A Letter To Mrs Peake – October 25th, 1866
My dear Friend, Mrs. Peake.
I feel it to be a mercy to have been brought through all my travellings and labors, and to have reached my own home in peace and safety. To be preserved in our going in and out, and to find the Lord a shade on our right hand is indeed a mercy, and especially to one who feels his need of preservation from many things which do not affect the health or comfort of others; and besides all this, to have been allowed to fulfill all my engagements, and blessed, I hope, in fulfilling them, gives, or should give, an additional ground of thankfulness. I was enabled to preach during the past summer for sixteen continuous Lord’s-days, besides speaking on the weekday evening, and in no one case disappointed the people, or broke an engagement. And I would gladly hope that amid all my weakness, sinfulness, ignorance, and infirmity, that the Lord was pleased sometimes to bless the word which I was enabled to preach in His name.
If I have learned anything by advancing years, and a long experience of the ministry, it is my own insufficiency to every good word and work; and that, even were I enabled to preach the Gospel with all clearness, faithfulness, and consistency with the word of truth; yes, were I just such a minister as I understand what a minister should be, even then all my words would fall to the ground, except so far as the Lord Himself were specially pleased to bless them to the souls of His people. While, then, I am thankful for any little help given to preach the word of life, yet I would be far more thankful to find that a blessing rested upon the word.
When, too, I consider what man is as a fallen creature, and what my heart is naturally, how hard, impenitent, obdurate, and unbelieving, and know that my heart is only as if a copy of all other hearts, how sensibly it makes me feel that the whole work, first and last, must be of the Lord, and that if He withhold the blessing, Paul himself might plant, and Apollos water, but there would be no increase. If, then, any blessing may have rested on my labors during the summer, I may well retire into my winter quarters with a feeling of thankfulness that they have not been in vain in the Lord. I am glad I have been to Oakham and to Stamford, not only once more to see my dear friends in the flesh, but also to unite with them once more in the house of prayer, and to feel some renewal and revival of the love and affection which never can be extinguished when once it has been kindled by the power of God.
I had some nice conversation with S. C. and her niece, also with others. At Stamford I was not able to see much of the friends, but was well attended, and felt comfortable in speaking among them.
I sincerely hope that you and your dear sister may derive benefit from your sojourn at L. It certainly was very beneficial to me both times that I was there. I am, through mercy, pretty well, and preached last Lord’s-day morning and also on Wednesday evening. My texts were Jer. 31:11, 12, Lord’s-day morning, and Wednesday evening Heb. 10:36, 37. From Jer. 31, I showed that there were six things stronger than Jacob, whom I took as a typical representative of a child of God:
1. the law;
2. sin;
3. Satan;
4. the world;
5. death;
6. hell, all which I worked out.
Then the redemption by the Lord Himself by price and power, first price, and then power; then the effects as manifested to the soul in coming and singing in the height of Zion, on which Jesus now sits enthroned, and flowing with a melting heart to the goodness of the Lord to feed upon Gospel bread and Gospel wine, the unction of the Holy Spirit, the Paschal Lamb, and the fatted calf. I hope we had, upon the whole, a beneficial time.
I spoke on Wednesday evening, as my friend Covell was gone to the anniversary at Cranbrook, and I had quite a good congregation.
Yours affectionately in the Lord,
J. C. P.
Jesus is LORD! 
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