Measure not your advancement by relation to the road passed over, but by rapport to the end. There yet remains a great road to pass over, since God himself is the way.
The more fully you enter into his designs, the more I love you.
ASSISTANCE RENDERED BY ONE SOUL TO ANOTHER.
The interest I feel in your spiritual welfare, my dear F., is very great—so deeply absorbing, that I slept but little during the past night, presenting you in prayer before our Lord. I have an inward conviction, that God is enriching your heart by my humble instrumentality; thus, while he elevates you on one side, he debases you on the other, by communicating his grace through so unworthy a channel as myself. The Spirit has revealed to me your state, when I have received no intelligence from you. God has thus ordered it, for his own glory; and when many years hence, this method of God's operations will be better known—the assistance rendered by one soul to another, without the mediation of the body—the use he has made of this feeble instrument to communicate to you his grace, will serve to substantiate this divine truth and heavenly mode of operation.
There is therefore for you, a means of interior advancement, which no distance of place can interrupt. It will be only from lack of correspondence on your part, that it will be diverted. God desires it, at least for a time, until your soul is entirely in union with himself. This method of communication is only a superior fountain discharging itself into another; or, as two rivers bearing each other to the same sea.
Receive then this poor heart in the fulness of Christ's love, and believe me, no one can be more fully united to you than I am.
SIMPLICITY AND POWER OF THE WORD.
You enquire, my friend, why I do not use obscure terms and extraordinary expressions, in explaining the Scriptures. My Lord teaches me, that while there are no writings so profound as the Gospels, there are none so simple. And further, that simplicity of soul gives simplicity of expression. When we speak of a state beyond our experience, we do so with difficulty, and have recourse to learning to aid us, and use forced expressions.