallelujah for the cross" when we saw none visible. Now we see the cross coming here. Let us meet it with a welcoming shout of triumph and display it with the glory of our King. I was rather amused a few days ago to hear one member pray for those who have the financial responsibilities at home. This is the first time I have heard anyone pray to God on God's behalf! None but God is responsible for us financially.

"Why does God permit shortage?" He may be teaching us to fast as well as pray, that the devil may be exorcized from these people. It may be we have erred, or somebody else has done so, as with Achan. If it is a thing, let us put it away. If it is a man, let us leave God to settle with him. It may be God sees the fight in front of us and is training us to endure by these very easy ways. Imagine a dialogue something like this in heaven, but between Paul and Joe Blow.

P. Were you really a fiery WECer, J.B. ?

B. Oh yes, and I went to Africa for Christ.

P. Good, and did you trust God for body as well as for soul?

B. Oh yes, you will see it in our Constitution.

P. And did God always send you a livelihood?

B. Oh yes, He did.

P. So you didn't die of starvation?

B. Oh no, not one of us did.

P. Do you mean you never suffered such serious shortage that there was nothing to eat?

B. Oh no, we never got to that length.

P. (With a smile) Well, all I can say is this, J.B. God could not have had much confidence in your trust in Him, otherwise He would have tested you somewhat more severely, even as I was tried and tested.

### Chapter Six  
The Cricketer Speaks

The telling of the simple gospel—Christ Himself carries with it its own reward of the joy unspeakable that Peter wrote about. What tonic can compare with it? Do you know the sensation of having scored a century in a big match and won it? That is something like it, but one is a thing of time and the other of eternity. No real cricketer lives on a past score; every century only makes him desire to make another. A 'Varsity match won last year cannot atone for defeat this year, and no lost 'Varsity match can ever be wiped out, though a win in the next year supplies a certain amount of comfort, and removes the sting of the pain, though not the scar. My object as captain of the eleven is the winning of the match and the match is the evangelization of the whole Heart of Africa.

I am grateful to a Belgian doctor who kindly pulled a wisdom tooth for me. It was a tough business, not the usual first innings affair. It was a drawn match at the end of the first innings which lasted a good two minutes, and then he had to let go the tooth and have a bit of a rest. He didn't pull teeth in silence like the English, but enlivened the proceedings with running comments of which these are some. "Eh! Est dure. Ha! Il est très dure. Viendra. Viendra. Now. Il est très dure." Then he stopped for a breath and a rest and began in a little English. "He ees coming I think, he ees coming a leetle, a very leetle I think, but il est très dure." Really I knew the jolly thing had not budged. "I am just leetle afraid of breaking him, eet ees best to go gently so, but it is très dure, très dure." Five minutes later he came to the wicket again, laid hold and pulled, shoved, twisted again and again, then let go. Then he shoved the forceps down deeper with a grip that plainly said, "Tooth before honour". I felt my jaw was coming off and held tight to the chair. At last it came and he laid it in triumph on cotton wool saying, "That will be a leetle trophy for me, for surely he was très dure". I'm glad it's out, for African diet with an exposed nerve is not all beer and skittles (as I once heard a priest describe marriage to a bride and groom in his wedding address).

We look to God alone and not to man. We hate stonewalling, we go in to win and do it quick so we hit and hit hard at every bad ball. We do it without partiality and we don't care who the bowler is. It's the ball we hit. If that punishes the bowler, it's his fault for bowling the bad ball. It's this awful opportunism that is doing the mischief at home. This confounded fear of man and this fearing what folks may say. We _must_ look to God, God only, and not to men. Hallelujah!

How are you? You say nothing; you would hide your illness and only think of others, and that is very commendable in one way. But it is still more commendable to let me know your state of health. I know you are also trying to run yourself out, but as captain of this team I want to say that the remaining batsmen are few and your wickets cannot be spared and must not be thrown away. We must win the match, and every run and every batsman is needed. I like a hard hitter and hate a stonewaller, but the happy medium man who stays in and defies the bowling, knocks the loose balls to the boundary, keeps a cool head and scores ones and twos off average balls—and won't be tempted to take needless risks—is the one who wins the match for his side. You get the point?

So strange now to be cycling in dead quiet through the rain forest after having the perpetual shouts and laughter of running men, women and children from start to finish of our day's trek. Of course it was all fun and good temper, but the din and excitement added to the fatigue of cycling on a narrow and bumpy path, with tree roots, stones, holes and steps to cycle over. Having to keep one's eyes glued to the ground the whole way (to avoid the obstacles that would kill the cycle if not the rider) takes it out of a chap. It's rather like running perpetual sixes at cricket for four or five hours at a stretch, without the compensation of seeing the runs announced in the Telegraph.

Never leave the wicket without appealing to the umpire to let you stay. "Not out" spells joy. "Out" spells a sad tramp to the pavilion. The pavilion is all right, but it is not half so good as hitting boundaries and fooling the bowlers and fielders. It's better to be a hitter than a clapper. Don't be a stonewaller, he's an emetic: he makes both sides sick and the crowds as well. Grit your teeth and don't forget to smack the next ball for four.

At our game nobody should leave the wickets till he's fetched from the pavilion on a stretcher or told to go by the Umpire. Keep on hitting and running and never give up. Some folks are "out" but won't admit it and won't go out—God bless them. Others are "not out" yet leave the wickets—God save them. Crusaders are stickers—bulldogs—they don't let go when they have got their teeth in. It's a wonderful game we play. Try to die for Christ and you live. Try to live and you die.

Your account of the work down there at Imbais is magnificent. One needs the Hallelujah Chorus to give vent to one's feelings at such news. Surely you are back at work in the garden of the Lord. I hope to bring a few reliable black Crusaders when I come down your way, but have been blocked until now. I had an eight-week bout of illness and was on the departure platform three times. But the Lord heard our cry and let me carry the cross a little longer. Hallelujah for missed trains, and hallelujah for yet another innings. My stumps were scattered and the bales nearly knocked out the long-stop's eye—but God declared them "no balls" on each occasion, and now He has given me another good driving bat for the remaining smacks. I am sure it will be a well-oiled one, seeing the "Shop" it comes from. The other was in splinters and had lost its driving power. Pray that God will give me yet another innings, my best, a double century.

What price our news? S. has popped the question and been accepted unanimously! It was a case of winning with several wickets to spare, which is especially nice because both sides maintain the victory rests with them. I once played a cricket match which ended up with each side claiming to have won and eventually the judgement was given that it was a tie. I think this is the case with the present match. If it is not a tie it will be one presently, and a parson's tie at that. We are all saying hallelujah.

### Chapter Seven  
Mixed Bag

A knock-down blow is a very different thing from a knock-out blow. Oh glory to God, there is no such healthy spiritual atmosphere as a real "tight corner", and thank God we are in such a tight corner because we are forced to look up and that is the secret of blessing and success. If we can only, by the Holy Ghost, reveal to all that they are living in this tight and ever diminishing corner, then when the fear lays hold how gladly can we give the way of escape by telling them of Jesus. They have only to look unto Him and be saved. Oh what a message! What a salvation! How well the Holy Ghost taught the early disciples to preach. What tight corners they put the people into until they were pricked in heart and called out, "What must we do to be saved?"

We'll get to know each other better, perhaps, when the mists have rolled away; but I think we get to know God best in the mists and the storms, in the furnaces of affliction.

It is grand to be launched in a fight when you know you have not a mortal chance of winning for then one knows HE will win it for you.

The fact remains, God can do little with those who love their lives or reputations, but there is absolutely no limit to what God can do with men or women who care not whether they live or die so long as they are allowed to fight for Christ and do the will of God.

So many 'die' on the platforms at home and then resurrect the wrong way once they get out here.

Evangelizing pours energy and enthusiasm into us. Speak, speak often, speak always. If folks don't respond, well, at any rate your heart gets a lease of increased love and life and joy every time you speak. There's nothing in the world like evangelism to tone up one's soul and spirit.

If God who sits in the heavens can laugh, His children on earth should be loyal enough to do exactly as their Father does.

I greatly rejoice and have only praise for you who, with no counsellor but God and your own conscience, saw clearly the path of honour and took it. You have been a true man. You have proved yourself to be what every Christian man should be—a real gentleman after the pattern of Psalm 15 (which, you no doubt know, is called the Gentleman's Psalm). I doubt if I have much more time to be with you, but while I abide down here you may command me as you will; it shall be both my privilege and pleasure to be your servant and do all in my power to help you to serve our Lord Jesus and rescue souls from hell.

How small things look in the light of eternity, or of the Great Tribulation. Who can go through it? The meek can, and lots of others. But I? There's the real question. I know I can't unless God's mighty power possesses me and chloroforms me.

The "romance" of a missionary is often made up of monotony and drudgery; there often is no glamour in it; it doesn't stir a man's spirit or blood. So don't come out to be a missionary as an experiment, it is useless and dangerous. Only come if you feel you would rather die than not come. Lord Wolsey was right: "A missionary ought to be a fanatic or he encumbers the ground." There are many trials and hardships. Disappointments are numerous and the time of learning the language is especially trying. Don't come if you want to make a great name or want to live long. Come if you feel there is no greater honour, after living for Christ, than to die for Him. That does the trick in the end. It's not the flash in the pan but the steady giving-forth of light, it's shining on and on that we need out here. Our job is to make all hear the Word. God's job is to give penetration to His Word.

The fact is that God can't work for us as He would, if we are squinting: one eye on God and the other on man.

Well, you have a hard choice before you. You are at the cross-roads. How can I help you to decide? You have vowed yourself to God, then to God you must go. You must close your heart, eyes and ears to WEC and X mission, and look to God. Tell Him once again that you want to know His will in order to do it. If you really _will_ do it, then He will show you not merely His will but Himself and He will bless you. Honestly, I would not move a finger to draw you to WEC. A great friend of mine whom God greatly used said, "The secret of guidance is to bank all on God; do your duty; damn the consequences." I might express it myself, "Give yourself to God utterly; vow to Him utter obedience and as soon as He reveals His will, do it."

I might tell you the things which make you long to come, and I might tell you things which put you off from coming. I shall not do either. But what I do say is this, "Be true to God, to yourself, your character, and your friends. When you do God's will, you act as to leave no stain on your character. Be as true as you will hope to be when you stand visibly in the presence of God. If you decide to come here you will find the warmest of welcomes from us all. If not, we will assure you of our heartfelt prayers. The Lord Himself guide you and give you His peace (and war also), for Jesus' sake."

Crusaders must be satellites of THE SON and not of any human moon.

