Chapter 5—Five Letters to Members of the Wessels
Family in South Africa
Letter A
North Fitzroy, Victoria
July, 1892
Dear Brother,
In our experience we have often found that Providence was prepar-
ing the way for enlarging the work when the difficulties we were
obliged to encounter in planting the standard of truth were neither
small nor few. Satan seemed to contest every inch of the way of
progress, and trials and obstacles had to be met and overcome, and
reproach endured before success crowned our efforts. How many times
the workers were heard to say, “If I had only known how much this
undertaking would have cost me, I would never have entered upon
it.” But if our Saviour was the Leader of the undertaking, He saw the
whole length of the dark and discouraging path that would have to
be travelled in order to seek and to save that which is lost. Did Jesus
hesitate in this work?
Was the life of the Prince of life and glory without trial? No. He
was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Not a pang that rent
His lowly heart, not an insult that was heaped upon His head, not a
privation that He was called to endure, but was all open before Him
before He laid aside His royal crown, His royal robe, and stepped
down from the throne to clothe His divinity with humanity.
The path from the manger to Calvary was all before His eyes and
He knew what fearful anguish would come upon Him. He knew it all,
and yet He said, “Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written
of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my
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heart.” Then since the Saviour had to pass through all this experience,
shall we expect that Satan will let us alone, undisturbed, to do the
grand work of planting the standard of truth in new fields?
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