John Rusk
"'And the fire shall try every Man's work of what sort it is.' 1 Cor. 3. 13.
As it hath pleased the Lord in His mercy to my poor soul to bring me into the path of tribulation,', and in so doing to empty me from vessel to vessel, that I might not settle on my lees, and discriminate me from the many thousands of light and trifling professors in the awful day in which we now live; and having lately waded through deep waters and had heavy furnace work, in which the good work has been tried to the quick, and I have concluded that I should go down altogether - these things which I now have in view, have at such seasons appeared to me to be of the greatest importance, and I have felt a great desire to write upon the subject. Much opposition I have met with from Satan in the attempt, who ever will oppose heart work. But being today confined at home through a complaint in my neck, and feeling the desire come again, I opened the Bible, looking up to the Lord ; and the words which I have stated as a text were the words I opened on, and which have been on my mind for above a week. If I should find good in writing, and my reader good in reading, may the whole glory be to Him to whom alone it is due, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the God of all their spiritual seed; for He has taught me, from feeling experience, that without Him I can do nothing."