Every Crusader should learn the rudimentary exercise of sitting on himself (his head, tongue and stomach, so to speak).

The best cure for discouragement or qualms is another daring plunge of faith.

_To his own daughter Pauline Grubb_.

Let it not grieve you that you have to leave Congo. God would never permit such a thing had He not some better thing for you to do, some greater work for Him than that out here. I may be wrong, but I think it possible and even probable that God wants you to be a help to mother in the work on the home side, at any rate for a time. Everything to help mother is a very great work, one that perhaps none but yourself can do efficiently, and you will be all the more efficient for having come out here and seen the work. It has not been wasted time, for it is always better to go out and fight and return wounded than never to have gone and fought at all. I feel your strength was never great enough to warrant your coming out to live and work here, humanly speaking, but I do rejoice greatly that a daughter of mine has run in the teeth of common sense and come to fight the battle. This is no failure. It is one of God's deep plans and will all the more turn to the glory of God. So be of good cheer, little Paulo.

Faint not! To faint weakens the heart. If you feel like it put your head between your knees. If your soul feels like fainting, get on your knees and put your soul between them in the presence of God. Imitate none but Jesus. Each will have his own vision of Jesus; let each be obedient to it. Copy nobody else: apes and monkeys copy men; men copy God.

Out here you have got to sleep with the eye of faith wide open.

I have been greatly stirred by reading Revelation. The chief lesson I learned is that as Christ died for the world, so also must we, His Body, do the same. The tortures and deaths inflicted on Christians will evidently be of such a nature that no human being could endure them unless he was indwelt by God's Spirit. So the test will be a perfect one and only those come through as victors who can do the impossible, endure the unendurable, being specially enabled and indwelt by the Spirit of God. Thus shall God be perfectly justified in His anger and judgement when He comes to deal with a world which tortured and killed His Son Who came to save it, and did the same to His Body, the true Church who followed His only Son. Who indeed shall be able to stand? Holy Ghost-possessed men, women and children and none else!

Yes! It's the day-at-a-time religion that tells. What riddles, troubles and difficulties a day-by-day faith solves.

Let me give you one piece of advice. If you ever get the chance and God gives you the choice, don't start a Mission. My! One never knows what is going to be the devil's next attack. I don't feel like the Psalmist, "Oh that I had wings like a dove!" or I should be sorely tempted to use them and go to Jesus, but one must not, cannot, be a coward, so I have to stay. I can do no other. But thank God for a sound backbone and a hot heart.

If you have a back-talking tongue God can cut it out and supply you with a properly oiled affair. But take care when you get the right tongue to keep it oiled with the right kind of Oil, the Holy Spirit.

A man is not known by his effervescence but by the amount of real suffering he can stand.

There was a depth of wisdom in our Lord's command to turn the other cheek, but I say when you do, be sure to keep your tongue in it.

Who will be pleased at your resignation? Will not only the devil be pleased and benefited? Will the committee who sent you out in utter trust? Will the poor folks whose money will have been wasted in giving you the privilege of coming to win the lost for Christ? Will God be pleased, who not only called and sent you out but has put His seal on your abiding here by the converts of which you have recently told me? What will the Africans think if you leave them to perish for no other reason than that you are not to be trusted? How will you be able at the Great Day to suggest that your hands are free from the blood of all men when you callously desert them for no reason at all? I would advise that you seek God earnestly on this matter.

Fear nothing and nobody. Neither disease, death, the devil nor men. "When a soldier does not fear," said Napoleon, "he drives the fear into the heart of the enemy." There is no command of more frequent occurrence in the Bible than this one, "Fear not". The darkest hour is just before the dawn, never despair.

Another wonder God has worked is in G. Not one but several doctors assured her parents that she could not live in England, much less Congo, and that she'd never reach Africa alive. At home she could neither eat nor sleep even with the aid of expensive drugs. It was cruelty, they said to her parents, to bring her out here. But God has honoured their and her faith, not only by bringing her here triumphantly, but making her grow both fat and strong. She now eats and sleeps better than any, she is indeed a proof of the power of God in the way He honours faith and turns pure reason upside down, a fit subject of laughter for such as have faith.

It is good to have the laugh of faith. When doubt whines and cries, faith laughs.

As regards miracles, God is working here in first-class order. Mrs P. should be in heaven. She was halfway through the gate, but then God permitted us to anoint her and pray and lo, she came back and is now in the fight again for which we greatly praise God.

Certainly we should not be at all surprised if God does work miracles of all kinds and we shall not limit His power, should He bestow the gift of speaking in other tongues as on the apostles at Pentecost. We should be delighted, for such would mean the speedy spreading of the gospel. There are so many different tribes and languages that it would be most desirable.

If we dictate to others what is God's will for them we shall make them pigmies, children of fallible men, whereas they need to be giants of God.

I could stand a lot if those who call themselves Christians, and missionaries at that, are loyal and true and have a mind to work and sacrifice, but those who merely play are like vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes.

To shrink is to become smaller than before. Material washing may cause shrinkage; spiritual washing causes magnification in faith, in love, in humility.

It is by invisible things that God does miracles. By prayers on our part and by the gifts of the Spirit on His, He can evangelize the world and will do so.

My dear daughter, so you're holding on! Bravo! Just keep preaching the gospel and let God draw to Himself. We need to make haste to tell the news of salvation to everybody, but we need great patience to let it soak in the soil till God causes it to spring up to eternal life. We have to plough deep, for the life of the plant is according to the penetration and development of the roots. I remember reading of Jerry McKinlay of New York. He was converted three separate times but only held out for a while the first two times. The third occasion he stuck. How true is the parable of the sower—"In due time (and that is God's time) we shall reap if we faint not." Fainting comes from weak action of the heart, but when Jesus is the object of our love how can any of us admit a weak heart? It's a great truth and must be true of each of us, "Though He slay me yet will I trust Him." Somehow I don't think any of us is fit to live for Jesus till death is really as sweet as life to us: till we hold earth and all in it as necessary, but only temporary, drawbacks and encumbrances. The man in love is always a marked one. What a charmed life he leads!

Don't go into the study to prepare a sermon—that's all nonsense. Go into your study to go to God and get so fiery that your tongue is like a burning coal and you have got to speak.

Crusaders! A word with you. "God remaineth." And He is enough. Like Gideon's army we are being pruned and that only means that like Gideon's little flock of kids we shall have a glorious victory. Look up and look forward. Our background is a black ground. Our numbers are few; many have been sick and near to death. Funds are low. Valued members are escorting wounded soldiers part way off the battle field. That all spells nearly enough buckets of water to have pleased Elijah on Carmel. The sacrifice is soused. I don't know if the trench yet overflows, but I do know that the fire shall come down and following the fire an abundance of rain and fruit. Hallelujah! Well, I want to live to see the coming fun. God is blessing, the reports just stir one's blood. Ah! We do need to be intense, and our intensity must ever increase, mustn't it? Or we shall get humdrum and insipid, and we must always be on the crest of the wave, the more so because all around are in the trough of the sea of sin. "Watch" is the weapon of defence, and "Pray" is the weapon for offence.

To those made righteous and Spirit-controlled there is no judgement, only the receiving of the crown and the prize. God is a surgeon and to save these people it requires an operation. But a surgeon requires instruments clean and sharp. We must be His instruments.

### Chapter Eight  
Rings and Stings

Marriage

Jesus lived a double life. He was the man of sorrows and yet He was anointed with joy above His fellows. He walked in the Spirit and conquered the flesh, incarnate but not carnal; and so I want that joy for both of you, the joy without alloy. I want to hear everyone say that you have made B. a better man and friend, a prince amongst men and not a commoner. I want B. to so love you that you will become such a woman that every girl shall call you blessed, and that every man shall say of you, "You can't think evil in that woman's presence." Now that is what I want of each of you, that in some future time of God's abounding grace, I may find myself in heaven and see both of you going up to the throne of God to receive your crown for your work for Christ and the folk of Africa.

I can never believe that an engagement to even a most beloved child of God can ever be considered an honourable excuse for a deliberate renouncing of the most solemn promises made to God and to the home base before being accepted and sent out here to do His work. When an engagement is truly of God it naturally reinforces every previous vow to God and if it does not, I should naturally be inclined to doubt that the engagement had ever been of God.

So you are engaged. May God give you His richest blessing always and may you each as iron sharpen iron, be used to bring souls into the Redeemer's Kingdom. "If one shall chase a thousand, two shall put ten thousand to flight." Marriage, as the Book says, is honourable and I think out here it is especially good. There is a very great strength in loving and being loved, and it is a great safety valve to have someone in whom you can confide all your thoughts and anxieties. Then there is the intimacy of prayer together, the spurring on to do and sacrifice yet greater things for God who sacrificed His Treasure for us. Each should so live as to bring honour to the other, and rejoice in each other's prowess for Christ.

Marriage can be a great blessing or a great curse, depending upon where you place the Cross.

God has given you this great love for each other. You will not forget the Giver, and the gift will cause your hearts to overflow with praise and gratitude to Him. I don't know which of you to congratulate most, which is the luckiest. I will leave yourselves to decide, but it is not worth quarrelling about, for I presume each of you will profess to be the most enriched.

There is always a danger of marriage taking the razor edge off the passion for Jesus and souls.

At tennis so much depends upon one's partner. An unskilful partner, who does not know what real success is, will be a stone round the neck of the most skilful and will lose him the match. But when two play together who have each been successful in other matches, then such a pair are very hard to beat. Now you have been ill for some time, and you have still some months to go in which to get well and train and win your singles match for God. Then will come the doubles. So, my daughter, I desire very much a jewelled crown for you—all the more because I know how joyfully you would cast it at the Saviour's feet. Wait for God's time. Unripe peaches give much trouble and no strength. If you do God's business, He'll do yours.

It would be a great delight to me to be in charge of your wedding service and I think I could easily arrange for it to be fully choral, but I fear the choristers will be unconventionally clad in black coats and leggings! If I am delayed down south I would like you to go ahead without waiting for me. I am sure K. would be able to officiate in fine style. He has been properly churched in his younger days, and is more choral than I am, to judge by the many hymns he sings at the meetings, with increasing gusto and vim.

Babies

One more thing. I have been informed that some have been saying that I am hostile to missionaries having babies and that I considered babies to be a nuisance. I am sure you will be glad to know authoritatively and believe me when I say that such a serious charge could not have originated either in heaven or on earth, but elsewhere. I have had six babies and my wife had six also (same six) and I can testify that our only grief was that the six were not sixty. I hold that babies are the gift of God, but also hold that the first commandment should be obeyed, so that they are to be thanked for but not worshipped. So if you hear this libel circulating again you have my full authority to nail it to the counter at once and the tongue of the circulator with it.

