Letters: Miss Anne Whittit (2) - Bonar, Andrew

GLASGOW, 19th March 1873.
DEAR MISS ANNE,
—Many thanks for your narrative of the Lord’s doings. I was so interested that I just told all over at my prayer-meeting, with a few remarks as I went along. You see the Master has not cast you aside. You are not treated as even Jonathan (holy, humble Jonathan) was treated; for after he had been used to take the garrison and rout an army— ‘one chasing a thousand’—you remember he was put in the background (the safest place! for spiritual pride does not flourish so well in the shade), and you hear of no other great exploit done by him. Nay, he had so far lost his first faith that he could not face Goliath, though once he faced a host.
Be thankful, then, that the Master is using you still. Go on, from strength to strength. It will not be long before ‘He shines out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,’ and those who have won souls shall stand very near Him.
Hillhead is quiet. Believers still believe, and seek to be of use to others. . . . Pray for us in Finnieston. There are only now among us two families of the Hillhead people . . . so that I do not see or hear so much as I used to do of your old vineyard.
With kindest regards to Mrs. Sandeman, whose heart will be enlarged at the work in Perth,
—Yours in the Lord,
ANDREW A. BONAR.
P.S.—Write again whenever you have such good news to tell. What is the name of the lane where the old woman stays? and what is her name? The Bible tells us the name of the street where Ananias found Saul of Tarsus.

GLASGOW, 21st November 1878.
DEAR MISS ANNE,—No fear of any one robbing you of spiritual food so long as you do not steal from poor Israel, and bring down to the Kingdom of grace what belongs to the Kingdom of glory.
Many thanks for the ‘green and tender grass’ you send a handful of! The Lord’s own bosom (‘the bosom of the Father,‘ Christ’s own place, not the beloved disciple’s place, but the beloved Master’s place) is in very truth His ‘tender mercies,’ and the ‘tender grass’ of the green pastures.
Do you know I have been thinking that the Lord makes our earth His heaven! For is it not written, ‘My delights were with the sons of men ?
What a pleasant interesting case that is which you relate. Go on, sowing and reaping, working and praying, and praising. . . . Pray for us here. Our new church is to be opened D. V., on 1st December, just twenty-two years since the old one was opened. How many things have passed since then! Your Jordanhill friends began a prayer-meeting that very day, and it has gone on to this hour! Hallelujah.
—Yours truly in the Lord,
ANDREW A. BONAR.
May ‘Elmbank’ be at all times to you ‘Elim-bank.