Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 9 (1894)

Lt 4, 1894

Buster, J. R.

“Norfolk Villa,” Prospect St., Granville, N. S. W., Australia

August 3, 1894

Previously unpublished.

Dear Brother,

I have received and read your letter with much interest in this far distant country. My heart is very tender toward all the colored race. It is difficult for me to advise you as to what is best for you to do when I know you only by the letter you have written. I have heard Bro. Starr speak of you, and I know that he has much interest in your case. I am sorry indeed that you have had to struggle for so long a time with such a yoke upon your neck, and I would not be the one to say to a brother who manifested love to God and love to his brother in breaking your yoke, why do you thus? 9LtMs, Lt 4, 1894, par. 1

I believe that there is hope for you in God. I cannot for a moment think that the Lord would have you continue in a work which does not seem to prove a relief either to your self or others. But if it is your duty to go into the field as a laborer to help your people, or to help others, the Lord will open the way. I hope you will pray much and lean heavily upon the Source of your strength. The Lord is good, He is of tender pity, and of great kindness. He does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men. “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him; for he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are but dust.” [Psalm 103:13, 14.] If relief is offered you, accept it as from God. The heart of Christ is full of tenderness toward His heritage. 9LtMs, Lt 4, 1894, par. 2

I am sorry that you have not made a success of canvassing, so that you could have the assurance that it was your work; but it is not impossible that the Lord may have another kind of work for you to do. If the way has been opened before you, and the Lord has moved upon the heart of a friend who loves Jesus to remove the barriers from your path, thankfully accept this help as from the Lord. We know that the ear of the Lord is open to all the cries of those who are in His service, and He has promised, “I will guide thee with mine eye.” Walk humbly with your God, and ask Him to make your course of duty plain. 9LtMs, Lt 4, 1894, par. 3

When God speaks to His representatives, and asks them to be laborers together with Him, they will do the same kind of work that Jesus announced as His work when He stood up to read in the synagogue at Nazareth. He opened the book of the prophet Isaias, and read, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.” [Isaiah 61:1.] 9LtMs, Lt 4, 1894, par. 4

I am sure that Jesus has not forgotten you. Be thankful that His great heart of love takes in all the sorrows of His children. If the human agents from whom we might be led to expect help fail to do their part, let us be comforted in the thought that the heavenly intelligences will not fail to do their part. They will pass by those whose hearts are not tender and pitiful, kind and thoughtful, and ready to relieve the woes of others, and will use any human agent that will be touched with the infirmities, the necessities, the troubles, the perplexities of the people for whom Christ died. Therefore as Christ’s ambassador, I feel today authorized to say to you, to receive with meekness and lowliness the help that any hand extends to you, and say to the helper, I thank you in the name of Jesus Christ who has moved upon your heart to help me, to encourage me by breaking the yoke of oppression from my neck. Through the grace of Christ, I will make every possible effort to work in Christ’s lines in meekness and lowliness of heart, relying upon Him for strength. 9LtMs, Lt 4, 1894, par. 5

We all have little enough time in which to work. Understand the work the Lord gives you to do, and trusting in God, you will be enabled to go on from strength to strength, from grace to grace. You may be enabled to work diligently, perseveringly for your people while the day lasts, for the night cometh in which no man shall work. 9LtMs, Lt 4, 1894, par. 6

Ever bear in mind that we are complete in Christ Jesus. We have a whole Saviour, who can lead His people up from the low level in which sin has bound them, until they shall be acknowledged in heavenly courts as laborers together with God. Jesus, our precious Saviour, from whom all the rays of truth radiate which His people are to diffuse in light to the world, that glory may redound to His name, wants you to put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man in whom there is no help but to lean wholly upon Him. Every human being on the face of the earth is an agent, and every good result of any one’s work is the effect of divine power imparted to the worker, for all are dependent upon Him who has said, “Without me ye can do nothing.” [John 15:5.] 9LtMs, Lt 4, 1894, par. 7

The truth is now overcast in the world by the clouds of error that prevail on the right hand and on the left. He who can influence even the most lowly, and can win them to Christ, is co-operating with divine agencies in seeking to save that which is lost. In presenting to the sinner a personal, sin-pardoning Saviour, we reach a hand of sympathy and Christlike love to grasp the hand of one fallen, and laying hold of the hand of Christ by faith, we form a link of union between the soul and the Saviour. 9LtMs, Lt 4, 1894, par. 8

The end is near, and every soul is now to walk carefully, humbly, meekly with Christ Jesus. Christ says, “Without me ye can do nothing.” [Verse 5.] We need to look to Jesus continually in order that He may impress upon every soul His own lovely image. We are to behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world, and then we shall reveal Christ to the world. I feel my weakness every day. I feel my inefficiency. O how I long to do more! How I long to sound forth the praises of Him who hath called me out of darkness into His marvellous light! “Ye are,” Christ said to His disciples, “the light of the world.” [Matthew 5:14.] 9LtMs, Lt 4, 1894, par. 9

Do your best, my brother, do your best, relying wholly and entirely upon the power of God. And now I would say in the words of the Psalmist, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise him who is the light of my countenance and my God.” [Psalm 42:11.] 9LtMs, Lt 4, 1894, par. 10

In much Christian sympathy to yourself, wife, and children, I am 9LtMs, Lt 4, 1894, par. 11

Your sister in Christ. 9LtMs, Lt 4, 1894, par. 12