Walter’s Abiding

(5/9) My Dear Margaret: Blest be the tie that binds / Our hearts in Christian love: / The fellowship of kindred minds / Is like to that above. This is one of my favorite hymns. It says so much with so few words, and in such an easy, simple, and understandable manner. May that bond grow stronger in each of us as the days roll on. … I am so glad that I am very busy. It makes the time fly quickly. If it did not, and were not so, I doubt that I could remain so far from you and yet be at rest and peace within. So there is a purpose in the way all things are working and have been working. … You asked once about Mr. Brown’s drinking. Sometimes he goes without whiskey for quite a while. Then again he comes home, drunk; every night for a while. … Mrs. Brown & Asa are reconciled to it. He is not at all violent regardless of how drunk he is.

(5/16) God certainly moves, works and does in a deep and mysterious way. At 7:30 Leonard Molander called. I promised I would go to see him (He is a good friend, belongs to the Mission Church in Eaton. We have gone fishing together many times) … I had heard indirectly that Leonard had been converted at a Revival meeting in Greeley. I thot I might help him as a friend so I wanted to see him. It was his birthday (same as yours) so his parents had a few friends mostly older people there to spend the evening.… Leonard asked me to stay as he wanted to talk to me. My spiritual growth has been slow extending over many years, as I believe yours has hasn’t it? It is hard for us to understand what it means to receive a sudden vision or light, that Paul surely did. I believe Leonard (who is 25) is very sincere, but I know it will be hard for him (his old friends will not accept him now and he felt I was the only one he could talk to and he must talk some). … I was so glad that I could testify that God answers prayers. I told him how I had always prayed for a Christian wife and home and how God had answered that prayer, by sending you. Tonight you mean so much to me. To think that I need to seek no one to speak to but can come to you and discuss anything and everything. I haven’t thanked God enough for you.

(5/22) Never have I known a better spring, nor been up with my work as well as I am now. I have work to do, but I am not crowded as so often is the case. I do not think we will get water today because of the plentiful rains. They will put it in the reservoirs instead. I hauled a little straw for the horses and Mrs. Brown’s chickens this morning. Then before starting anything else, I thot I would finish this letter in order to get it off in todays mail. It will probably be the last I mail to Washburn. There should be one waiting for you at Clarissa, Saturday. May your journey be pleasant and safe.

(5/25) This letter finds you at home in Clarissa. I hope it finds you well and happy after completing your teaching. It would be nice if you could rest for a few days now. Can you do that? Are you going to direct the Choir this summer? It must be nice to be home again after being away for nearly five months. You will have time to catch up with your music practice now won’t you. I hope you plan to keep up with it. Even tho we may not be able to get a piano right away, we could and shall plan for one as soon as possible. I may not ever know much about music but I love to hear it and I will enjoy coming home evenings, to hear you sing and play, after we have finished our days work. … I hope you and I can soon afford a radio. I do not like all the programs, but some are good and it is a pleasant change to listen to them.

(5/29) If God is for us, who is against us? Rom. 8:31. … This verse which I am sending to you, has come to my mind many times but I could not think where it was and remembered to ask anyone who might know. Last night in preparing my S. S. outline for today and also my lesson I came across it. The letter to the Rom. is quite deep is it not and harder to understand than any of the others. It does not seem too difficult tho and it is not dry or uninteresting by any means. I hope that we can do quite a lot of studying together. I think if two people can study together that it goes faster and easier [and] also becomes more clear because one sees where perhaps the other does not.

(7/4) My Dear Margaret: “Righteousness exalteth a nation; But sin is a reproach to any people.” Prov: 14; 34 With millions of dollars being spent upon whiskey, beer, soft drinks, firecrackers, shows, rodeos, dances and only our Father in Heaven knows the other numerous ways in which hard earned money is spent today. Why? To celebrate the anniversary of the winning of Independence for the United States of America. 300 or more years ago a little band of Pilgrims, braved the Atlantic Ocean in a frail wooden boat, in order to find and settle in a land where they might worship their God and Father as they chose and saw fit. Today—300 years later we commemorate the anniversary of the winning of our independence from England; which made sure our privilege of religious freedom. How do we do it? Serving the devil with a beer bottle in one hand and a firecracker in the other. Of course it is easy to conceive, (if you have a strong imagination) of even half of our people, taking so much as 3 minutes to get upon their knees and thanking God for his bountiful grace and goodness. I wish I could believe one out of 25 did this, but I cannot. Our 4th of July celebration is certainly a farce. But enough of this, I have much to thank God for and I am thankful for so many things. First of all for you. I have been very lonesome for you today, and hope to see you soon. I do not know when you will get this or read it, in fact I don’t know where you are at. I will await your decision as to whether you will or will not like to come out to Colorado in order to help plan for our home. I do not know where to address this letter, so I will send it to Clarissa.

(7/7) Thursday morning. “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy / Like the wideness of the sea. / “There’s a kindness in God’s mercy / Which is more than liberty.” This is one of the stanzas which I memorized this morning while I mended some hose. It is a wonderful song. We sang it a few times on our trip. I received your letter this morning. Thank you. You express my thoughts concerning our nation’s observance of the Fourth of July.

(8/28) “For the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.” Gospel of Mk. I am quite sure that this verse comes from the 2nd Chap. …This verse was the Key verse of our Bible study this morning and I came to see a clearer meaning of it than ever before. I had never thot of it as a gift from God or as a very special privilege of man’s, to have this day of rest as a day to rest and worship and recuperate after six days of work. Had you? God did not make the Sabbath just to pin man down to a certain rule. No; God made the Sabbath for man and gave it to him to use as he chooses for the choice is pretty much our own. Yet many people, in a frantic quest for pleasure and satisfaction of a certain longing; use it in such a way as to leave them worn and tired and without hope of ever satisfying that inward longing.