To a traveler the nearness of Jesus is commended as the one thing needful.

What this letter is. The hundredth letter of the third part closes the Evertsen sequence: four days after writing to the father and folding that letter inside a note to the younger son, Tersteegen writes to the elder son, Abraham — a Barmen merchant lately up from a fever and setting out for the city the letter discreetly calls "A.", very probably Amsterdam. It is a traveler's blessing in one paragraph and a sickroom bulletin in the other, and its title says what binds them: to a man going out among the world's sights, the nearness of Jesus is commended as the one thing needful.

One thing to see in Amsterdam. The first paragraph travels with him. Tersteegen has accompanied the journey in spirit and prayed it through — that God would accept it, attend it with blessing, and "preserve you both in body and soul." Then the whole letter gathers into a single wish: "May Jesus call to you many times in spirit and with power: Behold, I am with you." The old print sets that saying apart in its quoting type — God's word to Jacob on the road, given to a traveler as his one provision. And then the turn that makes the letter: "This one thing alone is to be seen for you in A. as well, where other people find so many rarities and antiquities to see." The tourists go for the cabinets of curiosities; the pilgrim in the same streets has a single sight to look for. The paragraph ends by looking at it: a prayer, set entire in the quoting type, to the "great, blessed, and alone-satisfying Being" — that in all places, at all times, in all things "we may see only thee, and love only thee, who art the true object of our heart and eternally enough." Eternally enough: two words that outweigh every inventory of rarities.

The sickroom paragraph. After the redactor's dash the letter comes home to Mülheim, where a sick man lies in the writer's own house: "my nephew N." — the critical edition identifies him as the young Gerhard Tersteegen, the uncle's namesake. The report is exact, tender, and utterly unsentimental. The body: noticeably weaker these several days, mostly kept to his bed. The inward man: "he remains surrendered to God and to His will and way over him" — but the surrender is at present unfelt, "not perceived by himself with his wonted courage and contentment"; the mind stands "somewhat laid bare and under pressure." And then the direction of a lifetime compressed into one clause: "this will serve only for progress and a deeper grounding; the ground of the surrender remains one and the same." The feeling of surrender may ebb; the surrender itself does not — its ground is not in the feeling. It is the same doctrine the ninety-eighth letter gave the brother in Barmen, now proved at a deathbed.

The close. "Time does not permit me to write more" — and what more there is becomes a benediction on the move: "May Jesus live and reign ever more fully and absolutely in us!" The sick nephew joins the household's greeting, and the letter ends, as it began, on the road between two houses that have both learned where the one thing needful is to be seen.

A few words and echoes.

• the one thing needful. Martha is troubled about many things; one thing is needful — the title sets the traveler's whole itinerary under Mary's portion.
• the nearness of Jesus. The title's rare coinage — nearness itself, held out as the journey's one sight.
• a fever that had befallen you. The illness arrives in a participle and leaves in a clause — the letter wastes no words on it.
• accompanied you in spirit. The stay-at-home's pilgrimage; the ninety-ninth letter pays visits the same way.
• be pleased to accept your journey. Even the itinerary is offered up — the trip itself laid on the altar before it is taken.
• Behold, I am with you. God's word to Jacob leaving home — behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest — the traveler's text exactly.
• rarities and antiquities. The collector's vocabulary of the age — the cabinets and curiosities a merchant abroad would be shown.
• alone-satisfying Being. The prayer's name for God: the one Being that satisfies — every rarity a lesser exhibit.
• draw our love wholly unto thyself. And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me — the prayer asks for the drawing.
• the true object of our heart. Its old word is Vorwurf — that which is set before the heart's gaze; the beholder's word, not the browser's.
• eternally enough. The letter's summit — enough, and enough for ever; the portion that outlasts the fair.
• my nephew N. The sick man of the second paragraph — the critical edition names him: the nephew Gerhard Tersteegen, ill in his uncle's house.
• the inward man. The apostle's anatomy — the report distinguishes the weakening body from the grounded soul.
• his wonted courage and contentment. What sickness has suspended is the feeling of the surrender, not the surrender.
• laid bare and under pressure. The soul stripped of felt consolation — the same bareness the ninety-eighth letter said was no reason to change anything.
• a deeper grounding. The house-word of these letters: the storm roots the tree.
• one and the same. The ground of the surrender does not rise and fall with the weather of the mind.