Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 15 (1900)

Lt 126, 1900

Hickox, A. S.

Sunnyside, Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia

August 5, 1900

Portions of this letter are published in 6MR 46.

Dear Brother Hickox:

I wish to counsel you as a mother would counsel her son, and more than this a son of God. I have felt a deep interest in you; but from the light given me from the Lord I know that you are not doing your work heartily as unto God. You are not gaining the experience you should be gaining. For this there is no real excuse. 15LtMs, Lt 126, 1900, par. 1

You are not pleasing the Lord. You are absorbing means for which you are not producing fruit. Your mind is speculating; it is allowed to be diverted from the work. There is abundance of work to be done, but your heart and soul and undivided interest are not given to the work. If you do not purpose doing the work faithfully, wholeheartedly, putting your very best powers to task, then in order to be true and honest you must give up the work. You let your thoughts run on this and that which you think you might do and make a better showing. Now I am instructed to say to you, Gird up the loins of your mind. Center your thoughts upon your work, and endeavor to make it a success. You can do this if you will; but you must will to do. Put your thoughts where they should be. 15LtMs, Lt 126, 1900, par. 2

You have had just as favorable an opportunity, and under as favorable circumstances, as you will have in the future, and there is no excuse for the fact that you have not put into the work your whole soul, body and spirit, your zeal and energy; your thought and mind. You have capabilities which you need to improve daily, else God will move the candlestick out of its place. You have not been increasing in knowledge of God and knowledge of His Word, or in ability to use the Word of God skillfully as a gospel worker. 15LtMs, Lt 126, 1900, par. 3

Your mind and your time are to be wisely employed in the service of the Master. You are continually casting about in your mind for a work better suited to you. You might have improved much through connection with Elder Colcord, but when any suggestion has been made by Brother Colcord to help you, it has not been received in the proper spirit. You have thought that he meant to show his superiority over you. This is not so. He has hungered and thirsted for one with whom he could counsel. He always appreciated a laborer whom he can talk and counsel with. You have withheld from him the friendship and sociability you should have given him. Instead of receiving the very help which is the object of your association together, you have stood aloof. You should have linked up with him and improved by putting your mind and soul into the ministry, instead of calculating and speculating how to situate yourself so as to receive more money. 15LtMs, Lt 126, 1900, par. 4

If you had the money you so long to possess, let me tell you something that you need to understand. You are not a good financier. You would use a large sum in gratifying your speculative propensities, and you would soon reveal a great deficiency in business capacity. The prospecting ability you possess will be revealed to your injury. The enemy has presented before you wonderful prospects, but your brethren could have advised you if you had not thought that you knew what was best. You had to learn the truth of Christ’s words, “Without me ye can do nothing.” [John 15:5.] The Lord has been willing to help you, and give you wisdom and knowledge and understanding; but you did not feel the necessity of close, diligent application to improve your ministerial ability. You did not want the tax required to perfect your gift. 15LtMs, Lt 126, 1900, par. 5

Now, what are you going to do about this man Hickox? Are you going to take him in hand and conquer the man, or is the man to conquer you? God demands your submission. I hope and pray that you will not continue to disregard all the counsel and advise which the Lord has given you. Take up your work as a student. You need to be a learner, that you may be a successful teacher. 15LtMs, Lt 126, 1900, par. 6

The church is to pass through perils. You have no time to spend in pitying and sympathizing with yourself, no time to spend in dreaming of what might be done or in imagination investing surplus means in new enterprises. You have been shunning responsibilities that you could and should have borne. Had you borne these responsibilities, your experience would now be of value to you. And while you have opportunity, redeem the time. You need to buckle on the armor, for there is work to be done. 15LtMs, Lt 126, 1900, par. 7

Christianity promises no exemption from earth-born sorrow. There is no time to spend in mourning over that portion of your life which has been a sad mistake because you thought yourself too wise to be advised and counselled. But consider what fruit you are now producing for the Master. You are not too old to learn the lesson that you ought to have learned years ago. You should now understand that you need to improve in many ways. You should prize advise and counsel as you have not done in the past. Educate yourself every day to bear responsibilities and yoke up with Christ. Do not repeat the failure of the past. 15LtMs, Lt 126, 1900, par. 8

You have a wife and children. Your wife has home duties, and you must not depend upon her to accompany you, and she must not depend upon you, feeling that she must be always with you. When you can do so, unite your efforts; when you cannot unite them, do your individual work manfully, drawing inspiration from righteous principles, from fixed religious principles and from convictions as to what God expects of you. If you do not feel that you are a part of God’s great firm, then arouse yourself to realize the situation, face your responsibilities as one who must give account for your talent of time. If you have the abiding love of Christ in your heart, you would do your best for Christ’s sake who gave His life for you. 15LtMs, Lt 126, 1900, par. 9

You need to put forth holy endeavor. You hate to learn, but you will have to learn if you succeed in any place. With unshrinking faith and unhesitating obedience let it be your future work in life to respond to the inquiry, “Whom shall I send? and who shall go for us?” Let it be your answer, “Here am I, Lord, send me.” [Isaiah 6:8.] 15LtMs, Lt 126, 1900, par. 10

