JANUARY 31, 1892  

If every crowned head in Europe had died that night, the event would not be so momentous as the death of this one man! Nay more, if every member of every reigning dynasty had died in one night, it would not have attracted so much attention as this man's death.

On earth perhaps, yes — but in the universe, no.

The more thickly-peopled worlds beyond this outnumber the population of this planet as the stars and sands and forest leaves outnumber the houses of men. And these people, above and below, were more moved at Spurgeon's death, than if all kings had died. Moreover, their interest is without affectation. There is sincerity after death. With them there is no stereotyped grief or joy. No perfunctory condolence of congratulation. No official crape or festoons. No hirelings to mourn or hurrah. Napoleon's return from Elba, LaFayette's visit to America, Washington's and Jackson's tours through the States — were all thrilling pageants, but it has not entered into the heart of man to conceive the glory of Spurgeon's return to the bosom of his God, and his welcome beyond the stars. At the depot of death, God's chariot met him as a kingly guest, and a convoy of angels escorted him home. Cherubim hovered over him and Seraphim flamed before him. The bended heavens stooped to meet him.

And who are these, like clouds of doves from the windows of heaven, that fly to greet him? These are his spiritual children, begotten unto God through his ministry, out of every nation and tribe and kindred. From the British Isles, from America, from the Australian bush, from the Islands of the sea, "from Africa's torrid climes," and "Greenland's icy mountains," "from India's coral strand," from the pine-clad mountains of Scandinavia, and bleak Nova Zembla, they had gone up before him and were waiting and watching for him. The ends of the earth were there, not only geographically but morally. There met him the drunkard and the debauchee, there the society-banned harlot, there the "ticket-of-leave" convict and the red-handed murderer, there the children of poverty and hereditary vice, there the converts from infidelity, "that caries of the intellect," there the whilom worshipers of Moloch and ghastly Mammon, these all rescued by his instrumentality as "brands from the burning," and now whiter than snow, and absolved and shrived from sin, free, "redeemed, regenerated, and disinthralled." And who can tell their welcome? And who can measure his shout of exultation: "Ye are my crown of rejoicing."

See the sower. See him "that went forth weeping, bearing precious seed," now coming "with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." Oh, the sheaves of golden grain, the multitude of sheaves! When before, and oh my soul, when again will the angels shout such a harvest home? How does he pluck and appropriate the promise "they that be wise shall shine as the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever" ?

See the builder, the wise master builder.  He built on the foundation of JESUS CHRIST. He built thereupon gold, silver, and precious stones. His work is made manifest. The day has declared it, the day revealed by fire. The fire has tried his work. It abides unconsumed. He receives his reward.

See his heavenly addition. He has added to his faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity. These were in him and abounded. They made him that he should be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord and Christ.

He was not blind. He could see afar off. He never forgot that he was purged from his old sins. He made his calling and election sure. He never fell. An so an entrance was ministered unto him abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. His ship comes to the port of heaven not a storm-tossed wreck, dismantled and tattered, towed in by some harbor tug; but with every mast standing, ever sail filled and flowing, and cargoed to the water's edge. Oh, let me "die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!"

And what cloud is this that like incense from ten thousand burning censers rises up from the earth and follows him to heaven? Is it not the gratitude of homeless widows whom he has sheltered and clothed and fed? Is it not the blessing of the fatherless, whose orphan condition he has relieved? Is it not the tribute of poor ministers whom he has educated and supplied with books?

But most rapturous and entrancing vision — see him meet the Master himself! Spurgeon and Christ — the saint and his Saviour. Meeting above clouds and sorrow and death. Meeting in...

And how does the news affect the lost when they see him afar off — beyond the fixed, broad, and impassable gulf — sitting down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God? How do they remember the gospel he preached? How recall his tears, his melting persuasions? How he warned and plead in vain, pointing to the open door — now shut forever; pointing to the water of life, from whose cooling streams they have cut themselves off forever? How, now hopeless, they recall his sermons on hope! How bitter their wail: "We knew our duty, but did it not! However unworthy other preachers, this man is guiltless of our blood. He is a swift witness against us." So hell beneath was moved at his going, as heaven above was moved at his coming. And so Spurgeon's death attracted more attention than if all kings had died.

The sweetest, most silvery and far-reaching voice that published the glad tidings since apostolic times is hushed. The hand whose sickle cut the widest swath in the ripened grain-fields of redemption lies folded and nerveless on a pulseless breast, whose heart when beating kept time with every human joy and woe. But he was ready to be offered. He fought a good fight. He kept the faith, and while we weep, he wears the triple crown of life and joy and glory, which God the righteous judge has conferred upon him.