My dear old S. and S., I just don't know what to do! Shall I cry? Or shout hallelujah? I grieve very, very much for your loss. I know what it is, only my loss came in mid-China: and yet the joy too! For it is a great privilege to be allowed to give your first-born to the Almighty and all-loving Father. Only two hours on earth! So just think that darling little Peter has been taken away from the evil to come and will never in all his life know anything but joy and divine happiness. Not one sin has he ever done or seen or heard. And oh, what an education he'll have. What an atmosphere, and what a Teacher. And what a reception our Father is preparing up there for yourselves. My! Peter will never cry for sleep or food, nor from fever, sores or bruises. Why, he has just been born in heaven, so to speak, and oh the glory of it, for the very first person he will see will be Jesus. He's got the best of all of us. He has got a special rapture all to himself, he won't have to wait. He will be one of those who sit so close to the Throne and praise God so abundantly. Oh yes, little Peter will carry us round and tell us "Who's who"! I guess he's met and companies much with my two little ones that God took, one in China and the other in Manchester. Ah yes, we must rejoice even though the tears start. We could not wish him elsewhere than with Jesus. Peter will be offering up his prayers all the time so we must expect extra blessing.

Death

I am afraid that I'm hopelessly unorthodox about burial services. I have no use for formal religion, I want LIFE every time. Dignity is a red flag to my John Bull! I think every funeral should be used as a fishing trip to catch more fish, and we must be careful we don't belie our religion by looking as sour as if our Christian brother had gone to the sub-tropical regions, or as if God and the angels were worse company than we ruffians of earth. As regards funerals of Christians out here, the simpler the better. Let there be joy rather than sorrow for we believe in the resurrection, and the dead in Christ go to be with Him: there is no reason in believing in Him and being sorrowful. We are not as those who have no hope. We know whom we have believed and we know, not being lunatics, where we are going through the grace of our Lord Jesus.

I have to give you the bad news, or rather the good news, that Z. has got his promotion. The King sent for him about a week ago and he has not been heard of since, so I suppose he has gone to what the politicians call the "upper house". Lucky dog! Some of us get turned down again and again. I have gone several times to the river but the ferryboat always seems to be on the other side and before it comes on my side I have to beat a retreat.

The little old Pigmy Christian died suddenly only a few days ago. Such a dear little chap! Truly saved! The Lord took away all sorrow! We had such a glorious funeral; all triumph, assurance, joy and re-doubled determination to do or die, or both, for Jesus and the salvation of the lost. There surely has never been such a funeral. No long faces, no selfish sorrow for our loss, but real joy at his gain. He was a leper. He was verger to our place of worship. He was never idle. Perhaps he is the first saved Pigmy that has entered Heaven! What an honour to the WEC! No wonder God could not spare him any longer outside of Heaven. And oh, what shall we say to God for the honour of having been allowed to present Him with His first Pigmy child? Hallelujah! May my last end and funeral be like that of my dear brother Zacchaeo.

My heart bleeds for you as it does so for myself also. When I left Ibambi your daughter was in perfectly good health. After a few days I heard she had had fever but had recovered. Another letter said the fever had returned, and another that she had been taken to the hospital under the Red Cross doctor and that a lady missionary went along to nurse her. Then came the letter to say she had gone to be with Jesus. I can ill spare her, for her efficiency in French and stenography was very evident. There is one ray of joy and that is a glorious one, her joy at meeting the Saviour she so loved. She has fulfilled the very highest limits of His demands, for did she not forsake her father and mother and her own life also, to follow the Lamb? Our races are oddly arranged: the race course of the one is so very long, almost tedious—the other so amazingly short. God however knows what is, in the distance, the best for each one of us. We shall not, I think, feel strange when we reach the gates and find our loved ones waiting to walk up the Golden Streets with us to the Throne. And to be sure, the time will not be long before we arrive and begin that wonderful life for which so great a price had to be paid—the life of the Son of God and the lives of our own loved ones. These things make one to think. God freely gave His only Son for us and that meant scourging, spitting and the Cross. But God has spared your daughter. He has taken her away from the evil to come. She was ripe, but we must weather more storms and be patient before we are ready for the Royal Table. I pray God to give you His strength, that you may be able to endure this pain for the benefit of Jesus with patience and joy. With my deepest love and sympathy.

### Chapter Nine  
The Devil and His Den

Shansi, China. 18 December, 1887.

The awful power of the devil—the darkness one feels. The air is filled with the devil and the people seem literally possessed by him; held spellbound, deafened, hardened, blinded by him. It has stirred us almost to wonder if it is in the Bible at all that there's a stronger power. Why do we not realise it more? Is it _really_ said in the Word that the Son of God came that He might destroy the devil and his works? Oh how the thought makes our hearts and brains reel with the possibilities. Tonight we really heard God's own voice thundering it forth as a mighty rushing torrent, sweeping away the evil heart of unbelief. He, Jesus, took part of our nature that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, and deliver them who through fear were all their life subject to bondage. So we are more than conquerors through Him to whom nothing is impossible or too wonderful. We feel just like Job:

"God is great and we know Him not", but, hallelujah, we have taken hold of Him and He is revealing His majesty. He is letting us hear the voice that breaks the fear, which can divide the flames of fire and shake the wilderness. First from our own hearts He has taken away much that was deeply rooted. He has given us a thorough good shaking so as not to be content with the faith as a grain of mustard seed only.

He has made the devil very real to us; hell real to us; eternity real to us. So real that we see these people are dead and only the voice of the God of Glory thundering forth can waken them. We see that it is just as the life of the risen Son of God, the Conqueror, is manifested in our lives that the devil and all his power shall be shaken and destroyed here in Hoh-Chun. That as we are willing to be like Him, who took on Him the form of a servant and humbled Himself, so shall we be in His hands the saviour of these Chinese. How it rings in our ears, "Ye have not resisted unto blood striving against sin." It has humbled us before our God and made us feel that in His service we follow after Him, whether for life or for death. For in saving others He could not save Himself, and we should follow in His steps. If any man say he abides in Him, let him walk even as He walked, setting his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem and death.

The devil has been slamming me something awful of late. Selfish fellow too—for I don't believe he could abide me in hell!

The devil is a crafty enemy and one soon finds one needs Christ's armour not only in front but on both sides and especially on one's back. There is nothing in the world like war against the devil, and no pleasure so great as to be in the middle of a battle.

Beware of spectacles. If you have your own wear them, and don't leave them about. The devil substitutes his for yours and then you see all things in the grey light of his eye. Or he gives you rose-tinted specs which make the devil himself look like a saint; or his dark glasses which make even God look like Satan.

Of course the devil had another skirmish and got licked. God whipped him as usual till he slunk off with his tail between his legs and the brand of the whip on his hide. Hurray, victory! This is yet another spur pricking us to make us gallop faster to take the last remaining dens. Never had the devil more cause to fear; never has God done a bigger thing than He has done with us fools in spite of all the hindrances. The dens are ours by faith in Jesus and His wonderful work. Still more faith and they will be occupied by black soldiers of Christ. Hurray for once again being buried in mud for that means but another resurrection.

The devil threatens us and declares he will put us into the burning fiery furnace of starvation. Our reply is just this, "O Satan, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter: if it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us and He will deliver us. But if not, we will not serve your gods nor ask for our lives of any but Jesus." No people have ever heard more of the love and the blood and the sacrifice of Jesus than these people; some have not believed, or if they have they have failed to respond to His love, perhaps because they have not seen it in us. It may be God will teach them and others through our little bit of sacrifice which they can see. If so, they are welcome. If we go to be with Him, what an honour! For He must want us nearly as badly as we want Him. If we stay on, we shall live something like Lazarus must have lived after they had taken off the grave-clothes. My word! I wonder he could ever sit still again, even to dine that time with Jesus! We don't want to go to Heaven in golden slippers nor on a flowery bed of ease. My anxiety is that I fear God is just having a game of hide-and-seek with us and when we least expect it He will burst out upon us.

Some wish to live within the sound  
Of Church or Chapel Bell.  
I want to run a rescue shop  
Within a yard of Hell.

The 1914-1918 War is just one more trial of faith, but we laugh at the idea of it hindering us. God is above all, and He will on no account allow it to hinder us either as regards men, women or means. Always advance. No retrenchment. Step out in faith and if it is a large step, then run and jump in faith. Laugh at impossibilities. Every difficulty and obstacle is but a call to go ahead. Open the throttle of the engine to the full every time the devil waves the red flag of danger or the green flag of caution, and let's go full steam ahead. We shall smash or jump over every one of the devil's obstacles and rejoice the heart of our God by our trust in Him. We have not yet made Him smile for joy at our faith. We must make Him laugh with a boisterous joy at our faith in Him.

Oh what a commotion in hell if but one true Christian got in there by mistake. There would be perpetual motion and he would never rest till he found Jesus, and he would be shouting out the name of Jesus and not that of the devil, till indeed the devil would be afraid that half of his flock of goats would become sheep.

Jesus came to make bad men good—Jesus sent us to make these people white, not grey, striped or piebald Christians. Our wages have been misappropriated, stolen by the devil. We are going to storm heaven in order to stop the mouth of hell. Oh, it is glory in our souls. It's a shame Jesus should receive so little for all His sufferings and death and prayers. He has been robbed by His own people, we are going to stop all thieving. Satan is the thief, we will kick him out by the Blood and the Spirit of Jesus, tar and feather him and block his road back by the Cross. No wonder the devil is cross himself. His tongue is long and he spits fire and seeks to burn our cross. We sit on the cross, full of the "water of life", and this is our heavenly asbestos! A million a week are going to hell and we keep as cool as icecream. Oh, my Crusaders, get hot and catch some of the devil's human dragons and turn them into lambs, then lions of Jesus.

I am grieved at the trouble you have had, but of course when we try to blow up the devil's den we must expect he will make it unpleasant for us and play tit for tat. If we try to catch and free his goats we must expect he will retaliate by trying to befoul and lead astray the occupants of our own pens. Do you know the game of snapdragon? Raisins in a large dish—spirit poured over them and lighted—you have to snap the raisins from the dragon or go without. A "raisin" so snapped is worth 100 others cold. Though we raise hell every time, yet we won't stop exploding the devil's mines. So stir away and shout in triumph when the darkest hour comes and all seems lost, for the darkest hour is the herald of the dawn. I believe we are on the verge of great blessing. There are signs of it, but the devil is as hard as he is crooked and we must expect great opposition. Our fight is not going to be a walk-over but it is going to test us to the very marrow, and it will be won by no human individual. As was once said, "If we don't hang together we shall all hang separately," so let us all advance again to victory or death.

