How one is to exercise oneself in solitude and in prayer.

The Hundred-and-Fifteenth Letter.

How one is to exercise oneself in solitude and in prayer.

Beloved friend and sister!

Both your first and your latter little letter I have duly received. Your mind, as you express it, is pleasant to me — namely, that you now, according to your inward part, wholly desire to be for God, as His possession. With this mind, then, begin now anew, that at last something whole and thorough may come of your Christianity. Believe also firmly that God will gladly give you all strength thereto, when you go to Him with this mind. This mind must be the ground of your prayer in solitude, and it must also accompany you among all people and businesses, since you must always seek to become secretly [one] with God, and, with quiet mindfulness, lay this mind before Him.

Because the time in solitude seems to you to go by uselessly, begin it thus: When you come into solitude, offer yourself heartily up to God, and pray Him that He would bless you that little hour, and be with you! Then take a little book, for which you have perhaps the most devotion, read in it — as in God's presence — so deliberately and softly that not a single little word falls to the ground; take it all for yourself, taste it rightly, and let it fall into your heart. If you are now, meanwhile, awakened, moved, and taken up with God or His presence, then read no further, but give place to such good stirring, and exercise yourself in prayer — that is, in the occupation with God, in adoration, surrender, renunciation of your own self, and so forth. If you find no further nourishment in what you have read, and the inward awakening and devotion pass away again, then begin, as before, to read. In such a way you may spend perhaps half the time you have devoted to solitude; the other half spend only in prayer alone, without reading, as devoutly and as well as you can, and heed not whether it be darkness or light, dry or savoury.

Before you go again to your work, thank God heartily for such an hour; make a resolution to be faithful to God, with denial of your nature and of your own life; pray God that He would go with you, and not forsake you under your businesses. Then go, devoutly, with God again, and do your business to God's love and honour, and in that manner which I said at the beginning of this letter, and beware that you nowhere give nourishment to your nature and self-property!

Now my weak head can no more. To N. I recommend just such a prayer- and reading-exercise. You must both not perform your things so naturally, away, and as by habit; not that you should flee the outward businesses, but flee the inattention and sloth of nature — and also moderate the restless urgency, through the childlike fear of God, and through an oft-renewed remembrance of God's presence. I remain

Your

Mülheim, the 18th of February, 1737. — fellow-brother.

German

Der hundertundfünfzehnte Brief.

Wie man sich in der Einsamkeit und im Gebet zu üben.

Geliebte Freundin und Schwester!

Sowohl dein ersteres als letzteres Briefgen habe ich wohl empfangen. Dein Sinn, so wie du ihn ausdrückest, ist mir angenehm, daß du nämlich jetzt nach deinem Inneren ganz begehrest für GOtt zu seyn, als Sein Eigenthum.

— 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).