Encouragement to an inward, detached walk.

What this letter is. A week after the two letters of the 12th of December, the convalescent takes up the pen again — sparingly, on doctor's terms — to answer the younger Evertsen brother in Barmen, who had sent two letters (one a New Year's greeting, in the old custom of writing them in advance) and, somewhere in them, had asked Tersteegen's forgiveness for something. The letter is short because it must be ("I may as yet use the pen only a little"), and its title gives its single thrust: encouragement to an inward, detached walk.

The sickbed verdict. First the news, given with the same serenity as in the sister-letters of the same week: there was "one circumstance in my illness which made me think also of a passing-over" — his gentle word for dying — though in a stronger body the illness "would not have been so grave." The judgment on it all: "I thank God for this gracious chastening, which has been good for me." And then the sentence the illness has burned clean: "My heart and mind would go unmoved and wholly into the eternal. All life that is not in truth a life before God seems to me utterly worthless and foolish" — the old print sets before God apart in its spacing — "Let us venture and employ life, time, strength, body, and whatever we have here for God, for soon we shall have it no more!"

The kingdom within. The counsel to the brother is Tersteegen's whole mystical program in four sentences. God wills to lead him "further into a true detachment, that He may be able to impart Himself to you" — detachment not as loss but as the condition of receiving. "Walk in simplicity, and let yourself be inwardly simplified through God's leading, and be led out of the senses into the spirit." Then the saying that fuses two words of Christ into one: "Our kingdom is not of this world, but within us" — the kingdom that is not of this world (John 18:36) and the kingdom within you (Luke 17:21), made the possession of all who are His. "Where this kingdom of world, senses, and reason comes to an end, there God's kingdom begins in us: yet we cannot seize it; it must reveal itself" — and the approach to what cannot be seized is "the honest following in the ways of denial, of suffering, and of prayer."

Forgiveness answered. The brother's apology is met with the most disarming absolution in these letters: "You ask my forgiveness, etc. Is there anything there to forgive? Then be it granted you with all my heart" — though "even before this I found nothing in myself to forgive, but rather brotherly and childlike union of love." Yet the willingness to bow pleases him, as the thing itself: "it is nonetheless dear to me that you are indeed willing to bow and submit." Of his own care for the brother's soul he gives the double word that closes so many of these letters — full assurance, small claims: "Of my heart's inclination and concern for your soul's furtherance you can be assured: but my light and ability are small. Let us in everything look to God, and trust!" Greetings to the parents and "the called hearts" of Barmen, and the pen is laid down: "I may write no more. I remain Your faithfully devoted brother."

A few words and echoes.

• a passing-over. Uebergang — the critical edition glosses it: through death into the eternal life. The convalescent names his death as a crossing, nothing more.
• this gracious chastening, which has been good for me. Psalm 119:71 — "It is good for me that I have been afflicted" — with Hebrews 12's loving chastening behind it.
• a life before God. The letter's touchstone, stressed in the old print: only what is lived before Him counts as life at all.
• for soon we shall have it no more! The night cometh, when no man can work (John 9:4); whatever thy hand findeth to do (Ecclesiastes 9:10).
• a true detachment. Abgeschiedenheit — the old mystics' word (Eckhart and Tauler taught it) for the soul unfastened from creatures; here the condition on which God "may be able to impart Himself."
• inwardly simplified. His own coinage vereinfältigen — simplicity not merely practiced but wrought in us.
• out of the senses into the spirit. The mystical itinerary in five words.
• Our kingdom is not of this world, but within us. John 18:36 fused with Luke 17:21 — Christ's "my kingdom" made "ours" by grace.
• it must reveal itself. The kingdom is not seized but disclosed (Luke 17:20–21); ours is the approach — "denial, suffering, and prayer."
• the fullness of Jesus. John 1:16 — "of his fulness have all we received."
• bow and submit. The apology mattered to him not as satisfaction but as the soul's good posture.
• the called hearts. The awakened circle at Barmen — die geruffene Hertzen — those whom the call has reached.
• faithfully devoted. treu-Verbundener — the closing self-description of these years, worn like a signature.