A selection from a letter to Robert L. Dabney by his mentor, Rev. William S. White, of Lexington, Virginia. Dabney was a young pastor and was in depression of spirits. Rev. White wrote to encourage him in the work of preaching. The letter was written on January 26, 1849:
Remember that it is ‘neither the first blow nor the last that fells the oak.’ Therefore, strike away, and the tree will fall and the forest be cleared. I know no means of building up and extending the borders of Zion but the truth studied, learned, communicated, and then followed by prayer. Preach as if your preaching was everything, and then pray as if it were nothing. If I could not rest in this view, I should despair.
The Life and Letters of Robert Lewis Dabney, by Thomas Cary Johnson, first published in 1903, reprinted by the Banner of Truth Trust, 1977, p. 111.
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Moody Stuart said, "Ruth Bryan's letters are remarkably like those of Samuel Rutherford's, closely resembling them in most winning, unwearied, and gloriously endless eulogy of the King in His beauty." Joel Beeke says, "Ruth Bryan stands in a class of great female devotional writers, such as Anne Dutton and Mary Winslow, whose Christ-centered correspondence has helped hundreds of God's people drink more deeply of the wells of salvation."
by Charles Haddon Spurgeon
About Me
Why Life & Letters?
Before e-mails, telephones and text-messaging, people wrote letters to one another. Letters are personal and thoughtful. We can be thankful that biographers have letters to and from the people they write about from generations gone by, for modern forms of commu-nication leave us in want. Letters have a quality about them not found in e-mails. Historian and biographer, David McCullough, says, “I think often of how little we will leave about ourselves and our time in our own words. Maybe some of the e-mail will survive, but I doubt it. How will future gen-erations ever come to know us? Historians and biographers a hundred or three hundred years hence will have almost nothing of a personal kind to work with. Our story, consequently, will be a lot less interesting, less human, per-haps even impossible to write.”
It is a shame that few of us today craft letters to our children and friends. Letter writing is a lost art. I hope this blog will inspire others to write letters. Letters are valuable. C. H. Spurgeon said, “A man’s private letters often let you into the secrets of the heart.
Most of what appears here are selections taken from letters of Evangelical Christians. There will also be occasional reviews of books of letters.
It is a shame that few of us today craft letters to our children and friends. Letter writing is a lost art. I hope this blog will inspire others to write letters. Letters are valuable. C. H. Spurgeon said, “A man’s private letters often let you into the secrets of the heart.
Most of what appears here are selections taken from letters of Evangelical Christians. There will also be occasional reviews of books of letters.
Articulate, Thoughtful, and Well-Composed Letters
"In the nineteenth century, many biographers wrote books titled The Life and Letters of So-and-So. While this was not always an eloquent way of writing history, it speaks volumes about our cultural distance; if restricted to composing a narrative of someone’s life around his written correspondence today, we wouldn’t be able to write biographies, because people write too few letters to constitute the substance of a book. Further, if you read those nineteenth-century letters, you cannot fail to notice how articulate, thoughtful, and well composed they commonly are. A culture that was accustomed to thoughtful, well-composed letters produced remarkable significant letters, even among fairly common people. Today, we have become a culture of telephone babblers, unskilled at the most basic questions of composition…"
Why Johnny Can’t Preach: The Media Have Shaped the Messengers, by T. David Gordon, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 2009, pp. 66-67.
Why Johnny Can’t Preach: The Media Have Shaped the Messengers, by T. David Gordon, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 2009, pp. 66-67.
A Wonderful Book of Letters: "The Marvelous Riches of Savoring Christ: The Letters of Ruth Bryan"
Moody Stuart said, "Ruth Bryan's letters are remarkably like those of Samuel Rutherford's, closely resembling them in most winning, unwearied, and gloriously endless eulogy of the King in His beauty." Joel Beeke says, "Ruth Bryan stands in a class of great female devotional writers, such as Anne Dutton and Mary Winslow, whose Christ-centered correspondence has helped hundreds of God's people drink more deeply of the wells of salvation."
A Sample Letter
by Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Life & Letters Blogroll
- Benjamin Beddome
- Between Two Worlds
- Biblical Preaching
- Church Matters 9Marks Blog
- Denny Burk
- Desiring God
- Dr. Mohler's Blog
- Expository Thoughts
- Founders Ministries Blog
- Illumination
- Of First Importance
- Oversight of Souls
- Provocations and Paintings
- Pyromaniacs
- Redeeming the Time
- Riddleblog
- Sharper Iron
- Unashamed Workman
Some Good Web Sites
- Alfred Place Baptist Church
- All By Grace
- Audubon Press
- Banner of Truth
- Christian Communicators Worldwide
- Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service
- Don Currin Ministries
- F.I.R.E.
- Go Teach Sunday School Literature
- Grace Life Pulpit
- Midwest Center for Theological Studies
- Modern Reformation Magazine Online
- Particular Baptist Press
- Phil Johnsons Bookmarks
- Solid Ground Christian Books
- Sound of Grace
- The Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America
- The Center for Biblical Spirituality
- The John Newton Project
- The Spurgeon Archive
- William Carey
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