Brother Nee was a marvelous reader and an excellent discerner and selector of the things of Christ for the Christian life and the church life. He himself told me that in his early days of ministry he gave back one third of his income to the Lord, kept one third for his living, and spent the other third to buy books to read.

The first year that I went to Shanghai, I stayed with Brother Nee as his guest. One day he came upstairs to my living quarters with two bundles of books. He put them on my bed and said, "This is something for you," and he went away. He had given me Dean Alford's four-volume work entitled The New Testament for English Readers. Dean Alford was an authority on the Greek words of the New Testament. This four-volume set rendered me great help in knowing the Bible. The other books given to me by Brother Nee were John Nelson Darby's five-volume Synopsis of the Books of the Bible. His synopsis of the Scriptures can be considered as the best among all the expositions. I received great help from his synopsis.

Brother Nee told me that he had notified the book stores in London which carried secondhand books. Whenever they received something ordered by him, they would send it to him and he would pay the bill. In this way he collected all the major classical Christian writings from the first century to the present day. He had one of the best libraries on the history of the church, including the biographies and autobiographies of the spiritual giants throughout the centuries with their master writings.

For more details of Brother Nee's life, I would recommend Watchman Nee's Testimony, compiled by Brother K.H. Weigh. This book includes three messages of Brother Nee's own testimony, which he gave in 1936. They cover the first sixteen years of Brother Nee's spiritual life. Brother Weigh was a classmate of Brother Nee's, he was saved through Brother Nee, and he was also a co-worker with Brother Nee.

Now I will begin presenting the things of the past fifty years in a few categories. First, we want to see the revelations the Lord has given us in these past fifty years. Second, we want to see something concerning the practice of the church life. Third, we would like to see something concerning Brother Nee's work, including his traveling and his publications. Then we want to fellowship concerning the sufferings of Brother Nee—the attacks and the persecution he suffered throughout his ministry. I want to cover these main categories of the past history among us. In this chapter I would like to relate the revelations we have received from the Lord in these past fifty years up to 1973. I will enumerate forty-six major items.