Name/Title
AU Harris, Joseph Hastings - 1895-03-03 letter to Bertha Elizabeth LambertEntry/Object ID
1990.1.22Context
[Ada, OH, to Miss Bertha Lambert, Plantsville, Ohio, “Morgan Co.”]
Ada, Ohio. Mch. 3, 1895.
Miss Lambert,
Plantsville, Ohio.
Dear Bertha, once more I cozily take my seat beside you to talk over the events of another wk.. You seem so near and yet so very far away. You are at church doubtless this evening, my mind and prayers are with you there. I felt overjoyed at the news contained in your letter and wrote to Howard at once and will try to send Seth's letter in the morning. I tell you it made me think for this very thought of their unsaved condition has been a great burden on my mind, but all this time poor unworthy self was trying to do something instead of leaving them with Jesus.
O how hard it is to get away from unbelief. Yet it seems to me that every day some how breaks off a rough corner of our spiritual nature and makes us realize more fully the perfect character.
Would that I might tell you all about the convention and of what an inspiration it was. I never met kinder people. Bertha, you spoke of old age in one of your letters, well I never saw the beauty of old age exemplified so clearly as at the convention. H. Thane Miller of Cin. A veteran worker in the cause, who certainly must be 80 yrs. of age and added to this he is blind, and yet really the most youthful person in that convention. He sang at least eight solos and leaning one hand on his cane with the other he directed a part of the congregational singing. As I grasped his hand to say good-bye somehow there was an inspiration that made me better. You know what it is. You have realized it in your life.
You say in substance you love your mother so much. Well that just makes me love you all the more, for I certainly think the bane to success to so many thousand young men and women lies in the fact that there are too many chasms between the affections of parents and children. I am glad that you do not know by experience what that means.
One yr. ago tonight found me in Detroit. I remember how, whenever time was given at all for thought, my thoughts ran back and forth o'er the span of life and even tried to peer into the darkness of the future. I remember more than one bitter struggle to have taken place, but thank God tonight that a brighter vision confronts me.
Of course there are times and experiences through which every person must pass alone just as though there was no other person on the earth, yet as one has so beautifully said “there is a power in love to divine another's destiny better than that other can, and by heroic encouragements, hold him to his task,” so I contribute much of the brightness of the present to the sweet sunshine of your life and the assurance that I share at least a portion of your silent thought which although silent it be, yet who can estimate its power in influencing my life? Today witnessed our change of administration in the Y.M.C.A.. Somehow tonight the thought comes to me that it was almost an unkindness yes almost a cruelty in me toward you to bind myself to stay here when in many respects it would have been better to make the change, saying nothing about the inexpressible delight of your companionship which I know cannot be supplied in any other way, for although we meet hundreds here every wk. yet there is no one to fill the vacant place in my mind which none but the one can fill, and you doubtless will find the same experience when you return to school. So my fair one, should I have acted unwisely in this, may you not contribute the same to my immature judgment and not to the thought of misappreciation of your companionship? How I would enjoy spending a wk. at Mt. Hermon. My heart goes out to those young people who have recently enlisted in the cause. O how many snares Satan has for them. If those new ones could only be taken into a Bible class where they could see what a real friend and helper Jesus is there would be few false movements made. I trust the work is still going on. May the Holy Spirit lead them into fields of usefulness.
Prof. Park has been very ill for a few days. Many of the students are enjoying a siege of the grippe. You may count me one of the number.
You gave your address as Plantsville. Did that mean permanent or just for once?
There is much to say, but this is rather a discouraging process. I met quite a number of O.N.U. fellows at Newark, among them was Mr. Shepler. It was our first meeting. He is a Y.M.C.A. Pres. at Scio.
We passed through the neighborhood in which your room-mate, Miss Chandler, lives. One of the boys said she used to room with Bertha Somebody they didn't know who. Of course my mind brightened at once (doubtless my face did too) and soon the somebody was removed. Well I must go.[R] May it please the Master to use you in bringing souls to Him.
May the Holy Spirit lead us both is the prayer of one who loves you.
J. H. Harris.
