Instruction to a Christian merchant travelling to the fair.

What this letter is. A short, spirited note to a brother who is a merchant, written as the man is about to set out for the Messe — the great trade-fair (Leipzig, Frankfurt, or the like) where the merchants of the region went to buy and sell. The brother had, half in jest, wished for a Zehrpfennig — a little travelling-money, a coin for the road. Tersteegen turns the wish into a small sermon on carrying God's own provision.

God's post. "I will tell it to the Lord," he writes, "that He Himself may give you some and send it after you through His post that calls in everywhere — His Holy Spirit of love." The image is of a courier service (Post) that overtakes the traveller at every stage; the German zusprechen means both to call in / deliver and to speak a word of comfort. Only wait for this post, he says: "escape Him nowhere," and never think that waiting on God will cost you your time or your trade — "quite the contrary."

The outward mind, and the child. "A mind turned outward does nothing right in its darkness," and to work merely "in the drive of nature" leaves the soul "only shaken and tormented by the world-spirit." The remedy is to become small: "whoever, like a simple little child, lets himself be guided by the Spirit of love — which is the very Spirit of wisdom — can be joyful in all things," letting Wisdom "go before" and seeking no gain but "to content this delightful good of the soul."

The merchant's objection. With a merchant's ear, Tersteegen anticipates the counting-house reply — that "fair-goers would in this way make poor profit." His answer: stop reason's mouth with the Book of Wisdom (7:7, 14). These eternal goods are "no fancies that one tells to children to lull them to sleep," but "essential and beatifying goods of eternity, against which one may well let the whole fair-trumpery of this world stand" — count for nothing. And the whole thing is "so exceedingly simple to learn and to find; only held out and endured with self-disdainings and childlike trust in the inner waiting."

A few words and echoes.

• "The spirit of wisdom came to me." Wisdom of Solomon 7:7 — "I called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me." The letter's cited text.
• "A treasure unto men that never faileth." Wisdom of Solomon 7:14 — the friendship of God as the merchant's true gain.
• "Like a simple little child." Matthew 18:3 — "except ye… become as little children."
• "His post that calls in everywhere." Not a scripture but Tersteegen's own conceit: the Holy Spirit as God's ever-arriving courier of love.
• "Zehrpfennig." A travelling-penny — money set aside for board and expenses on a journey; here spiritualized into the Spirit that God sends after the traveller.