Some in derision called this venture a wild-cat scheme. Well, the cat is doing mighty well and will soon have plenty of kittens ... all black ones. The devil has tried to frighten us out, turn us out, fire us out, flood us out, fever us out, but I guess that even he is tired of us bobbing up again like a cork in the sea. We're giving him neuralgia and getting on his nerves, but he works in other ways. He is preventing clever-headed, chicken-hearted souls with the fancy Christianity from coming out to join us.

I can easily see why the folks at home want to eliminate Hell from their theology, preaching and thought. Hell is indeed awful unless its preaching is joined to a life laid down by the preacher. How can a man believe in Hell unless he throws away his life to rescue others from its torment? If there is no Hell, the Bible is a lie. If we are not willing to go to Hell on earth for others, we cannot preach it.

My dear old F., I own it! I am a rascal for not writing sooner; but it's just the same old game, the devil setting my ricks on fire all the time. I have not put out one fire before I have to go to the next one, so you will excuse me, especially as now and again he puts a stink bomb in to vary the monotony. Oh the threats we have had since you left; battles fierce and many, but out of them all our good Captain has delivered us.

### Chapter Ten  
Heaven is Real

Please stop the A. and N. stores from sending me any more banjo strings. I have enough to last me some ten years after I get to heaven, and probably much longer for it will not be so damp there—at least after God has wiped away our tears. But perhaps harp strings are different from banjo ones. _(Note: When C. T. died he left five banjos.)_

We are looking for the coming King and so we are looking for the King coming into His own, namely the hearts of blacks as well as whites and turning all into high explosives. Oh my God! My soul is full of the glory of the Lord. If this is earth, what must heaven be? The only difference so far as I can make out is that heaven has a visible Jesus and Jesus is God. Here we have heaven because Jesus is here but He is invisible. He is inside. Christ in you, the hope of glory.

I was reading the other day that the transfiguration of Jesus was allied to His sacrifice which was to be accomplished. Ah! Most wonderful of all His miracles is this one He teaches us, not merely to endure sacrifice, but to suffer it with joy and to crave for more. Presently we shall be at the great wedding ceremony of the Lamb and how we shall want to be clad in the same clothes as He! But we must see to it that we have the pierced hands and feet, a thorn-pierced brow and the wounded and broken heart. Then, though we be despised as He was on earth, and though we despise ourselves as we really should, yet He shall not despise us. Oh how good to remember, "Keep thine heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life." I must have Jesus abiding there, Director and King. One thing we all know is that the measure of our sacrifice is the limit of our success. The greater the loss the greater the gain. The price paid determines the jewels of the crown.

How I should want to die of shame if, when I walked up to the Throne of God between two rows of angels, I heard them ask, "Who the mischief is this?" And then the answer should travel from one to the other up to the Throne, "This is the man who would not be extreme for Jesus." I should have to keep as quiet as a mouse and pray that God will see Jesus instead of me.

I am getting desperately afraid of going to heaven for I have had the vision of the shame I shall suffer as I get my first glimpse of the Lord Jesus; His majesty, power and marvellous love for me, who treated Him so meanly and shabbily on earth, and acted as though I did Him a favour in serving Him! No wonder God shall have to wipe away the tears off all faces, for we shall be broken-hearted when we see the depth of His love and the shallowness of ours.

Now then, Christ's Crusaders, here's your chance and your call. Gird your armour on, grasp the Spirit's mighty sword, trust in our Captain. Here are some battle chants ...

Fling out the banner, let it float  
Landward and seaward, far and wide,  
Our glory is our Saviour's Cross,  
Our only hope—the Crucified.

At Thy feet I fall,  
Yield Thee up my all,  
To suffer, live or die  
For my Lord crucified.

Lead me, Lord, and I will follow,  
Though I sail through seas of blood,  
'Twill be joy to share the sorrow  
Of my Saviour and my God.

I will be a daring fighter for God, staunch in the charge. He leads me. Gladly I'll stand where He stood before, whatever it may cost me. "Danger and sorrow, hardship and pain, I'll greet it with joy for my Saviour's Name." That's right! But soldiers—remember to sing the same song in the battle as in the barracks at home! Don't sing it "Pianissimo"—but _act_ it "Fortissimo". Then before long the cry shall go up: "The Kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ!" "And He shall reign for ever and ever." And so this Christ Himself leads us through the gates and up the streets of heaven and we hear the angels sing:

Marching with Thy cross their banner  
They have triumphed, following  
Christ the Captain of salvation,  
Christ their Saviour and their King.

Gladly, Lord, with Thee they suffered,  
Gladly, Lord, for Thee they died!  
And by death to life immortal,  
They were borne and glorified.

Some walk softly to heaven in felt slippers so the devil will not hear them padding upstairs and they escape being bitten. We are the rear-guard marching slowly to shield them from scratches, getting gashed all day long by the devil, while they look over the bannisters and whine, "Oh Charlie, darling, why don't you come home to good food, a nice bed, to croquet, to picnics, to partridge-shooting, to a rest and change?" No fear! If I am going to have a short life, all the more reason for me to live fast and do more. Every man is immortal till his work is done. The only thing to do is to get the work done in the shortest possible time and then rest one's heart in Jesus for ever.

There is one land fit for heroes—heaven—and so God is making heroes to inherit it. He came to make us good. If bad men can enter heaven He need not have come and died. We must have a passion for Jesus and truth and love, and a passionate hate of all evil. My! What shall we do when we see Jesus? God will have to get a hose and turn it on some of us to keep us cool when we see Him as He is.

### Chapter Eleven  
Holy Living

Y, it is good to go according to God's written Word and not according to the vapoury imaginations of man. None but the holy shall enter in. Holiness is not a coat of whitewash but a blood-washed heart and a fiery blameless life by the Spirit of God; one that harmonizes with the words of the Spirit Who wrote the Book and gave it for our learning and not for our cutting it to pieces.

We have fine evenings here together over the Bible. We go in hot and strong for holy living, and abhor the idea of Christ having come to die in order to enable God to hold lax views of justice and holiness. We hold with the utmost tenacity to a whole inspired Bible. The fact is that God will never wink at sin, and call that exercising Grace.

Yes, the fight is fierce, but in that lies the greater grandeur and glory of it, for these people shall yet be diadems in His crown.

I am so glad you are keen on sanctified Christians. But after all is a non-sanctified one any Christian at all? And where does a man without holiness come in? God says, "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord." If any man hath not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His, and if he has the Spirit of Christ he is governed by, and walks after, the Spirit.

If this Church is to be the bride of Christ, we must see that it keeps itself clean, we must take as much care of it as we take of the women and girls here. We must tell them and see that they are filled with the Spirit. It is like a cycle which runs on two wheels, faith and works—the Spirit and obedience. Sons led by the Spirit are God's sons, those who have not the Spirit are not led by Him and are not Christ's. I have no objection to quick baptisms, but there must be summary discipline also, or else our folks will soon be the scoff of all.

These folk have been reared in iniquity, and the blood of many generations of iniquity is in them, so that we need constantly to remember David's words, "Deal gently with the young man, even with Absalom, for my sake." Poor chaps, they have a hard row to hoe. We have a stiff fight, and we cannot afford to slacken off, but we must pray without ceasing and feed on the Word much, and teach them to imbibe, extract, and cash its splendid promises. We must be content with nothing less than a Holy Ghost storm.

One misses the hatred of sin and love of righteousness, and indeed the deep love and real walk with Jesus. One surely longs to see the unmistakeable marks of the new birth and without that, though they have crossed the Red Sea, they are bound to perish in the wilderness. Here everyone who enters the Kingdom has not merely been a miracle, but is a continued one. Some give me joy, but the many make me tremble for the times of persecution which are surely coming, for it will take a very real and intense love for Jesus to make any of them then stand firm.

Oh, it is a solemn thought that a believer either becomes a reckless man for Jesus, or else a wrecker of souls by his self-indulgence and refusal to purify himself as Christ is pure.

I am delighted at the stress you lay upon these people being holy if they would enter heaven. If Christ can't make men holy on earth who or what is going to make them holy? Is the fear of death, or death itself, a greater power unto holiness than Christ Himself? I trust not. "Ye shall be holy for I am holy," and if a man shall not be holy how can he enter the Holy of Holies above?

If a man keeps on assuring you that he is sanctified, by all means put him on a pedestal in Trafalgar Square. We have no pedestals here and no use for marble statues. The best test of a sanctified man is to ask his family about him.

Some converts have left us because they would not go the whole road to Calvary and they would not believe in the necessity of holiness. They thought that sin does not bar from heaven; that sin in a Christian is less vile than in a pagan and that he has his welcome into heaven by the Holy God, though he has neglected a full salvation and defiled the blood of the covenant, whereas the ignorant pagan is cast into hell for precisely the same sin. This doctrine is devilish and is not from God. Well, now we are solid for sacrifice, the blood, the Spirit and the Cross and we don't care a fig what happens so long as Jesus is glorified in the uttermost salvation of these people.

Very many think the road to heaven is an easy affair and they get slack and then comes the mischief; unless Jesus and the Bible lied (and they didn't, of course), the road will always be straight and narrow and uphill. The Word of God by lip, life and by print is the only way for these sin-soaked souls. You might as well expect to pelt a crocodile with Carter's Little Liver Pills as try any other medicine on these ulcerous hearts than the blood and Spirit of Jesus. But Hallelujah, when they penetrate into their souls the cancer gives place to the most miraculous sight on earth or perhaps in heaven. The blood and the Spirit will wash and recreate the vilest if he is willing.

We will have the real holiness of God, not the sickly stuff of talk and slobberiness of dainty words and pretty thoughts. We will have a masculine holiness, one of daring faith and works for Jesus Christ.

It wouldn't do any harm to ask honestly where are the thousands who have been baptised in the past ten years? How many have apostasized? How many evangelists are today still employed and how many have turned back? These things give one furiously to think. Of course many have turned back who wished to walk to heaven in dirty golden slippers and found they couldn't.

There are two hopeless things, salvation without Christ and salvation without holiness.

Christ said that the pagan who did not know the Lord's will should be beaten with few stripes, and he that knew and did it not should be beaten with many. Well, there are many nowadays holding the cursed doctrine that a man can know his Lord's will and not do it, and be beaten with no stripes! That is a gross lie. Christ did not die to whitewash us, He died to recreate us and none but His recreation enter heaven. These folks are going to hell to live in torment for ever and they are snoring away. The devil is trying to delude them into believing all sorts of trash, especially that they can sin and yet be saved. You have to awaken them out of their delusion. You have to be firm and teach them what obedience and disobedience means; if we coddle them we make out ourselves to be more loving than God. We are apt to get sloppy and unreal, to be content to preach and sing, and forget that we are there to pull them out of hell.

