A Letter To Two Sisters In Christ – March 25th, 1868
My dear Friends in the Lord, Mrs. Peake and Miss Morris,
In my prayers for you both, I feel led to ask of the Lord to give you faith and patience, for these two graces you much need in active and daily exercise. But that you may have them brought into your heart and there maintained with a divine power, tribulation is needed, for tribulation works patience (Rom. 5:3), as well as the trial of faith (James 1:3). And this patience must have her perfect work, that you may be made perfect and entire, lacking nothing. If then you had no trials or perplexities, no tribulation or temptation, you could not have your faith tried as by fire, and there would be no patience accompanying it, working with it, and perfecting it. Nor again would you have it made manifest to yourselves or others that you are possessed of the grace of love, for that bears all things and endures all things (1 Cor. 13:7).
I was thinking the other morning about Christian love, and I seemed to see that it was the first of all evidences, and the last of all graces. Let me explain my meaning. Love to the brethren is the first Scriptural evidence of having passed from death unto life. But this love, as we journey onward, and have to do more and more with the crooked ways of God’s people, is the last of all graces, as well as the greatest, as having to live and thrive under well-near everything which serves to damp or quench it. As patience then is useless without burdens to bear, and trials and temptations to encounter, so love is useless unless it has to be maintained under all those circumstances, and all that chilling opposition, which seem so contrary to it. If the people of God were all we could wish them to be, and for ourselves to be kind, forbearing, forgiving, affectionate, unsuspecting, open-hearted and open-handed, prayerful and spiritually-minded, love would flow out so toward them, that it would not be a matter of any difficulty. But to love the people of God for what we see of Christ in them, in spite of all their crookedness, perverseness, ignorance, obstinacy, ill-temper, fretfulness, and deadness in the things of God this is the difficulty.
But the Lord does not bestow His graces to lie idle in the bosom; but to manifest their presence, their activity, and their power by what they have to do. If then you are to be blessed with the graces of faith, and love, and patience, you must expect burdens, exercises, afflictions, perplexities, annoyances, and a variety of circumstances most contrary to your natural feelings and expectations. But if, in the midst of all these painful and perplexing circumstances, faith credits the word of promise, patience quietly and meekly endures its load, and love is still maintained in exercise in word and deed, you will find the approbation of the Lord in your own bosom, and will sooner or later prove that He ever honors His own grace and His own work in the soul.
The great thing that we have to dread is the giving way to, and being overcome by, our own spirit; or what is worse, mistaking our own spirit for a right spirit, and our own will for a right will. In these things we need to be instructed by the Holy Spirit, the promised Teacher, that we may have not only a right judgment in all things, but be enabled to speak, live, and act as He would have us to do. I think I know something of your perplexities and difficulties, and can see that to support you under them, and bring you through them, you need faith, and love, and patience; and this is the reason why I have ventured to lay before you a word of friendly counsel and encouragement, and I shall be very glad if you may find it suitable and supporting. I have endeavoured to show you such a path as I would desire, if grace enabled me, to tread myself if placed in a similar position.
But, alas, it is one thing to give advice, and another to act upon it one’s self. I remember, how many years ago, the words of Eliphaz (Job 4:3-5) came to my mind as sadly applicable to my case. But we have to learn our weakness, as well as where and in whom our strength lies, and the Lord is very merciful and gracious, never leaving us, nor allowing us to be led into any path in which His grace is not sufficient for us, if sought and looked to; for we have to confess that when it has been otherwise, it has been because we did not look to Him, nor lean upon Him; but looked to self either for strength or indulgence.
Yours very affectionately in the Lord,
J. C. P.
Jesus is LORD! 
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