Analecta Epistolaria.

“A HEARING EAR AND A SEEING EYE.”

The Lord hath made them both—SOLOMON.

            Dear Brother: —The more I read your “Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come,” the more interesting I find it; I mean as the numbers advance. I hope you are getting some encouragement in the States. What you advocate is the truth, and must prevail; and to me it is every day more clear and delightful. Be zealous, my dear brother, and God will give you a crown of life, and never-ending felicity. What would I not give to be under your teaching. Thanks, eternal thanks, that you were ever prompted to cross the Atlantic in order to visit superstitious old Britain. Shall we ever see you again this side the resurrection? If not, oh! Happy shall I be to meet you there. How beautiful are the words of the Psalmist, “I shall be satisfied when I awake in thy likeness, O God.” But not only shall we then see David’s son and David’s Lord, but Abraham, “the Friend of God,” Isaac, Jacob, Moses and all the prophets, John and all the apostles. What a company! And what a pity if it were not true! But it is true; therefore let us thank God, and take courage.

            I have some earnest disputations with old Mr. -----. He is immovable both as regards a present kingdom, and an hereditary immortal soul. He clings tenaciously to the popular interpretation of the Rich Man and Lazarus. I asked him the other day how Abraham could converse about Moses and the prophets, when one of the prophets writes, “Doubtless, O Jehovah, thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel (Jacob) knoweth us not.” He replied, “it did not matter; Abraham was in heaven, and the rich man saw him.” His notions about the kingdom are equally unscriptural. He has but one string to his fiddle, and upon that he is always scraping. It is the text in Colossians, “Who hath delivered us out of the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of God’s dear Son.” Although many have shown him with Greek testament in hand, that eis, translated into, is frequently rendered unto, which signification is more agreeable to the nature of Christ’s kingdom; for a man cannot be said to be in a house, when only brought to it, or on the way; and thus are the people of God brought into the anticipation of enjoying it at some future period. “God hath chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and heirs of that kingdom, which he hath promised to them that love him.” We cannot certainly be in that kingdom which is matter of promise while we walk by faith!

            I made good use of the pamphlets on the Gorham question, “The Wisdom of the Clergy proved to be folly;” but they have not as yet moved any to unite themselves to Messiah. Some expressed great astonishment at “the New Doctrine,” as they called it; others, that they did not understand it; a third party, that they did not approve it: and last, not least, the minister of the parish soon got word, and he lamented that I was now denying the divinity of the scriptures, and existence of the soul.

EBENEZER ALLAN.

Linlithgow, Scotland.

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