Now about your query as to how we should treat these people. As you say, there is the hard and the soft method. China, India and now here, have taught one a lot in a pretty long life. There is only one way to look at it. We have come out here primarily to make known the gospel. They need to know about hell and the result of their sin; that produces the fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom. Once they get this fear, all will be comparatively easy, but if it does not lay hold of a man, his so-called conversion is a sham. Take the case where a man has taken opium to commit suicide. You have to get him awake, you slap him, you throw water on him, you prick him with needles, you galvanize him with electricity, anything to get him awake. If you use gentle, sloppy soft-soap measures because you love him, that doesn't wake him and you've lost your chance and have killed him. True love awakens a man to reality: sham love soaps him down to hell. You have to teach them what obedience and disobedience means.

What will God say presently and what will the people at the Judgement Seat en route to hell say to us but, "We are going to hell because you were unfaithful to God and to us, for you made light of sin. Because you made light and glossed over our sin we thought God had also glossed over it. You have damned us." We must awaken these people from their awful delusions. They must be taught that they have to be righteous. The blood and the Spirit of Christ will wash and recreate the very vilest if he is willing.

### Chapter Twelve  
Extravagant Love

It becomes a greater wonder every day how the Holy God and Jesus Christ can put up with me for a single hour. I think the fact that He still makes me love Jesus is the greatest proof of the being of God that I know. As He is Almighty I still have hope He will stay with me and see me through.

Personally I think the weakness of all our positions is not the incidental or smaller things, but in our breaches of the great root commandment to love one another. If the love of any of my children grows a little less hot or becomes tepid, I detect it at once in their letters. It is all the more painful if no reason is given for it; one just has to stand the pain. We are so afraid to love that we will not let our hearts go out. That causes the absence of that wonderful power that used to obtain when even the heathen said, "See how those Christians love one another." God was therefore not ashamed to show Himself as their omnipotent God. The great secret to which we must get back is, "Beloved let us love one another; for love is of God and God is love."

I would sooner die loving over-much than act as the Pharisee and say, "Stand apart from me." I have had a real eye-opener in reading the Thessalonian Epistles. Just see the love between Paul and his people. You can't get beyond it. I have laughed loud at my egregious folly: did I think I had ever loved any too much? Oh God, I have loved too little, that's my damning sin—I have loved all and each too little. This is the glaring sin of Christendom.

If our love to God and His work gets chilled, our candlestick will be removed. If our love becomes tepid, Christ will spue us out of His mouth.

Modern Christians are dry bones, who would neither give nor go, a mere caricature of "A mighty army of the Living God". We have not evangelized the world, to our undying shame. Why? Because we have not been possessed by the Holy Ghost. Because we have not obeyed Christ's commands. Why have we disobeyed? Because we have not loved Christ supremely. Now we will begin again. Will I love Jesus supremely? I will. Will I obey His commands with joy? I will. Will I live for Him every hour till I have the privilege of dying for Him? I will. Now put "we" instead of "I" and the Church WILL once more become an Army of the Living God, bowing to His commands.

True faith in Christ causes great love to Christ. The first step to Him is right-about face, that is, a turning from sin and Satan to Jesus. Nobody can walk backwards to Christ; to do such would be an insult. A king's servant or subject never turns his back on his king. Therefore, "Come to Jesus" means right-about face, come away to Him, forsake sin and Satan and run to Jesus.

To a couple who had withdrawn their resignation.

Your letters are a treasure and set my heart bounding with praise and thanks to our God for you. As I forgot my own birthday, as usual, it was rather a blessing that your congratulations arrived late. They prolong the thanks and praise to our great loving Saviour. Your letters are the best birthday present I have or could have had. My heart was so grieved and seemed like breaking often, but now it bounds along like a two-year old, my joy knows no bounds. I meditate doing all sorts of silly things to prevent the blow up, some sort of safety valve! My whole being is braced with a new and fiery vigour for the fight. Do I trust you, my children? Don't insult me, I do. Do I love you? Yes, with all my heart. I only ask that you never doubt it again lest it breaks under the stress, for I do not think I could stand many bad wrenches from those I love. Now let me say that you yourselves can increase my love just by loving and serving Jesus more and better, just by fighting harder for Jesus against the devil; just by entering into contract that in this family the word retreat or resign never be mentioned. Your glory is mine, your joys and sorrows are mine, your successes are mine. The failures, however, are all mine and not yours. So be jealous of God's honour and of each other's work and success even more than your own.

Well! Now we must make up for lost time; tell me all about yourself and your work always. Tell me anything and everything you want and if it is in my power to give or send, it shall be yours: I only desire you to be exceedingly fruitful and joyful with the blessed Spirit of God. May love ever dwell among us all out here so that it shall be said in deed and in truth, "See how these Christians love each other." And the same shall then be duplicated among our black brothers and sisters. Then we shall go to conquer the whole wide world for Jesus.

Regarding your apology, I don't think you have done yourself justice in your apology to H. Your accusation was so severe and grievous that when proved to have no ounce of evidence or foundation it required a very handsome apology. But I cannot say your apology was from your heart. Do you not think you could write him another letter coming from your heart this time and not your head? Had H. been the offender I should not have been content for him to make a similar apology to you, for the object of any apology is to make the two bruised hearts united in love and esteem towards each other. I want you and H. to love one another, but when we sin against a brother we sin against Jesus. H. forgives you and he will forget, but I doubt you will ever forget unless you make a really loving apology. So in sheer love just let your heart go out to him in another letter. Two bears walked along a narrow mountain path. From the other side of the valley a man shot the foremost bear on the rump. He at once turned round and knocked his brother bear on the nose. You see the point? Can two walk together unless they be agreed? Well, we have a glorious Saviour and a great work which angels would give their wings to come and do. Let us get on with it and keep our great opportunity before us, and heed not the devil's shot.

Come along and see how you can inflame our love for Jesus! Out here one needs to be so on fire that you can't walk for the pain but must run so as to touch the world as little as possible. Thus you live more in the heavenlies than on earth. Oh for heat to love Thee more! May the consuming Fire consume us all.

To a Crusader not returning to the field.

What about Queen Esther? She forsook the path of personal fear and did what was right. Esther renounced her own life and thus saved her uncle, her people and herself. Did not God preserve you when you were out here last term? Now my daughter, shall you turn from the battle because of the word of the doctor, a mere man? Oh! What a chance you have to preach the most wonderful sermon possible to the whole world. You have the alabaster box of the most precious spikenard with which to anoint your God and Saviour before the audience of the world. The Judases of the Christian world will cry out, "What a waste!" but what did Jesus say? "Leave her alone, she has done what she could." Would you change it to, "She loved her own life more than she did her Saviour?" Love Christ, dash in with all joy at being given the priceless privilege of flinging away life for Christ's sake.

Truly Jesus is a wonderful Saviour. He is the only One I have ever known who has really fully lived up to His Name and reputation, so there is still some hope for this old world when its proper King returns. I was thinking the other day of "the rod of iron" with which our Lord is going to rule the world; a rod of iron would be a nasty thing to be beaten with but it does not say it will be used as a fimbo (rod used for punishment), but as a rule. There lies perhaps the meaning. Tape-measures stretch, wooden ones break or warp, but steel and iron don't change. So I presume the rod of iron means absolute truth and justice which are the foundations of His Throne. Oh, I do love Jesus. He has led us through fire and water but the wealthiest place is ours all right. Baptized with his baptism and drinking of His cup. Hallelujah! We are in the apostolic succession! When we are in love with Jesus who can tempt us? But one must remain in love and so all flirting must cease.

Congo is a thirsty land, and one can't get on without the hot fire-water of the Holy Spirit. Something that burns your heart, that makes your eyes flash and your tongue like a sharp sword. Something that makes you see through fogs and mists, and all the smoke clouds of hell. Something that will make you have a single eye and tell no white lies. You know what a white lie is? A thing is either a truth or a lie, in other words white or black. But in order to please, you say it is grey. Well, that grey is a white lie, the fruit of the fear of man and ignorance of God. Jesus said, "Either make the tree good, his fruit good or bad." He never said anything of this new doctrine of grey. It was white or black with Him every time. And I see He says He will spue out of His mouth those who are tepid or lukewarm, neither hot nor cold. No grey for us. If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be damned. If he loves Jesus, let him die for Him.

### Chapter Thirteen  
A Sanctified Funny-bone

A good thing to have up your sleeve is a sanctified funny-bone.

When Buck arrived he said, "The first thing God has sent me to Congo for is to fix your teeth." Just fancy God sending a dentist to the very heart of Africa to look after the teeth of His child who could not return home! What wonders will God get up to next?

The day after arrival he started on my teeth and removed four stumps and two teeth at one sitting. It was a mighty time and he himself was dead beat at the finish, for he had a real hard job to annex them. I don't think he could have done any better even with a pick-axe. When all were out he felt like a dog with two tails. He has made me an upper and a nether millstone to fill up my mouth, and I feel like the boy who bolted an apple dumpling to avoid detection of theft by his mother. The teeth are good for singing but are no use for eating. They steal my food and hide it in a secret place so I find I am able to do without my 11 o'clock lunch! My voice these days is just what they call "toothsome", and has a bit of an echo.

I can sing much better with the plates in, but my gums get so sore that I have to remove them after a while. Imagine the scene last Sunday. I removed them in the meeting while praying, tied them together in my handkerchief (to keep them from biting one another or me) and placed them in my pocket. Now when the prayers were over you should have seen the blanched faces of the audience. They were like a great crowd of pharaohs who knew not Joseph! Bwana they knew and Bwana Makubwa they knew, but who was this? And where had those dental appendages gone? Who had extracted Bwana's teeth while we prayed? (Wherever I appear now, every eye settles on my mouth to see if it is their old Bwana or the new one with the teeth.) Then for very shame I dashed for my handkerchief to hide my blushing face. Out it came, and the teeth as well and ran all over the platform looking for each other. They found each other at last but Buck, poor Buck, I fear he has never forgiven me. There were tears in his voice as he said, when all the teeth had come together again, "You don't see a set of false teeth like those every day, they are worth a guinea a box." Well, enough of my fun! But oh those teeth! The people can stop praying now. They used to pray: "Bwana Makubwa is very, very old. His strength is small and his teeth are few. Please give him some more."

