Beloved Brethren and sisters and beloved readers of the Baptist Trumpet: Since my return from northeast Texas, I have much desire to address you all, but feel so unworthy and disqualified I have shrunk from the great responsibility. And my time has been occupied of late preparing land for planting. Oh! May the Lord break and subdue our proud self-conceit and melt and prepare our barren hearts to unite and to read, in faithful humble love for eternity

I feel so glad and thankful to the Lord for this lovely morning for the many blessings and sweet deliverences he has bestowed upon his beloved church. Dear brethren, let us love and praise his glorious name forever, for the many natural beauties and spiritual foretastes of his love he has so freely given us, even while we have so often fallen into neglect, disobedience and ingratitude to him. Bless the Lord, he will visit our "transgressions with a rod," but will not "suffer his faithfulness to fail." May our dear Redeemer save us all from being lured into the many wicked devices and hurtful lusts whereby satan lies in wait to deceive and grieve the dear saints of God. Dear brother or sister, have you deep grief and sore trials? "Trust in the Lord and do good," and all will be well; for our God has promised to be with his children in all their trials and temptations. He will lead them in paths of righteousness, and "will never leave them nor forsake them." For your comfort and joy, beloved, I want to say the brethren whom I have lately seen, give comforting evidence that they have been with Jesus. And while some hold unscriptural doctrine to our shame, gener­ally they are in a better condition than many have supposed. The favorable part of these facts so rejoiced my soul when in their midst, I want all lovers of truth to rejoice with me. Let us hope and continually pray to the Lord, that all "the holy brethren" may be more spiritual mind­ed, sound in faith, walking in the fear of God, abounding therein more and more. The eternal God is our refuge and strength, he will uphold us and deliver his beloved church from every evil, and "no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly." Yes, dear brethren, can we not plainly see his delivering hand through the past years? And the evidence abounds on every side, that he is still delivering us from error and its blighting approach. Praise the Lord. Yet I must say with deep grief, the ways of Zion do still mourn because of sin. There are yet some who "do wrest the scriptures to their own destruction." Some of these wrongs I would now humbly mention, praying thy may be abandoned. A church member I believe, lately claimed in my hearing that it was not wrong to dance; and that the command, "Fath­ers provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nature and admonition of Lord," does not apply to your real children, but refers to the children of God. I feel sure the pastor had not taught these wrongs, and I beg that such alarming views be avoided. For real parents are exhorted to bring up their children; and the dancing of our day is reveling, and reveling is condemned in the "Word of truth,'' as plainly as is adultery, theft or murder.

Did Christ o'er sinners weep,

And shall our cheeks be dry?

How sad that some deny the change or resur­rection of our body and that others deny the change or regeneration of our soul. I am made to weep that my dear brother with a sweet hope in Jesus should claim the great error that there is no change in man in regeneration or passing "from death unto life." And alas! that any should claim the theory of eternal children or the eternal union of Christ and the church. But sometimes several of these errors exist to­gether in members of the various denominations, and in our own midst! I feel thankful to the Lord that these delusions are not characteristic of Primitive Baptists. Such views are rare among our brethren; for they have realized bet­ter and sweeter things from the Spirit's words, and their own experience. Oh! Brethren, hear the word of the Lord. Our God has promised: "If thou return and take forth the precious from the vile, I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee saith the Lord." But where we as a church or as individuals do not turn from these errors, I feel a fear and great dread, lest our sins provoke the severe judgments of God against us. Jer. xxvi. 4, 6. So, my dear brethren, these errors are now mentioned and discouraged in faithfulness to God and to you. I desire sometime, if the Lord will, to further notice in the light of truth some of these wrong views; hoping all who claim our name may entirely avoid them, that our peace with God and love for his people may continue and abound.

Let brotherly love continue.

Your unworthy brother in love,

Sparta, Tex.          M.D. DENMAN.