Providence Nov 21. 61

 

Dear Sir

                        Though personally unacquainted with you I have had the pleasure of seeing several of your letters to Dea. King and am much gratified with the interest you have manifested in behalf of your regiment, that they should be supplied with means of religious instruction, and I send you herewith  a few copies of "the Believers daily remembrance" or "Green Pastures for the Lords Flock". This book I have been in the habit of reading for many years in our family devotions and have been often surprised at the peculiar adaptedness of the portion for the day, to our then existing circumstances. My practice is to read the Chapter from which the text of the portion for the day is taken. Will you please accept / a copy for your own private use and present a copy with my kind regards to your Colonel, the other copies you will please dispose of according to your judgement. I could wish some arrangement might be made whereby the portion for the day might be regularly read in the hearing of the regiment. I shall send you some other reading matter for the use of the regiment which please dispose of according to your judgement.

 

            And now My Dear Sir I feel I shall not discharge my duty to my Divine Master and your own soul without commending to you personally the subject of religion. Permit me then to enquire if you have yet settled the great question of Your Eternal Destiny

 

            This is a question under all circumstances of momentous importance but it is peculiarly so to the soldier who in addition to the daily risks attending all has added the additional ones of / camp exposures and the battle field the former of which I suppose is not less than the latter both forming in the aggregate an incentive for doing at once whatever it is desirable should be done at any time. Allow me to commend to you a daily study of the Bible with special prayer to God for the enlightening influences of the Holy Spirit to teach you the way of salvation as therein revealed through a crucified redeemer—Especially do I commend to you the 3^d Chap of St Johns Gospel 5^th Chap of the Epistle to the Romans and 2^d & 3^d Chapters of Galatians where I think an attentive study will convince you that man cannot be saved by his morality but only by faith in Christ—by repentance and acceptance of the righteousness of Christ to be imputed to him by faith and that all his own self righteousness is utterly unavailing. Will you not My Dear Sir now set yourself to the examination of / this subject with earnest prayer. It is one of too much importance to be neglected or in the settlement of which we may safely turn to our own unaided intellect; and our Saviour has assured us that the Father is more willing to give the Holy Spirit to those who ask than earthly parents are to give good things to their children.

 

            Will you not then make it a subject of special prayer to God that he will send his Holy Spirit into your head to convict you of sin and of your absolute need of a saviour and that he will make the way of salvation perfectly plain to you. And now My Dear Sir I commend you and all with you to the kind care of Him who neither slumbers nor sleeps, humbly beseeching him ever to watch over you and protect you from all harm and that especially in the day of battle that he will be your shield & buckler.           

                                                                                               

Truly Your Friend

Benjamin Dyer

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