Tubby is a little black girl with a fat chubby face, which reaches almost two feet six inches from the ground, but Tubby is an Empress in her own right and rules as though born to it. She is the best reader in the girls' school and on the station. She stands on a form by the blackboard teaching great big women, and she begins her instruction by wise words such as: "Now just set your minds on this and then you will get it. Don't let them wander all over the world and the kitchen, but think thoughts." Tubby left for her holidays a little while back and two days ago a man came from her village and told us about her career there. He said: "Tubby has gathered a band of girls around her. She has taught them to pray and sing the hymns of God. She teaches us all daily, and when the folks fall sick they send for her for they say that God answers her prayers. She marshals her choir of disciples and marches them to the sick chamber to pray, and God heals the sick one." Just one more instance of "A little child shall lead them". When officials come here, Tubby is always called out to read them the gospel and make them marvel. I think he will be a lucky bridegroom who annexes Tubby, but he will have to be a pretty hot lot or else she will give him some lectures to make his ears sing. She is a little pet.

By the way, that brings me to another invention, an old-fashioned one. I had been reading of dear Father John of the South of England who wrote me a delightful letter urging us not to fall short of our Biblical standard—that of Paul's to greet the brethren with a holy kiss. Since then a missionary came to tell me of two men who were quarrelling and asked what was to be done. "Oh," I said, "Make them kiss and be friends." To my consternation he took it up and gave the verdict, but how were they to be taught? "Perhaps," I said, "Tweedledum and Tweedledee will oblige." And sure enough they did. Their style was artistic and utilitarian to a degree difficult to imagine, but it did the trick and in no time the two culprits in the case had kissed each other. So surely the WEC is not lacking in initiative nor in pluck and you never know, ere you sow your seed, as the Scripture says, which will prosper, whether this or that.

Sanzi met me and played the game fine, brought eggs which one could see through. Like theology, one always examines eggs out here before buying them, else you get young chicks in abundance instead. And you get plenty of shocks here without the additional one of your hard-boiled egg beginning to crow in your face.

I understand you are quite anxious to incorporate in our books some pictures of the incidents found in Scripture. I think that would be excellent, the more the better. The faces of our Africans will shine when they have such pictures; but may I make one proviso. In the pictures in the European magazines, I observe that ladies there dress chiefly in clothes they have obviously purloined from their little sisters. I would prefer not to incorporate in our books the pictures of white ladies who are obviously seeking to economise in clothing, as our black sisters of necessity do here.

In your points for prayer you made a mistake. Mania the chief has been dead for some years, so we had better not land ourselves in the ditch of praying for the dead.

Now about those two workers and their difference. I have a distinct aversion to putting my nose in the crack of a door lest it swings to, for the result would be painful. I once saw another man's nose after such an operation and that was enough for me. A nose is a great thing, but a nose between two hearts might cause an explosion. No, the hearts are quite sound—let them be.

### Chapter Fourteen  
Apt Illustrations

My life must be as that of the woman breaking the alabaster bottle, and pouring forth sweet-smelling perfume over the feet of Jesus. Let any young man but smell that odour, and see that it really has been brought about by the breaking of the alabaster, and he says, "Then I will break mine too. I must have that smell. It is life to me."

To be sweet-smelling to God, we must be broken and poured-out, not merely containers of a sweet smell.

God uses strange tools as well as odd fellows with which to do His work, that all the glory might be His. Though we might not be able to do much with it, Samson wrought considerable havoc with the jawbone of an ass, and he had 1000 good witnesses in front of him at the time to confirm it. It's not the weapon but the one behind it that does the trick, as any cricketer will tell you. At the same time I have great sympathy with Goliath. David's ridiculous weapons must have deeply injured his pride, even as his boyish appearance stung Eliab into dealing that verbal box on the ear to his younger brother for seeming presumption. So Eliab applied the "wait and see policy" in the rear, while Goliath only saw stars, or stones, and felt the force of David's argument once it got into his head. The rest waited and saw and then helped to finish the victory that David had already won. As God says, "Judgement is according to works." Let each mind his God, his weapon and his own business.

From the Scriptures I gather that the man of God will be so manifestly heroic that many will call him mad because of his over-boldness. Queen Elizabeth once said to her favourite general who had expressed a wish to retire rather than take the command of yet another war, "If you manage my affairs I will manage yours." He did and she did. If we risk and toss up all for Christ, be sure He will move heaven and earth on our behalf.

I was much helped the other day by a man who declared that we get poor crops in England because of two things. 1) We don't plough deep enough. 2) We sow too deep. He says wheat roots will go down one yard and then produce prolifically: but our poor yields are because we only plough about one foot and the roots cannot penetrate the hard sub-strata. We must plough deep and wait God's time. One sows but another reaps: let it be so, all shall presently rejoice together.

There is no victory like the victory of defeat. Christ's greatest defeat was His greatest victory. Paul, forsaken of all, only became a more glorious victor. There can be no defeat to those who do not fear death. Let but death become our sweetheart and we are more invulnerable than Achilles, for if we have a vulnerable heel we shall never retire and so never turn our vulnerable part to the enemy. If you are at the gates of hell with the devil's black and tans around you, never fear; the lions are chained ones, and where sin abounds grace does much more abound.

Have you heard of Francis of Assisi? He was the original friar who started the holy order of friars, with their three vows of purity, chastity and obedience. He moved the world and they did not know what to do with him. If they hit him, he turned the other cheek saying, "Thank you very much. Now may I request the favour of a similar caress on this other one?" If they stole his boots, he pressed upon them his socks. If they withheld food he saluted them, for he sought fasting always and not food. If they prepared for him a halter he worshipped God and said it was a halo. Oh, do let's get some fire out of our glorious religion. The world never yet crucified a clown. If we will only be clowns for Jesus we will take the world by storm.

These times are exceedingly precarious in our pioneer work in these regions. My position reminds me of a sight not uncommon in India when a lizard finds itself situated between two crows. While he faces the one, the other sticks the equivalent of pins into his tail. Only in this case there seem to be several crows, not just two, after my appendage.

Of one thing you may be all quite sure: God made dogs to wag tails, not tails to wag dogs; and if God is the Head of WEC He is not going to let the tails dictate to the Head.

In the forest we found a shrub which had seed pods of a peculiar description. Underneath the flower was the seed pod. If you touched a ripe pod, however slightly, it burst with a spring and shot out its seeds to a distance of three yards. It gave you a kind of kick as you touched it. An unripe pod you could punch hard but there was no spring. Christians should be like these ripe pods. They reminded me of two things: 1) As many as touched Jesus felt the Power spring from Him; 2) He that believes, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

It's the new birth that causes men to _hate_ evil and _love_ good. That is the one and only salvation. Galatians 5 puts it excellently; a man ought to know a stone from a potato. The Laodicean Church was a washed stone. Washed stones may be pretty sometimes, but they are poor things for a man's table and worse for God's. If we wait for the potatoes we shall not damage our teeth and tempers by trying to crack washed stones.

We do not know God's strength when we are propped up, but only when the props are removed. A propped-up boat is a land-lubber, but remove the props and the vessel glides into the sea of God's care and love where it rides triumphantly on the angry waves even as on the calmest sea.

If I were you I would be very careful about kicking over the traces, so to speak, in which God has harnessed you to His work of pulling along the great chariot of salvation.

There is no name so great, so sacred and so glorious in all the world as the name of Jesus; there is but one name that equals it, the name of God. There is no title which can add one iota of grandeur or majesty to the name of Jesus, the name high over all, in earth or sea or sky. There is a little girl I love very much and when she was asked to be a bridesmaid her thoughts ran on her own marriage. One day she announced that she herself was going to be married. Her father said, "You must marry someone you love very much." "Oh well," said she, "I'll marry Pussie for I love him very much." Who is Pussie? Well, it is her pet name for her old grandfather out in Congo, and when he heard that his little grandaughter so loved him he fairly laughed and cried for joy. He would sooner she called him Pussie than Lord Mayor, Duke, His Majesty, or whatever. So I think Jesus would sooner have His lovers call Him Jesus than by all the names in heaven or earth.

Whatever you've got, use it for God and don't wait for what you've not got. If you've only a donkey's jawbone, bray for all you're worth; a braying ass has been known to talk more sense than a prophet. Some folks will only blow if they have got silver trumpets. Rams-horns, not silver trumpets, blew down the walls of Jericho. Silver trumpets are apt to be a great snare to their owners, who waste much time polishing them up, then protect them and refuse to use them in God's own open-air cathedrals; not so John Wesley and George Whitefield.

It is our Christ's presence that makes the little hills to skip, the little hills of difficulty and the Himalayas of impossibility. Let nothing be too great for us to ask, for of course it is only the really impossible things that can give proper glory to Jesus.

Now allow me to give you one word of advice against hasty decisions. All things come to him who waits, the race is to the sure rather than to the swift. This year the Grand National was won not by the swiftest horse but by the only one not to fall. If God has hold of us we shall not be late on either the starting or winning posts. Let us keep our hands off the reins. I have seen enough of the results of making haste to make me sure that the only wise way is to fling the reins, so to speak, on God's neck and see how He will bring His own plans to pass in His own way and time. When the devil can't make us slothful, he tries the other dodge of pushing us too fast so that we are marching in front instead of with Jesus.

Time is very precious, so precious that like Queen Elizabeth we should be crying out, "A million of money for an inch of time". This renewed activity of the RCs and the extraordinary revival of Islam at the present time are surely the ringing up of the curtain for the final acts of the theatre of the world. All the stage scenery is going up, one can hear the noise behind the curtain. It will go up suddenly and will disclose the actors upon the stage beginning the closing act of the great drama. The theatre will be burnt, or so Peter tells us, yet many are fast asleep in the stalls. Christians are fast nearing the great final test of their faith, and these lost souls are going to hell. We have the choice of saving them such as angels would gladly give their wings and white robes to obtain. To get their goods into New York before the new tariff was increased some years ago, captains made and used up every ounce of steam. They risked a lot for gain of gold. How much more must we stoke our fires, increase our steam, to get others to Jesus before the day of salvation closes and the Day of Judgement comes!

A soldier in France was in the first trench and throwing bombs against the enemy. One slipped from his hands and rolled back into the trench. In a moment it would explode and kill his fellow soldiers. He could not bear his mistake to cause them suffering or loss of life so he threw himself on the bomb, covering it with his body till it burst. It killed him, but he saved his friends. I think this is a wonderful story. He got the V.C. and I came across a soldier who knew him. He might easily have excused himself but his mistake built him an imperishable memorial in the hall of heroes: one minute a nobody and the next minute a hero. That's the whole beautiful religion of Jesus Christ, as Paul said: "To die is gain." That's the only supremely happy way for a Christian.

