Tuesday, November 30, 2010

There is Yet Room

A selection from a letter by Ruth Bryan (1805-1860) to an unconverted friend. Miss Bryan was the daughter of a pastor in Nottingham, England. She was greatly used of the Lord to encourage people with her letters, some of whom were unconverted. Three evangelistic letters to this friend are in print. She pressed him to lay aside his excuses and find salvation "in the love of a bleeding Saviour." This letter was written January 19, 1856.

But perhaps you will say, "I have no other sources of pleasure; would you have me quite miserable?" O beloved, there is not a blood-redeemed sinner before the throne but was miserable once; and I well remember a time in my early days when I was miserable too. I could not enjoy the world as some I knew seemed to do; there was something wanting. I could not enjoy religion and the things of God as believers did. I felt unlike everybody else, and as if I never should find happiness either in the world or in the church. But though I knew it not, the Lord's hand was in it; and He drew me by a strange way, till at last He brought me to the foot of the cross, to find true peace and happiness in the love of a bleeding Saviour. I should not, therefore, be sorry for you to lose your present poor pleasures, and feel "an aching void," for in my Saviour's heart there is yet room, and He can fill it all. I find His love so precious that I long for others to enjoy it, and cannot help saying, "Oh taste and see that the Lord is good" [Ps 34:8].

The Marvelous Riches of Savoring Christ: Letters of Ruth Bryan, with a Preface by the Rev. A. Moody Stuart, published by Reformation Heritage Books, 2005, pp. 137.

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