That the beloved Jesus-child is the magnet of our spirit. How to bear distractions and temptations with more than angelic patience.

The Hundred-and-Thirty-Third Letter.

That the beloved Jesus-child is the magnet of our spirit. How to bear distractions and temptations with more than angelic patience.

Dearly beloved sister!

The dearest Jesus-child remains ever the dearest child, the dearest object, the dearest longing of your heart, the final quieting of your pain, the goal and the centre-point toward which the spirit — through all the waves — turns and settles. His love-magnet has touched and stroked the iron (I mean the needle of our spirit); its yearning and inclining will only thither, and inmostly thither: but ah! how restless, how trembling grows the poor magnet-needle when some alien power, or some intervening thing, holds it back a while — or seems to hold it back — from betaking itself thither, whither it will! Let it be; it will thither still, and inmostly thither. He who draws it to Himself knows well that it aims at Him alone, and His attracting power is enough to annihilate every hindrance, so that at last the spirit may freely fit itself to Him and be inmostly united with Him.

That is it, then! Look at yourself and your circumstances as little as you possibly can! The Lord has taken that upon Himself; He cares for you. Do not judge your state by your own thinking and feeling; only mark — whither does the magnet-needle will? To Jesus, to Jesus! You are not far from Him; it aims at Him, and He draws you to Himself. It is surely not the sweetness in His love that you are after: that would not be to love Jesus, that would be to love yourself.

If ye loved me, saith Jesus, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father. John 14.

Ah, Jesus! how blind are we! Is it only then to love Thee, when one forgets one's own pleasure, to wish Thy pleasure alone? Ah, then, give us this Thy love into the heart, and go Thou, for all that, to the Father, and be there perfectly blessed, glorious, and glad; we will then so rejoice over Thy blessedness that we can well get through the two or three days of Thy supposed absence, until the word comes: The Lord is risen!

Yes, you say: "That is not all — that I feel myself so far from Jesus; the distractions take no end. And there comes to this besides, that the temporal cares for my livelihood fall so thick upon my neck," and so on. Yes — but did not Jesus say this too:

Ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone.

You are scattered; you feel your own portion, and that is indeed grace, when it all so comes to light; only, meanwhile, do not leave Jesus alone, but keep firm foot by Him on Golgotha. You think, perhaps, that you never had any cares — and so you were still pure in your own eyes. God shows, out of grace, otherwise. Of all good we are, in ourselves, stripped bare, and the root of all evil is in us: whoever knows this glories in grace, and can embrace sinners with compassion. By this way we are truly made into children.

With your thousandfold temptations (as you call them) I have inmost compassion, and Jesus still more: but there shall not a hair fall from your head without His fatherly good pleasure. May Jesus strengthen you, that in your courage and childlike trust you grow not faint; may He breathe into you His own Jesus-patience — then you have a more than angelic patience: yes, He will do it, for He is unchangeably faithful in His love. Do not, in your vehemence, wish now this, now that way to deliverance. Let your faith unite itself with Jesus' good pleasure in everything, and give itself over to Him, even when you do not see whither it goes: He will not leave you nor forsake you. Amen!

I am weak, and wonder that I can still write this, as a wrapper round the enclosed. Remember me; I do the like in weakness, and remain, with hearty greeting,

Your

devoted fellow-brother in Jesus.

Mülheim, the 11th of February 1738.

German

Der hundertdreiunddreißigste Brief.

Daß das liebste JEsuskind der Magnet unseres Geistes sey. Wie die Zerstreuungen und Versuchungen mit mehr als engelischer Geduld zu tragen.

Herzlich-geliebte Schwester!

Das liebste JEsus-Kind bleibt doch immer das liebste Kind, der liebste Vorwurf, das liebste Verlangen deines Herzens, die endliche Beruhigung deines Schmerzens, das Ziel und der Mittelpunkt, wohin sich der Geist durch alle Wellen hindurch lenket und senket.

— 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).