In the South African war Gen. Hart found a soldier, unwounded, coming back from the front and enquired why. He was told, "I am so short-sighted that I couldn't see so I gave my place to another man." "Ah, dear me," said the General. "Come along with me." He took him to the thickest part of the battle saying, "My good man, it's a great shame you should have been so mishandled. Here you cannot possibly miss." The position of the churches gets blacker in my view every day. Jesus said, "Love one another as I have loved you." Now look at the delightful passionate obedience of Christ's followers today and the glorious impotent results! The fact is, the Church has got a chronic attack of hiccups. They make a thundering noise (and all the world looks on and laughs) and in between times they roll their eyes and denounce us who give them a warning dose of ginger. If they would only take it, it would turn them into an army of lions of Judah. As it is they sit in a corner like good Jack Horner eating their Christian pie.

### Chapter Fifteen  
Paul—His Hero

PAUL was a sort of recurring and successful "Guy Fawkes", for he pretty well blew up every place he went to. Let us follow him!

I think Paul was no fool. He was ever seeking to suffer more when he needn't have bothered, because he realised in his own soul that even down here suffering brought instant joy to his soul from God, which totally obliterated the pain.

Paul's recipe is good: "Three days and three nights without food." He had seen Christ and with that vision came physical blindness and soul-sight. In that sight he was able in those three days and nights to settle the whole of his future life. We have so many meals! We feed our bodies so much we never get that great entrancing heavenly sight which gives the Almighty power and brings it upon the crowds around. Paul first made havoc of the Church and drove everything to a logical conclusion. But then came sight, and after that he made havoc of the devil's kingdom.

We are having some fine times with that original Paul in the Acts. Oh, but he is grand! How I want to see him! "None of these things move me, neither count I my life as of any account." That's the real stuff. And then Paul and Silas in the jail, backs raw from the stripes, feet in the stocks in the inner filthy prison but singing hymns and praises at midnight. No wonder God worked an earthquake on their account. And then the old boy preached at Troas from sundown to sunrise. We need not think it strange that God threw in a resurrection from the dead as a small contribution to show His approval.

It has been said that "the good" is the enemy of the best! Nothing but the best can satisfy a soldier of Christ. To be a missionary is good; to be one after the pattern of Paul is better. To have converts is good; to have them like Paul's—hot, strong and fruitful—is better. To rejoice that some of the world is evangelized is good; but to cry aloud and spare not because the majority is not, and to determine it shall be—and that quickly—is better.

Paul was always reaching forth, hence his blessings. Vegetation is the chief danger of a missionary and we are not cabbages or cauliflowers but birds.

Youth and good health are very, very great blessings; use them all the time for God and both bring fortunes. But there are no greater dangers out here than these same blessings, if not used up daily to the full. Paul said "he died daily"; his fear was lest his body got the better of him and so he would have to be put on the shelf. I guess if he died daily we need to die twice daily lest we get any ambition than just Jesus Himself. Paul had gone a long way when he could say "henceforth I know no man after the flesh". He counted all gain as loss, and gained the great object of his affection, our Lord Jesus Christ.

_God IS_ , and I feel like exploding all over with holy joy and holy rage and jealousy for Jesus that He might be glorified. That's all I care for. I'm beginning to want to live longer in order to pay back some of those smacks of the devil. We must see blood, that's the thing to make us savage like old Paul who shouted, "None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear to myself that I may finish my race with joy." He also said, "Damn _me_ if so others can be saved." We must demand our wages, namely the saved, holy souls of these Africans. God shall give them to us. Fear not, we shall conquer all through the blood of Jesus.

### Chapter Sixteen  
Aches and Pains

To His Mother.

Concerning your wish that I return and seek a lucrative position in England, I fear that is quite impossible. Would you really have me turn my back on the Saviour and His will, and proclaim to the world that He has failed me and was so hard a Master that I had to leave His service or starve? Could you imagine Paul leaving His work to go and seek some lucrative employment in Jerusalem or Rome? Well, mother darling, I could not do such a thing. I could not so bring shame on you, myself or Scilla. Much less could I shame my blessed Jesus whom I love. I have but a few things to rejoice in. They are these: that God called me to China and Africa, and that I went in spite of utmost opposition of all my loved ones and advisers: that I joyfully acted as Christ told that rich young man to act, and gave away my fortune. (An unpardonable sin in the eyes of my family is that I gave Jesus too much.) At any rate, with all my many sins I am glad none can accuse me of having been stingy towards my Saviour. My only joy is that when God has given me a work to do I have not refused to do it in spite of hindrance, hostility and loss of the love of those who had loved me. And when the great day before God's Throne dawns, I'm sure you will rejoice that your fool of a son did not betray his Saviour's trust, but fought on, carrying his thorny cross to the bitter-sweet end. Father and you are largely responsible for what devotion and determination to go ahead for Christ is in my make-up, and whatever reward comes shall be yours and his, and the shame of failure and sin shall be mine. Were you to urge me to some deed of daring or sacrifice for God, I would attempt to do it, but I refuse to do what is not God's will. I am poor beyond all knowledge, yet the Lord thinks of me.

To a friend at home.

You have in happier days been a very dear brother and friend and my heart has been knit in love to you, and to your family. I have not loved you with the love that flatters and slobbers, I have done a far harder thing, for I have been as straight as I know how to be with you. As you know, I am not a man of polished words and phrases. I cannot make a dose of castor oil taste like a strawberry ice. I am not clever, I am a fool. I can only do one thing and that is strive to be straight with everyone and especially with those I love best. This may be my last letter to you. I may never see you again, but I shall remember nothing but your goodness and love and happier days when we sought together to plan the destruction of the devil's kingdom.

To a minister at home who questioned the validity of C.T.'s ordination.

My dear C., The question of my ordination seems to trouble you, through fear that I alienate sympathy because I am unqualified to ordain deacons and elders. I will try to allay your fears. I never like speaking of my ordination because it rather tends to be uplifting and such is fatal, especially here. Reginald Radcliffe once laid his hands upon me before I went to China, and on my return D.L. Moody and R.A. Torrey laid hands on me and ordained me in the presence of the Lord's congregation at Northfield, USA.

Seeing the results of my labours for Christ, which you kindly admit, I may take it that you recognise that God, and not the devil, commissioned me? Who commissioned Paul? Ananias. All we know of him is "a certain disciple of Damascus". Was he ordained to do this by anybody except God Himself? We don't question the validity of Paul's ordination nor have I heard that poor old Ananias alienated sympathy from the cause. To those who criticize, I reply, "Come and see!" Send a deputation, as the apostles at Jerusalem sent Peter and John to see if the work of Philip at Samaria was genuine or not. We are in a war here. We have His Majesty's commission we know, and we are going to fight on while He smiles. Personally I fear I have not much faith in any but God's ordination which comes through such channels as He pleases. When Charles the First was arrested by Joyce, Charles asked him for his commission, to which Joyce replied by pointing at his troops and saying, "There is my commission, Sire."

Long, long ago God told me the price that would have to be paid—I agreed and the price has been "being paid" for many years now. The price of this work has been pretty heavy, more than you could ever know. Again and again I have said, "Surely the price has now been fully paid?" But it has mounted up and up till now I really think there remains nothing more to pay, for I now stand as a lone sparrow on the housetop. Yet don't think I grumble, I don't. I'm rather proud that I should have been allowed to pay it in full. Years ago I came across this verse and could not forget it, but I never dreamed its full meaning. It was just this:

It needs my heart be weaned from earth;  
It needs that it be driven  
From seeking every earthly love,  
To find one's love in Heaven.

It was the clinching, I now know, of the verses of Scripture (Matt. 10:36; Luke 14:26) that God gave me to decide my life's course long years ago. The Scriptures and this verse coincide.

Well, it is grand to have no ambition except to do my best to glorify God. I have made very many mistakes and blunders, but I can truly say they have not been made through hate or malice, but through love.

Loneliness of Leadership

Does one not know David's sorrow and experience! His valleys and then his shoutings of joy on the mountain tops. I felt like giving in this morning before dawn. Everything seemed against me, and my lungs were choked up with asthma, and I cried "How long, Lord?" So weak am I, and such a coward. I long for rest and peace rather than war and battle. Oh, the rotter that I am! But then He laid hold of me and comforted me awhile until I said, "No Lord, not peace but a sword; not rest but the hottest battle." Then I arose as a giant refreshed with wine.

One feels the strain and finds one has not the snap of old, but I dare not slack. (It was fifteen years when he died.) Ten years is a long stretch, especially out here without a rest. I have no time to think of other things than God. I can't do the half I ought to do, the administration keeps me tied to the station, but I like to go to the out-stations at week-ends. I seldom get off from here till Saturday after dark, travel five to six hours through the night. Then comes a long day's work Sunday, and Monday morning, with five-hour meetings, singing and playing the banjo and preaching, and get back about 7 p.m. Or else go to another station and then get back Tuesday night. The work of the next day has to be done, and the next, until Saturday night and the same role again. It is delightful and I love it.

The other night I had a sort of seizure just at the end of a meeting. I sat through to the benediction, fumbled with it, fell off my chair and was off somewhere else, then became quite rigid. It was a very short one but it took it out of me and frightened the people. I must make some provision in case the bucket gets overturned, so I want to see you three men and have a good talk over things. If God should call me to appear in the Audience Chamber, He will need a new mate for His crew.

Psalms, Proverbs and extracts of Ecclesiastes in Bangala are finished and they nearly finished me. I've had several bad heart attacks lately. It may please God to restore me yet again to the fight, but if not my number is up. God knows how the pains of this mortal body are a burden that makes rising, after four short hours of sleep, a daily cross. My head will not work as it did; I flog it, but the poor dumb brute turns and says like Balaam's ass, "What harm have I ever done you?" My old heart simply won't work. My stomach has perpetual nausea. I fear what every mail may bring. I continually think of all these troubles; I go to sleep with them and wake up with them, there is no let-up.

I've had two excursions to the River since I last wrote. My sands may run out any time. Sometimes my heart refuses to go more than 45-50 beats a minute; and goes as low as 42. Another time it raced at 160-170 for 24 hours. Can you know what that means? Dr K. gave me six injections at one time. My body is riddled with malaria. One fever laid me out with my temp. going from 940 to 1050 twice in 24 hours. (It was a nearer thing than last year.) The doctor could not find a vein for the injections. Oh, the indescribable agony, like real death itself.

