Encouragement to a friend regarding the children's school. A wish that Jesus may become Master in her and in the children's hearts.

What this letter is. A warm, particular letter, written 7 March 1733 to Christiana Maria Griesenbeck — the eighth in this run of letters to her — on a very concrete occasion: she has just opened a little school for children (a Strick-Schul, a knitting-school, of the kind pious women ran to teach poor children a trade along with the catechism). Tersteegen is delighted, and the whole letter is his attempt to lift that humble, everyday work into its true light. He had news it had begun, "which gave me occasion both for thanksgiving and for prayer," and he is sure "your self-submission and work will have pleased your Jesus far more than your M." — her husband. His first counsel is the one he keeps returning to: teach in dependence, not in strain — "may the Lord make you truly childlike with your children" — since "all light, all wisdom, power, and meekness are to be found in the One."

He knows the objections that "reason, in us and in others, will raise against this occupation" — that it is small, or thankless, or beneath her — and he waves them away: "Enough that we know our Immanuel is pleased with it." Then he gives her the reframe that is the heart of the letter. The children are not merely pupils to be taught a craft: "His hand sends you these children, not only that you should teach them to knit, but that you should offer them up again to Him, that He may make them His children." Seen so, the labor is immense in worth — "how fruitfully will all the trouble be laid out, if but a single one of these immortal souls … might be led to her rightful Lord." The letter ends in prayer that Christ Himself would teach in her schoolroom: "that the adorable little Child Jesus may come into your children's school, and become Master in you, and in the children's hearts" — so that at the last she might present them to God with the words of Scripture, "Behold, here am I, and the children which the Lord has given me."

A few words and echoes.

• The knitting-school. The occasion — a Strick-Schul, a small charity school where children were taught handwork (knitting) together with the faith; Tersteegen treats this ordinary work as a genuine spiritual calling.
• "Childlike with your children." His first counsel — to teach not from her own strength but in childlike dependence on God, in whom "all light, all wisdom, power, and meekness" are found (an echo of "become as little children," Matthew 18:3; and of Colossians 2:3, the treasures of wisdom hid in Christ).
• "Our Immanuel is pleased with it." The answer to every objection reason raises — it is enough that God ("God with us," Matthew 1:23) approves the work; His purposes in it need not be understood.
• "Offer them up again to Him." The reframe at the letter's core — the children given by God's hand are to be given back to Him, "that He may make them His children" (an echo of "power to become the sons of God," John 1:12); the teacher's real task is to lead souls, "redeemed in the blood of Jesus," to their "rightful Lord."
• "Master in you, and in the children's hearts." The letter's prayer — that Christ Himself would be the true teacher in the schoolroom, forming both the woman and the children ("one is your Master, even Christ," Matthew 23:8, 10).
• "Behold, here am I, and the children." The words of Scripture (Hebrews 2:13, quoting Isaiah) she is to be able to say at the last — presenting the children entrusted to her, on "that Day," with joy.