The following solemn letter has just reached me. It shows the awful need of every effort being put forth for Ireland now. We are sending to all who ask. Many workers are distributing our parcels now, and soldiers are sending for Testaments.
Dear Dr. Wreford, ―Thank you for sending the marked Testaments to the persons named in my list. Most of these were widows and other relations of murdered men, and the words written in the front page, “With sympathy,” will, I trust, help to make them value them. Others on the list were persons whom I heard of lately, and to whom it was very desirable to send the Word of God. I have sent out a good many copies of John’s Gospel myself, marking suitable verses for people who seldom, if ever, read the Scriptures, being discouraged to do so by their, church. I was in the West of Ireland lately, and was able to travel about the country a little by cycle, distributing gospel magazines and papers. I believe many R.C.’s, especially amongst the police as well as retired policemen, are very dissatisfied with the attitude of their church in this matter. For, whilst some of their hierarchy have denounced murder (though generally with a word of palliation in the end of the letter), the younger clergy are nearly all in warm sympathy with the men who commit these acts, and this causes many of the more right-minded people to be dissatisfied with their religion. But, alas! they know of nothing better! In one place I saw a large heap, of stones, surmounted by a rough cross, where two men were recently murdered. One of these was an R.C., and I was told that someone (said to be an R.C.) wrote on one of the stones in the blood of the murdered men, words something like this: “Here a member of the R.C. church was cruelly murdered by his fellow Catholics.” I cannot vouch for the exact words, but it was something like this. The roads are deeply trenched in many places, and the scattered Protestants, as well as some of the better class of Romanists, are kept in a constant state of fear. They are afraid to say anything through fear of being murdered or maltreated. I believe things are even worse in the South of Ireland.
But there is only one remedy, and that is the true Gospel of Christ.
I think the sending of marked Testaments is a very good thing, but it needs earnest prayer that they may be read, and not only read, but the truth contained in, them believed to the saving of the soul.
Very sincerely, yours in Christ,