Here is my day-2.00 a.m. rise and have my quiet time and translate until 5.30 a.m.; 5.30-7.00 a.m. Bible teaching for elders; 7-9 a.m. work; 9-10 a.m. breakfast, when I perhaps fall asleep; 10-1 p.m. work; 1-3 p.m. lunch, reading and writing; 3-6.30 p.m. work; 6.30-7.30 p.m. reading and rest; 7.30-8.30 p.m. meeting; 8.30 p.m. supper; 9.00 p.m. bed if possible.

After rising at 2 or 3 a.m. and working all day, often in the fierce sun, I become so exhausted I can eat nothing, but have to lie down faint, with legs and arms and hands swollen. Well, God knows all about my health and need of a rest. I have seen enough of the deplorable results of leaving one's babes deliberately in the wood of paganism, rather than staying to give the only food that can sustain them. I gladly stay in order to fill the place that others have left unoccupied.

### Chapter Seventeen  
A Call to the Comfortable

It has been suggested that our Lord's return does not demand the previous evangelization of the world. Whether such be the case or not, our honour demands it.

The evangelization of the world cannot be fulfilled on present-day lines. Christ alone can accomplish the work, and you can be sure He will do so only on lines laid down in Scripture. "The Holy Ghost shall teach you all things and guide you into all truth."

Oh, our God's cause is a real glorious one, we need never apologize for it. It is our glory and He shall make us overcomers, supermen, more than conquerors by the blood and the Spirit of the Lamb and the Lion of Judah. Glory! Hallelujah!

I blush for shame at the thought of all this work commanded to be done, and think of the thousands of young men at home who say they love Christ, yet like Saul's army run and hide when Goliath appears. If we don't do this work we are disobedient to God. How shall we face the Saviour? It makes my heart bound to think of the thing. We have our chance. We have our call. We have Christ's command and we shall have His blessing and His support also. NOW THEN LET US DO IT.

How little chance the Holy Ghost has nowadays. The churches and missionary societies have so bound Him in red tape that they practically ask Him to sit in a corner while they do the work themselves.

"She was religious, but without enthusiasm." Such is the tombstone record of a past lady of quality; from all such religion, dear Lord, deliver us. "Our God is a consuming fire" and we must be blazing furnaces would we be Godlike.

Assuredly we live in the Laodicean stage—neither hot nor cold, just tepid, and He must have had nearly enough of our lukewarmness, and of the chronic creeping paralysis of the present-day Church.

Why has the Church so failed to illuminate our hearers and enquirers? Is it not because the Holy Ghost, the great Illuminator who alone convinces of sin, has not been given His proper place? Can it be that we have placed Him under the bushel while we ourselves have occupied the candlestick? Our lamps may be in their places (so we may not be wholly on the wrong lines), but what about the OIL? Shall we not hurry while there is time to buy it? The price is OBEDIENCE. "The Holy Ghost whom God has given to them that obey Him." When the wine failed, the servant's obedience to Jesus brought an instant and plentiful supply of the best quality. We confess our power to illuminate has failed, but we have the infallible recipe of Mary, "Whatever He says unto you do it",and hey presto, the Great Illuminator comes and we walk in the light, not in twilight.

Let us no longer be passengers in the coaches of the Church but pushers of the war machines of God, pushing ever more furiously forward through the barricades of the devil– till we not merely push him back but break his line, and destroy his last dug-outs and give freedom and the chance of salvation to every captive.

If a fellow does not feel his soul burn with shame at the fact that masses of people are without the knowledge of Christ, he is no soldier of Christ, nay, he is no man and we are better without such chicken-hearts. We want lion-hearted men who rejoice in hardship and difficulties, being cuffed by the devil right and left—that they may get to grips with him and, for the love of Christ, free some of his prisoners.

Let us act. Let's bless Him with acts, not lipsalve. His lips are not sore: it's His heart that aches, and the only drug for aches is acts: Acts of the Holy Ghost in human bodies.

Could we welcome or desire the return of our Saviour whose first question would possibly be, "Why call ye me Lord and yet do not the things that I say?" Oh thank God, there is yet time for us to take the world for Christ ... or shall we abide in our present-day complacency?

It is not the multiplicity of prayer or Bible meetings that are the real thing, good as they are, but it is the naked trust in the God of the Bible that counts when judgement comes.

The best training for a soldier of Christ is not merely a theological college. They always seem to turn out sausages of varying lengths, tied at each end, without the glorious freedom a Christian ought to abound and rejoice in. You see, when in hand-to-hand conflict with the world and the devil, neat little biblical confectionery is like shooting lions with a pea-shooter: one needs a man who will let himself go and deliver blows right and left as hard as he can hit, trusting in the Holy Ghost. It's experience, not preaching that hurts the devil and confounds the world. The training is not that of the schools but of the market: it's the hot, free heart and not the balanced head that knocks the devil out. Nothing but forked-lightning Christians will count. A lost reputation is the best degree for Christ's service. It is not so much the degree of arts that is needed, but that of hearts, loyal and true, that love not their lives to the death: large and loving hearts which seek to save the lost multitudes, rather than guard the ninety-nine well-fed sheep in the British pen.

You educated, ordained young men who use your time and talents to preach the simple gospel to the educated at home who have heard of Jesus Christ, does it never even strike you that, for every one of your audience which you have done your level best to entice by many artful dodges to heed the good news, there are thousands overseas who will listen to you at the very sight of your young white face—without any native banters or baby organs or guitars or religious gymnastics?

I can't abide cowardice. I refuse to make my God and Saviour a nonentity.

Let us be of one heart and one soul to make _Jesus only_ the King of all, and ourselves His worthless slaves.

We shall have reached the Cape of Good Hope when Christians cease to be sponges mopping up all they can get, and become waterpots full to the brim, running over with good wine of self-sacrifice. As we are saved by our walk of faith unto faith, each step being a novel faith, so also we never have really appropriated the sacrifice of Jesus till we sacrifice ourselves.

True religion is a very practical thing if we do not adulterate it.

We will have one King and it is useless unless we obey Him, though it may often mean suffering and being misunderstood; but the only attitude of love, both to God and to loved ones on earth, is to obey Jesus at all costs.

I know this venture has exposed the folly of trusting in men more than any prior experience in my life; and it has proved that so many folks who repeatedly attend conventions say but do not do. They say: "Such a blessing; oh such a blessing!" And what is the result? They cuddle their blessing and show it all around like a mother cuddles and adores and shows her newly-born infant, till the end of the cuddling is that the babe is overlaid and dies. After twelve months she goes and gets another. Mothers with new-born babes don't go to war! We need men who do not cuddle and boast of their blessings, but men who by very shame are driven out to the war of God.

How often have I thought of Gen. Gordon on the roof of Khartoum Palace, looking so eagerly for those red coats which came too late. The tide of Islam might have been turned back with all its entailed horrors, but it prevailed and remained to occupy those regions. Shall it be the same now? The devil's frontiers can be pushed back with ease now, but a little further delay and the opportunity will be lost. Will you at home deliberately pitchfork these folk into the hands of the devil, while you are thinking of health, or wondering if God's promises are true? Let us cease our blatant chatter of holiness and our obsession with endless conventions and conferences, at least until we are consistent enough to trust in and risk all for the living God—whom we say we adore. Are we willing to deal our bread to the hungry, instead of stuffing ourselves and making tasty spiritual dishes and serving them to those who are already overfed? Must we go home and try to persuade men to come from their safe and comfortable homes to fight the devil in these parts? How long must I cry out in agony, "Why don't they come?" How often must I strip the envelopes of the overseas mail with the burning hope that somebody will surely be coming to redeem His promise, to redress the odds, and help turn the battle in the gate—only to agonize, "Oh Lord, how long?" How long shall brave, honest and holy Christian young people refuse to pay their debt? How long shall I pray the prayer of Stephen: "Lord lay not this sin to their charge"? Or that of the Saviour: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do"?

### Chapter Eighteen  
A Farewell Letter

To his grandchildren

I must hurry up. I have been down to the River often lately; in fact I've lived in sight of the other shore these seven years. I have often desired to write to you but have not been fit enough to do so. Now I believe the Lord has allowed me another innings, and I rejoice. I long to leave this world and go to be with Jesus but I long to do something more for Him who did so much for me; I want to rescue others from the cruel hands of Satan and set them on the road to heaven.

I very much want you all to pray for me, that this 70-year-worn-out-old-body (called your grandfather) may not be a supreme hindrance to me in my service to Jesus.

I shall evidently never have the joy of seeing you with these natural eyes nor of speaking to you, but that makes me long to write my heart to you. I may never again have the opportunity. God has taken me to many parts of this world and I have met many people, and I want to give you all the results of what experience I have obtained: and so I plunge in at once.

My loving advice to you is summed up in a few lines which I want you to learn by heart:

Only one life, 'twill soon be past;  
Only what's done for Jesus will last.

Sometimes it seems like yesterday that I was at Lords playing cricket and with my life in front of me. I have seemed to be young for many years; and then quite suddenly old age has come. These last years have been sorrowful and yet the most happy and fruitful of my life. They have fulfilled the words God gave to me just after leaving Cambridge at the start of a legal career. I have come to understand better than before what the religion of our Lord Jesus really is and the awful caricature we have made of it. It is the one really noble thing on earth, and in essence, it is not getting but giving. Our lives must be of this pattern of Jesus. He gave up heaven to come to earth to shame, torture and death on the Cross to save us; we must give up earth in order to follow Christ and save our fellow men. Unfortunately we don't desire to do the will of God; we do not wish for the holy, loving and unselfish place, but that of selfishness, the root of all sin. Unless we get Jesus to change our hearts we should all go to the place where sin reigns supreme and where there is sorrow for ever. But God sent Jesus to change our hearts, and as we gaze on this marvellous love of God for us, our hearts must love Him and desire to become like Him. The greatest joy anyone can have on earth is to walk with Jesus: and this is what it means to be a Christian. Then you must love Jesus more than even your own life or family, if you will follow Him. Only those who walk with God on earth will live with Jesus in heaven.

Now my children, I want each of you when you wake up every morning to open your mouth and heart and thank Jesus for such an amazing life and death and love; and then I want you to walk that day with Jesus and so placard Christ as crucified for all around you, and be the means of saving others who would otherwise go to hell. Oh, how I long that you should all walk and talk every day with Jesus.

Now I must finish this letter. I say, love Jesus supremely, more than anybody on earth and do as He asks, then you will live the happiest possible life that anyone can live. When you love Jesus you will love His children too. Oh, is it not wonderful to placard this world with "Jesus, crucified for us"?

Your loving old grandfather.