You cannot do as you have done; you are not to go on without counselling with your brethren, and then pity yourself and blame them for the result of your own planning. The maturity of Christian experience is the result of steady growth in grace. And as you will need all the fulness of the divine life in the future, employ all the gospel means to increase and strengthen the human effort you will need to put forth. Neglect not a single one of your opportunities to increase in knowledge of the Scriptures and in ability to present the truth in the most acceptable manner, that you may win souls to the kingdom of God. While you are receiving the grace of Christ, do your best to impart. 15LtMs, Lt 126, 1900, par. 11

You need to have your spiritual vision cleared and intensified by beholding and contemplating the work of redemption in its depth and breadth and height. Your heart has felt the mighty throbs of a Saviour’s love, and has been ravished by the charms of the gospel. But there has been with you a losing of ground, because you have not advanced as it was your privilege to do. In meekness and lowliness of mind, walk humbly with God. Exalt Jesus all you please, but do not have exalted ideas of yourself. The Holy Spirit has irradiated your soul with light from heaven, but you do not stand in full light and freedom because you have certainly failed of doing the very work that is all around you, work that you could have done. Let your planning and scheming go. Take up your work, and do your best. Attest the fact of your adoption into the household of faith. Carry with you the unmistakable evidence that God has given you a work to do. 15LtMs, Lt 126, 1900, par. 12

You may say, as others when reproved have said, that Brother Colcord has been telling things of you to your disadvantage. My brother, know and understand that Brother Colcord has not said anything to your detriment. Your work speaks for itself. As I was responsible for your coming to this country from New Zealand, I have felt intensely anxious that under favorable circumstances you should make the most of the situation, and that failure should not be written against you in the books of heaven. 15LtMs, Lt 126, 1900, par. 13

You have now to recover that which you have lost through failure to appreciate your connection with one who could have helped you. You might have been learning, but you have been so sensitive that pride has kept you where you have learned but little. I fondly hope that you will do differently. I am disappointed, because I knew that you could, if you willed, improved very much more than you have done. Any word or suggestion as to improvement in your labor has not left a pleasant impression upon your memory. But if the words of suggestion spoken to you had been left unsaid, there would have been unfaithfulness on the part of your brother. 15LtMs, Lt 126, 1900, par. 14

You are not your own, you are bought with a price, and O what a price! You are the purchased possession of Jesus Christ, to be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. 15LtMs, Lt 126, 1900, par. 15

I have inquired of myself, Has the Lord blessed Brother Hickox to the extent of his capacity to receive? Has his capacity to receive become limited through neglect to use his talents as he should have used them? You have no objection to preaching; but ministry embraces much more. It embraces the visiting of the flock, the giving of instruction, the humble prayer, the healing words, the faithful, humble, speech from a heart overflowing with the love of God. These essential duties are left undone or are only partially done. You might have done much more, as the circumstances required. 15LtMs, Lt 126, 1900, par. 16

Christ has many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. Will you change this manner of labor? Will you give your strong manhood and your undivided heart to Jesus who gave His life for you? Will you need to be fed with milk and not with solid food because you are not able to bear it? It is for your present and eternal interest that this state of things shall no longer continue. Let it not reproachfully be said of you as it was of the Hebrew Christians, “For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, you have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.” [Hebrews 5:12.] 15LtMs, Lt 126, 1900, par. 17

Now, my brother, I write to you no more plainly than I would write to my own son. You must not be offended because I tell you the truth. You have made a profession of Christianity a sufficient length of time to have become grounded and settled in the living principles of the faith. You should be able to comprehend the necessity of the work to be done, and to do the work, receiving the most sublime truth, feeding the flock of God with pure provender thoroughly winnowed. But you have been certainly losing your interest. You have not given your heart to the work as one must do if he increases in adaptability and grows in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. The soundness of experience which secures to a man the perfection of Christian character depends wholly upon how you take hold of the work. 15LtMs, Lt 126, 1900, par. 18

If you will to will and to do the good pleasure of God, that you may make a record of which you shall not be ashamed, you will give yourself with undivided interest to the solemn realities of the work. Your eternal interest, your safety, your present happiness, usefulness, and ultimate victory, call upon you to put to the tax to use diligently, all the grace you have received, that you may impart without stint. Then you will receive larger fulness and be deemed worthy of still larger displays of divine goodness to reveal and impart to others grace for grace. You may in all things grow up into Jesus Christ your living Head. You may secure for yourself a future record worthy of the Saviour’s words of commendation, “Well done, good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” [Matthew 25:23.] 15LtMs, Lt 126, 1900, par. 19

The foregoing pages need not have been written if you had taken heed to that which has already been said and written. I write this because it is a necessity for your own soul, as well as for the future usefulness of yourself and your wife that you come into right relation to the flock of God. I love you, and as a part of Christ’s purchased possession, I ask you now to use your God-given talents as you could and should have used them in the past. 15LtMs, Lt 126, 1900, par. 20

It is essential that you cultivate a spirit of humility, not of pride that is sensitive and abashed and offended at reproof. Away with hurt and wounded feelings! God desires your brethren to be faithful to you, to reprove, rebuke, exhort you with all long-suffering and godliness. If I could do so, I would save you from one unpleasant feeling; but you are spiritually a self-made invalid, and the Lord proposes to heal you, if you will be healed. 15LtMs, Lt 126, 1900, par. 21

In love. 15LtMs, Lt 126, 1900, par. 22