Yesterday we received a box containing: one ornamental fire screen, one toy horse, and one child’s rattle. Naturally, all we can say is “Thank you very much”; but I would suggest you start moderating the generosity a little, lest you ruin yourself by it. It’s great to be freed from goods and gold, because miserliness is an abomination; but giving away everything you have is going too far in the opposite direction.

Jesus says, “Make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home [Norwegian: in the everlasting habitations].” This tells us that we are to use earthly goods, “the unrighteous mammon,” to make friends, and thus win them for the everlasting habitations. The righteous mammon is Christ. This is a correct way of using “the unrighteous mammon”; but our aim in making friends by the unrighteous mammon should be to bring them into the everlasting habitations and not merely make a bunch of friends who only admire us personally—that wouldn’t be profitable. We should use the confidence that has been gained through sharing our earthly goods to point people toward the treasures that can be gathered in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal.

The fire screen is beautiful, and it fits in really well. When I shook the rattle for Johanne, she waved her arms and quivered in delight with her mouth wide open. Kristian wanted to play with the rattle as well. “I’ve got a horse from Uncle ‘Astel,’” he said. I’ve enclosed a photograph of him. He’s a good boy, but he eats almost nothing, so we hardly know what to do with him. Johanne yells for more after every spoonful.

Berglioth is taking a trip to Kristiania15 this winter and will then come to Horten. I simply can’t understand why Berglioth and Father keep asking whether they can come. There’s no need to ask; whoever wants to can just come. Unlike Uncle Anton in Sweden, we’re not running a hotel, but what we have, I believe, is built on a solid foundation. I have endeavored, by God’s grace, to build my home on a righteous foundation so that the Lord’s blessing does not depart from it. It is blasphemy to hang up a wall plaque saying “God Bless Our Home” when the home is full of things that have been acquired through unrighteousness. Everyone who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.

Hearty greetings from Pauline, Kristian, and Johanne, as well as your always devoted brother,

PS: Pauline says it’s called a fire screen, not a “fire guard,” which I wrote at first. She also thinks I’m being too harsh by writing what I did, but the truth is that I can’t do otherwise. Everyone who wants to have dealings with me will have to put up with me just as I am. A brush is for brushing, a hammer for hammering, an axe for chopping, and a saw for sawing. The axe, the hammer, the saw, and the brush cannot do each other’s jobs, and neither can we, as many as are in Christ, exchange ministries. Just adding a little comfort and balm in the midst of the harshness.