Haskell, Brother and Sister [S. N.]
Hamilton, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia
January 7, 1899
Previously unpublished.
Dear Brother and Sister Haskell:
I received your letter. Thank you. This is a most beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky. We hope much for today and tomorrow. The interest continues good. A school teacher and his wife and daughter came ten miles yesterday, and he is now investigating and inquiring. Our table was spread in the dining tent, and they took their evening meal with the members of our family. They enjoyed their supper, the nut gravy. He has purchased from canvassers Great Controversy and Patriarchs and Prophets. He has not [before] attended the meeting, but he came eight miles to attend the evening meeting and said he would come today. He has been up to Cooranbong a week ago and says he is pleased with the outlook. There must be some interest when a family will attend an evening meeting and ride ten miles to return home over the road to Morisset. 14LtMs, Lt 251, 1899, par. 1
The whole community is stirred, and this one and that one and the other one meets us with, “You cannot possibly tell the great good this meeting has done.” They will tell you that men who never attended meetings are convinced we have the truth. God is at work. I know now, if all who are connected with the work clear the King’s highway, we shall see of the salvation of God. You must in no case lose faith, real, genuine faith and trust in God. 14LtMs, Lt 251, 1899, par. 2
God has His appointed agencies. He sees in men just the material needed in His work—material in which, if sanctified, He will work out the possibilities. There may be persons that may pass by and say, There is nothing in him; he can make nothing. God sees all the possibilities of that heart, and begins His landscape gardening. Did not God put the possibility of beauty in that which is offensive and in every way objectionable? Although our finite vision cannot grasp the unseen possibilities, the Lord can. He sees the combativeness in man; He sees the destructive propensities; and He commences His work to soften and subdue while He preserves every vein and muscle, the courage and perseverance, that will make true workmen. 14LtMs, Lt 251, 1899, par. 3
“Ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.” [1 Corinthians 3:9.] God will work out every piece of timber that is unworthy of the structure. He will accept every faculty of soul and mind and strength if men will submit to be co-workers with Him. He is the great and unseen Worker. Man is the humble, seen actor, but he must sink himself in God; else he will not work after God’s similitude. 14LtMs, Lt 251, 1899, par. 4
The greatest hindrance to God’s work is our own ideas, our own human plans. Human threads are not to be drawn into the web. God would have man depend wholly upon Him. This character building in our individual selves needs to be critically inspected by our individual selves lest the human become mingled with divine. The saving of our souls requires heart searching and putting away of those things which are not calculated to make us individually the best material and instruments through whom God can work. The outward work is vain unless God works within. God has committed to those who have put on Christ the work of untrained, undisciplined mortals, and He would not have in word, spirit, or action anything that shall mislead them. We are to be as tender and pitiful and compassionate as Christ has been to us. 14LtMs, Lt 251, 1899, par. 5
A few words more: You had some talk with me in regard to W. C. White, that you gave him not the least encouragement to help in any way. When in Brisbane, on last Sabbath, the appointment was given out to the people that Willie White would speak Sabbath forenoon, he told me that he had been appointed to speak. When the time came, you said not a word to him, but walked into the tent and took the meeting. Now, why you did this might have been because the impressions you have cherished of W. C. White had put your own words and plans out of your mind, and you went right forward after the appointment had been given out. It was only a little company assembled, but there was no real need of your being taxed with that meeting; but it is your habit, and you did not consider at all what impression that would make on his mind. 14LtMs, Lt 251, 1899, par. 6
He has not mentioned the matter to me but I have to him. There were many places where you could have encouraged him if you had the feeling to help him that you ought to have had. It was a chance to make use of talent that was right at your hand, who could have given light and truth to the people, but he never will put himself forward. This is one who is not a novice. This is one who has been before congregations and filled appointments in churches and in camp meetings, and I have felt edified by hearing him speak. He has good language, appropriate language, but the view your wife has expressed to you of W. C. White has shown she is working at cross purposes with God, and that her opinion is far from infallible. 14LtMs, Lt 251, 1899, par. 7
