A letter of condolence. Various weighty reminders for the guarding of the heart amid distracting circumstances.
The Twenty-fourth Letter.
A letter of condolence. Various weighty reminders for the guarding of the heart amid distracting circumstances.
N. N.
Both your dear little letters I duly received, and from the latter I learned, not without feeling, of the painful death of your mother. I take part from the heart in this your loss and grief. Surely God's eternal love, even under your mother's last bitter struggle, will have eyed nothing but the best for the eternal spirit; and what, after all, does a passing bitter hour matter? If only, through a temporal affliction, the heart is bent and awakened to hunger, in penitence, after God's grace in Christ, then such bitternesses are not to be exchanged for all the sweetnesses of the world. That day will make it clear. I wish only, from the innermost of my heart, that it may be laid powerfully to the heart of all her surviving relatives on this occasion, and that through this death a lasting movement toward the life of grace may arise in their inward part.
Oh, how gladly does the eternal Love make use of all things — and of such mournful cases too — to come at our poor, outward-wandered heart, and to draw the mind stuck fast in deception, upon such incontrovertible experiences of the nothingness of all that is temporal, away from the temporal and up to what is true and abiding! Would that immortal souls might take it to heart, and not put off the bitter cup until the very last!
That God has so strengthened you, beloved sister, in this grief, I am truly glad to hear. The Lord will strengthen you further amid the distracting matters that may still be there to see to. I will not fail to entreat His divine Majesty in my weakness on your behalf, that He keep you and supply all that is needful. Commend yourself, too, often to the Lord, with an affection of love and trust; do this also unnoticed, in the very midst of dealing with distracting things; do it just like a weak child that holds fast its mother's hand. Testify to the present Friend of the heart that it is only out of necessity and submission that you spend so much time and attention on such trifles, and that you would incomparably rather wait upon His divine workings, His service, and His company in the spirit. Testify to Him, by the mute language of the heart, that you would do everything not for yourself but only for Him, with no regard for your own gain or harm, ease or unease; and then let the inclination He has laid in you — to return home again and to your accustomed rest — be a constant counterweight, so that you nowhere let yourself in too far.
And I would gladly add this: let your bodily weakness be a good pretext to excuse yourself now and then, and to withdraw, where your presence is not really so needful.
German
Der 24te Brief.
Condolenz-Schreiben. Verschiedene wichtige Erinnerungen zur Bewahrung des Herzens in zerstreuenden Umständen.
N. N. Beide eure liebe Brieflein habe wohl erhalten, und aus letzterem den schmerzlichen Todes-Fall eurer Mutter nicht ohne Empfindung ersehen.
— 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 condolence that quickly becomes a letter of counsel. The recipient's mother has died; Tersteegen takes genuine part in the grief, but refuses to let it rest as mere loss. God's love, he insists, was eyeing "nothing but the best for the eternal spirit" even in the mother's last hard struggle — and a bitter hour that bends and wakes a heart toward grace is "not to be exchanged for all the sweetnesses of the world." His deeper wish is that the death might work on the whole surviving family, stirring "a lasting movement toward the life of grace." The second half turns to a very concrete problem: a bereaved daughter now has an estate and a hundred "distracting matters" to handle. His answer is not to flee them but to keep the heart quietly turned to God in their midst — to hold the Friend's hand "like a weak child" holding its mother's, to give trifles only the time necessity demands, and — strikingly practical — to let bodily weakness serve as "a good pretext" for bowing out of what isn't truly needed.
A few words and echoes.
- "eyed nothing but the best" (nichts als das Beste … beäuget). Beäugen is to keep one's eye on; Tersteegen pictures the divine love watching over the dying mother, intent only on the good of "the eternal spirit."
- "hunger… after God's grace in Christ." An echo of the Beatitude, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness" (Matt 5:6) — grief's use is to reawaken that hunger.
- "the bitter cup… until the very last." The bitter cup is the biblical image of a hard, God-given reckoning (Gethsemane, Matt 26:39; the "cup of trembling," Isa 51:17). The warning is against postponing the inward reckoning that suffering invites.
- "the present Friend of the heart." One of Tersteegen's habitual names for the indwelling Christ — the companion to be "testified to" silently, "by the mute language of the heart," even while the hands are busy with business.
- "a good pretext" (ein guter Vorwand). Not evasion but discernment: permission to husband a frail body and a scattered heart by declining what does not really require one's presence.
- "outward-wandered heart" (ausgewandtes Herz). The heart turned outward, away from its inward ground — the very thing a death, rightly received, can turn back inward.
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thii-024 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.