For I do not want you to be uninformed about the sorrow that I suffered in Asia, because I was so crushed beyond any power to endure that I was in dire despair of life itself.

Now I did not resort to fickleness, did I, in planning that? Or, do I make my plans in accordance with worldly notions, to have my "Yes" mean "No," if I want it so?

For I who am still in my tent am sighing beneath my burdens, because I do not want it to be put off but to put on the other over it, so that my dying body may be absorbed in life.

Now I will give you my opinion on this matter. For this is for your interest, because you were not only the first to do anything about it, but the first to want to do so; you started it a year ago.

For I do not want it to be a relief for others and a burden on you,

but through an equalizing of matters in the present crisis I do want your abundance to relieve their need, that some day their abundance may relieve your need, so that equality may exist --

I do not want to seem to be frightening you with my letters.

And I shall keep on doing as I am, in order to cut the ground from under the feet of those who want an opportunity to show themselves on a level with me in the matters of which they boast.

However, if I want to boast, I will not play the fool, for it will be nothing but the truth that I will tell. But I refrain from doing so, to keep anybody, on account of the superiority of the revelations, from giving me a higher rating than my actions and teachings deserve.

It is now the third time that I have been ready to come to see you, and I will never ask you for financial support, for it is not your money but you yourselves that I want; for children are not by duty bound to lay up money for their parents, but parents for their children.

Are you thinking all this time that I am defending myself to you? It is in the very presence of God and as one who is in union with Christ that I am speaking. And it is all for building you up, beloved, for I am apprehensive that, somehow or other, when I come I shall find you not as I want to find you, and that you may find me not as you want to find me.