Letters · Erster Band · Theil I (1773)

The fleetingness of all that is temporal. The necessity of a complete detachment. Comfort over the departure of our friends.

Bd I · Th I · Brief 42 · Der zweiundvierzigste Brief

Addressee — "geliebte Freundin!" — a woman friend (a new addressee, no longer the dying sister of 38–41); also "geliebte Mitpilgerin."
Date — none given in the 1773/GS print.
Provenance — translated from the 1845 Gesammelte Schriften (Bd I), collated against the 1773 first edition (both PD)

The Forty-Second Letter.

The fleetingness of all that is temporal. The necessity of a complete detachment. Comfort over the departure of our friends.

In the grace of Jesus, beloved friend!

Our life in time is indeed truly a pilgrim-walk. The still eternity, which is opened to us in spirit through the death of Jesus, is the final resting-place of the true strangers. What is visible is transient; the best in it comes and goes. Our fellow-traveler in H. I have seen and greeted, as it were in passing: but it is to me as though it had been a dream; her presence is already gone again, though her memory remains in blessing. Now, through God's kindly providence, I see and greet the pilgrims of these parts once again — but, again, only as in passing; soon they will see me, or I them, no more after the body.

The outward refreshment of the godly is a refreshment which God gives, but an incidental and changeable refreshment, to be valued only for the sake of its end: namely, that we may go so much the more eagerly to God Himself, into our own hearts, where He will be and remain to us, essentially and in highest perfection, from now on and without diminishing, all that the best friend and the dearest child of God could ever become to us. What else, beloved friend, can it mean — that God thus takes from you one traveling-companion after another? Just this, which He says through the prophet: I will allure her into solitude, and speak comfortably to her heart. O, how solitary and detached one must be in every way, if God's intimate friendship is to be experienced in spirit! The best of friends can sometimes hinder this friendship. God must be able to speak with us quite alone and freely, and He has yet great mysteries, of more than one kind, to disclose to us, before we are rightly fit to enter into His eternal house and habitation. Therefore let the removal of our dear friends seem to us no loss at all, since the dear Father sends them away only that He Himself may become so much the nearer and more intimate to us, until we too are ready, and may one day find all the dear children again in His bosom.

So let this, then, beloved fellow-pilgrim, be henceforth our aim and exercise, through God's grace: that our few remaining little hours we may become solitary, and shared, with the Lord — who created us for His fellowship, and would create us anew in Christ. He alone is enough, in time and in eternity.

❦

German

Der zweiundvierzigste Brief.

Flüchtigkeit alles Zeitlichen. Nothwendigkeit einer völligen Abgeschiedenheit. Trost über den Hingang unserer Freunde.

In der Gnade JEsu geliebte Freundin!

Unser Leben in der Zeit ist wohl recht ein Pilgerwandel. Die stille Ewigkeit, die uns durch JEsu Tod im Geiste aufgeschlossen, ist die endliche Ruhestadt der wahren Fremdlinge.

— Opening lines of the original German. The complete transcription of all 605 letters appears in the forthcoming Encounter Press critical edition; Brief 1 is shown in full as a sample.

German text: public domain (1773–75 first edition / 1845 Gesammelte Schriften).

Translator’s notes

What this letter is. A letter of comfort to a woman friend — a "fellow-pilgrim" — who has been losing friends, one after another, to death and distance. Tersteegen sets her grief inside a larger truth: "Our life in time is indeed truly a pilgrim-walk," and "what is visible is transient; the best in it comes and goes." He describes his own fleeting encounters — seeing a "fellow-traveler" only "as it were in passing," "as though it had been a dream" — and admits that soon he and the pilgrims around him "will see me, or I them, no more after the body." But the heart of the letter is a reframing of loss. The sweetness of godly friendship is real, "a refreshment which God gives" — yet "incidental and changeable," worth having only "for the sake of its end," which is to drive us "so much the more eagerly to God Himself." So when God "takes from you one traveling-companion after another," it means what He says through the prophet: "I will allure her into solitude, and speak comfortably to her heart." Solitude, Tersteegen argues, is the very condition of intimacy with God — "the best of friends can sometimes hinder this friendship" — and so "the removal of our dear friends" should "seem to us no loss at all," since the Father withdraws them only "that He Himself may become so much the nearer." The letter ends by turning bereavement into a shared vocation: to spend "our few remaining little hours" becoming "solitary, and shared, with the Lord… He alone is enough, in time and in eternity."

A few words and echoes.

The pilgrim-walk. The letter's frame — life as a journey through a land not our own, toward "the final resting-place of the true strangers" — draws on the New Testament picture of believers as "strangers and pilgrims on the earth" (Hebrews 11:13; 1 Peter 2:11).
Refreshment God gives — but incidental. His delicate point about friendship: its comfort truly comes from God, yet it is a means, not the end. To cling to the gift is to miss its purpose, which is to send us to the Giver. This is why "God" here is set, in his own text, in emphatic capitals — rendered in small capitals.
Alluring into solitude. The letter's governing text is Hosea 2:14 — "I will allure her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her." Tersteegen reads the loss of friends as exactly this alluring: God clearing the room so He can speak to the heart alone.
No loss at all. The consolation is bold — bereavement reframed not as deprivation but as God drawing nearer. The friends are not gone for nothing; they are the space in which "He Himself may become so much the nearer and more intimate."
He alone is enough. The closing note — again in emphatic capitals, rendered in small capitals — gathers the whole letter: every human nearness is a pointer to the one Nearness that "is enough, in time and in eternity."

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Erster Band, I. Theil, Brief 42 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thi-042.html.

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