I put this straight because there are things that God will have decidedly changed in the mind, in the heart. Then there will be a spiritual estimate of God’s servants when there is a more humble estimate of her own spirit. This spirit of criticism places her on the devil’s ground. Now in the name of the Lord I call upon her to come off that ground. I make this matter no less strong and decided. This will not, if cherished as it has been done, make her complete in Him. God’s plan is one that will stand the day of judgment. He calls for cooperation with God and cooperation with one another. There must not be the idea that no one can do the work but your two selves. There must be accepting God’s servants, and that without being subject to your criticisms. 14LtMs, Lt 251, 1899, par. 8
The revealed will of God has lessons of infinite value and efficacy adapted to every individual. We are candidates for immortality only as the will of God is revealed in us through our perfect submission to His will and His way. The converting power of God will make us wise in that wisdom which cometh from God. The Lord, with all His tender compassion and love, is waiting to see what His people will do in laboring for souls. They are His agencies, and if they do not do the part assigned them they are not cooperating with God. The young men must have a chance, but W. C. White is not a young man. He is one whom God set apart for His work, as one who must feed the flock of God, as one who must act as counsellor, one whom He has taught and will teach, because he never takes the highest seat. 14LtMs, Lt 251, 1899, par. 9
I have now the tenderest feelings toward you, my brother, my sister, but I must tell you the truth and then my soul is clear. 14LtMs, Lt 251, 1899, par. 10
Private to Brother Haskell: 14LtMs, Lt 251, 1899, par. 11
You speak in a desponding tone, but, nevertheless, all that I have written you I beg of you not to misunderstand. It is that which the Lord sees, but you do not discern. He has not placed matters before you to discourage or perplex you, but to open your eyes to see more clearly what tramples and cripples you, that you can, by cooperating with God, certainly overcome. He wants you to come into that position that His joy may remain in you and that your joy may be full. 14LtMs, Lt 251, 1899, par. 12
He has given you knowledge, imparted to you mental and moral powers, that He expects you to use as His gifts in the very work of perfection of your character. He has given you light, knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus. He gives the Holy Spirit. He supplies all your defects of character with His own holy attributes. He gives you opportunities and facilities, and He will need all, the whole of you, that you may be a laborer together with God. But never, never, never has God consented for you to enter upon any work to manage it all in your own way, in your own wisdom, in your own strength. All the outward work is vain and discouraging unless God works within; unless you submit that self shall die, then all the manifest work is vain. But when God is working within, you will evidence the same outwardly. 14LtMs, Lt 251, 1899, par. 13
You are not to feel that you need no help from others, no suggestions, no intimations from others. God would have us all, in every pursuit of knowledge in religious things, in every branch of business, every department of education, every study of science, illustrate the all-pervading Bible principle of cooperation with God and with man in harmoniously working out the divine plan of God to be laborers together with God and with one another. 14LtMs, Lt 251, 1899, par. 14
If we will not run “as uncertainly,” and not to fight “as one that beateth the air,” God will impart to us moral powers and spiritual susceptibilities. [1 Corinthians 9:26.] He has manifested to us the Light and the Truth and the Way. In order to be worked as God’s husbandry we must use all the helps God has offered as saving agencies. Pray, believe for your own salvation by putting on Christ in all circumstances in character purification. Use all the helps God has offered. Pray, believe, and obey. Thus every power is brought into union with divine power and divine opportunities. Diligently, conscientiously yoke up with Christ. 14LtMs, Lt 251, 1899, par. 15
I have the assurance that you will yoke up with Christ and become complete in Him, for you will be laborers together with God and one another, and this is the only provision made—that the work will be complete in and through Jesus Christ. Our probationary time is too precious to have any part of it aside from God. Our every attribute purified, ennobled, sanctified always leads to unity and improvement in God. He will not work reformation in our defective characters unless we carry out His own ways, to be zealous workers, cooperating with God and with one another, and God has all the treasures of His grace. 14LtMs, Lt 251, 1899, par. 16
To this end may the Lord strengthen you and Sister Haskell is my prayer. He will do a work for you which you cannot possibly do for yourself. The highest talents are given of God. You did not create them. They are a trust and can be removed and confusion come in the place of clear conception. God would have you learn the lessons in His school that you have not yet learned—to love your brethren as He has loved you. 14LtMs, Lt 251, 1899, par. 17