Christian instruction to two travelling merchants.

What this letter is. A short, vivid letter — unusual in this run for being addressed to two men, Georg Heinrich Fischer and Johann Heinrich Otterbeck, who were away together on a trading journey. Its whole art is to take the very circumstances of a business trip — the roads, the inns, the haggling, the "hardships and vexations" — and turn them into a spiritual discipline. Tersteegen does not tell these merchants to stop being merchants; he tells them how to travel as Christians. He begins by placing them under the sign of the travelling Christ-child: "the little Child Jesus, who for our sake would journey down into Egypt, may He let all your journeys please Him too" — and then names the one thing that matters, that "you think more upon Him than upon all your business-dealings, which yet should also be undertaken only for His sake." Even the trade is to be done for God.

The contrast he draws is pointed: "merchants, when they are away travelling, think only of profit." Let these two, by contrast, seek a different profit — "let no opportunity pass where you can overcome and deny yourselves," offering their frustrations "to Him who endured far more on His journeys." Two concrete rules follow. First, guard your time: "buy out some time for prayer," because it takes "much grace to keep yourselves, amid the world, unspotted from the world." Second, and most memorably, he gives them a picture to carry: imagine yourselves "like a pair of monastery-brothers, who, on the highways, are not ashamed to read their Horas" — their appointed hours of prayer. Two businessmen on the road as a travelling monastery of two. "So do you also! … For God is in all places," and looks for worshippers "in spirit and in truth." The letter ends by naming this as no side-hobby but the main thing: "this is our calling; let this be our work too, that God's grace may not be in vain in us."

A few words and echoes.

• The travelling Child. The opening image — the infant Jesus "carried down into Egypt" (Matthew 2:14) sanctifies their own journeys; their trips are placed under His.
• Profit vs. the true gain. The pointed contrast — where other merchants "think only of profit," these are to seek the gain of self-conquest, turning every hardship into an offering.
• "He endured far more on His journeys." Christ as the fellow-traveller who suffered more in "His dealings with men" (Hebrews 12:3) — so their vexations are shared with, and offered to, Him.
• "Buy out some time for prayer." His phrase for guarding prayer amid busyness — an echo of "redeeming the time" (Ephesians 5:16); and of keeping "unspotted from the world" (James 1:27).
• The two monastery-brothers. The letter's most memorable figure — two businessmen on the road as a travelling monastery, unashamed to say their "Horas" (the canonical hours of prayer) in inns and streets; prayer belongs "in all places" (1 Timothy 2:8).
• "God is in all places." The ground of the whole counsel — since God is everywhere, worship is possible everywhere; He seeks those who worship "in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24).
• "That God's grace may not be in vain in us." The closing charge — to make holiness itself their real "work" and calling (2 Corinthians 6:1; "called to be saints," Romans 1:7).