October 8th, 1915
Received by James Padgett
Washington D.C.
I am here, James the Lesser.
I come because most of the apostles have written you, and I want to be in the number who testify that Jesus is the living and true son of God, and that he has selected you – and also your friend – to do his work.
I know that this has been told you by many spirits, but yet I want to add my testimony, for the time may come when you will meet such unbelief and skepticism that you will need all the testimony that you can get.
The work that you will have to do will not be an easy one. You will have many antagonists, especially in the churches and among the preachers and rulers of the churches, and you will need all the help that the spirit powers can give you.
I am one of the band of Celestial spirits that will sustain and help you in your work, and I am so interested that you shall succeed that I want you to know the fact that back of you both is the most wonderful power that has ever been given to mortals to carry out the plans of the higher Celestial world.
When on earth, I was the brother of Jesus, and called the Lesser to distinguish me from James, the brother of John and son of Zebedee. I was not the son of any Alphaeus, such as that name is understood in the New Testament, but the son of Mary and Joseph, as was my brother Jesus. Jesus himself will one day come and tell you exactly who Alphaeus was.
So have faith, and believe what we write you, for it is all true. You must not doubt as you do sometimes, or let your earthly affairs turn your thoughts from the great truths which we come to teach you. So without writing more, I will say, believe.
Your brother in Christ,
James the Lesser