My Dear Friend: —I continue to receive the most gratifying intelligence of the extensive usefulness of the "Herald" as a recruiting officer in mustering heirs for the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ at hand, who, doubtless, will hereafter add their testimony to the divine truth, "He that winneth souls is wise:" and that you may then shine as a glorious star in the heavenly hemisphere, is the heartfelt prayer of

Yours very faithfully in Israel’s Hope,

RICHARD ROBERTSON.

London, England, December 9, 1853.

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Our friend’s testimony is encouraging to the friends of the Herald on both sides of the Atlantic. Our career in "the good fight" has been like heaping Ben Lomond upon Ben Nevis, an almost hopeless enterprise. The "new things" brought out of the treasury, and spread before its readers upon its tablets, are so much at variance with Gentile philosophy, styled "orthodox theology," with which the people’s minds are imbued and perverted, that we find prejudice, and bigotry, and superstition, and stereotyped "piety," as well as unbelief, arrayed against them. Now, it is no mere pastime, to overcome these. It requires a continual dropping to wear them away. I am therefore indeed glad to hear that British rocks are softening, and that the gospel of the kingdom is making an impression upon them. It is truly encouraging to the labourer who looks for his reward in the Age to Come; for it is very disheartening to encounter insurmountable opposition with rigid self denial, and to have no adorning jewels in the presence of the Lord. I am happy in being so placed that I can labour for distinction in the kingdom of God without absolute despair. These are such faithless times, times in which indifferentism, or fleshly feeling, or tradition, supersede the Word, that testimony and reason are almost without effect upon the public mind, so that the hope of doing much on a grand, extended, and imposing scale, is entirely excluded. But happily for us, something may be done, which affords us scope for proving our faith by our works. The Bride has to be prepared for meeting the Lord without rejection or rebuke. This is the work of our time that invites the cooperation of believers in word and deed. The Herald, which is the editor’s representative in places inaccessible, is an humble contribution to this, which they who not merely read (for that is a benefit absorbed in self) but of their penury endeavour to sustain and circulate it, have the honour and privilege to share in. And the honour of sending from America to Australia and New Zealand, and from Britain to California, a herald to preach the glad tidings of that glorious kingdom which is to rule over all in the Age to Come, and to teach the things concerning it, especially in a dark day like this, characterised by the profound ignorance of "the wise and prudent," is great indeed. It is marvellous that comparatively so few appreciate it. Let us be glad, however, that some do. May their number be greatly increased; and what they do, may they do it as unto the Lord, and not to man, and they will be sure not to lose their reward.

The following extract is of a later date in the same month, from the hand of Mr. R., to whom, on behalf of myself and the friends of the Herald in America who desire its circulation in Britain, as well as of its well-wishers there, who by his agency obtain it as easily as if published in London or Edinburgh, I return sincere and unfeigned thanks for his business-like punctuality and disinterested kindness in its affairs. May we all come to uniformity of vision in the great salvation, and rejoice together in the kingdom of God! My readers like to know what influence is being exerted by the currency of our ideas in divers parts of the world, and therefore wish from time to time to find an "Analecta Epistolaria" in the Herald, which, like the face of a watch, indicates the working of our principles in the public mind. It is to gratify this laudable curiosity that I introduce it now and then; and that they may be encouraged to exert themselves more than hitherto for the extension of the Herald’s circulation, which, from our extracts, they will perceive is not an affair terminating in the profit of its editor and the printer, but which operates to the casting of the minds of intelligent men and women into that mould which we believe to be the truth confessed by the Lord Jesus before Pontius Pilate, and to bear witness unto which, in the face of death, he came into the world.

Mr. R. says, "Among my receipts for the Herald, there is an anonymous donation of two shillings and sixpence from a poor man in Aberdeen to assist the editor of the Herald in its publication. Such an item is indeed more gratifying than all the vain applause of the multitude; and in addition to which, I could extract from the abundance of my correspondence, a volume of heartfelt prayer that has ascended to heaven on your behalf as a diligent and faithful servant of ‘the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.’"

The donation is indeed a gratifying incident, and all the more acceptable as being spontaneous. Two and sixpence is a large sum to a poor man in the north of Scotland; and from its being contributed anonymously, it is good evidence that the demonstrations of the Herald have touched his heart. Though subjected to much misrepresentation and reproach by the adherents of a profitable "orthodoxy," I shall work on, encouraged by the good wishes, the prayers, and the substantial contributions of the poor, whose privilege it has been from the beginning to support the proclamation of the gospel, and to have it preached to them as the heirs of the kingdom which it reveals.

EDITOR.

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