This wonderful man was both a creation and a result. God created him to be great. His extraordinary natural endowments of mind and body were gifts of God as much as his conversion and call to the ministry. The circumstances of ancestry, training, Puritan libraries, existing contrast between the independent and the State church, together with the times in which he lived — all of which had much to do with him as a result, were providentially furnished ready to his hand.

Question: "How do you account for Spurgeon?"

— the answer is the monosyllable: "GOD."

.

In discussing the life and labors of such a man,

the limits of this address allow us only

to touch lightly, the salient points.

Let us glance briefly at some of this work.

         Schaff:  "The average sale of the Weekly Sermon is twenty-five thousand copies. Two have exceeded it; and one, on Baptismal Regeneration, preached in the summer of 1864, sold to the extent of one hundred and ninety-eight thousand copies." More of them have been translated into foreign tongues than any other sermons. More have appeared in the earth's great daily and weekly papers. More people have been converted by reading them, in more countries, than by, perhaps, all other published sermons. They are all simple. All easily understood. All full of meat, fire, unction, and POWER. Nearly all are upon the fundamental doctrines of grace. All of them make the way of life so plain that the wayfaring man though a fool, need not err therein. The common people devour them. The poor, ignorant, vile, and unfortunate, rush to them as the thirsty Israelites to the water from the rock. Intellect bows under their power, and Negroes shout over them. The great praise them, and the humble hug them to their heart. Livingstone had one of them in his hat when he died, having carried it through Africa. A widow was found half frozen on an Alpine mountain peak, reading one of them through her tears. A bush-ranger in Australia was converted by reading one, blood-stained, which he had taken from the body of a man he had murdered.

No other man commencing with such large congregations, held them in ever increasing crowds for thirty-eight years, until he died. He came to the old London church where Benjamin Keach was pastor thirty-two years, John Gill fifty-six years, John Rippon sixty-three years. He found a congregation of one hundred in a house whose seating capacity was one thousand and two hundred. In three months it was crowded, and in less than a year they had to enlarge it, while Mr. Spurgeon was filling Exeter Hall. The enlarged church was too small from the first sermon. They moved into Surrey Music Hall, seating seven thousand, and filled it to overflowing.

The Metropolitan Tabernacle was built, seating five thousand, with standing room for one thousand. The standing room was occupied until he died. He never found but one place that could hold his congregation: the open fields roofed by the skies.

With whom among men can you compare him? He combined the preaching power of Jonathan Edwards and Whitfield with the organizing power of Wesley, and the energy, fire, and courage of Luther. In many respects he was most like Luther. In many most like Paul.

His pulpit power derived no aid from adventicious circumstances. He dealt in no tricks of elocution. You cannot conceive of Mr. Spurgeon attitudinizing before a mirror to learn graceful gesticulation. Mr. Spurgeon's pulpit power consisted largely in his convictions. He spake because he believed. He realized that he carried a message from God. A message of life to the lost. It was his business to deliver the message, not vindicate it. He did not feel authorized to minify, dilute, or change it.

He believed in God. He believed in the personality of the devil. He believed the Bible doctrines of heaven and hell. He believed in the eternity of future happiness or woe for every man; in the power of the Holy Ghost; in the divinity of Jesus and the reality of vicarious expiation. He believed that Jesus Christ founded the church. He believed that a Christian congregation should be as a lighthouse on a rock-bound coast, or a chandelier of grouped lights revealing the dangerous pathway to hell and illuminating the narrow way to heaven.

That the mission of the church was not to amuse and entertain, but to save the world. Hence that meeting-houses were not the successors of Solomon's temple, whose antitype is the spiritual church, but were only meeting-houses, and should therefore be constructed with reference to utility and comfort. They should be good audience rooms, well lighted, heated, and ventilated, with enough entrances and exits for convenience and safety, and without steeples, chancels, altars, stained glass, images, or pictures; indeed, without everything that would divert the minds of the people from the preaching of Jesus Christ and him crucified.

His pulpit power was also greatly enhanced by his character. All men felt that he was wedded to truth. He hated all lies and shams and frauds. He was neither two-faced, double-minded, nor double-tongued. He loved candor, and abhorred double-dealing, wire-pulling, indirectness, and Macchiavellianism. His own nature was simple, transparent, direct. His eye was single. If in speech he was natural, shunning the affectations of elocution, the flourishes of rhetoric and all theatrical displays, how much more did he abhor hypocrisy in life, and with what relentless scorn did he tear off the mask which covered moral turpitude, and behind which immorality rotted the souls of men.

He was a real man, not a dreamer or visionary, and possessed withal as large a share of "sanctified common sense" as is ever allotted to man. Then, without being an agitator, politician, or demagogue, he was emphatically one of the people. He had more points of contact with them than any other preacher of modern times. He could play with boys, laugh with girls, and genuinely enjoy a talk with the old women in the almshouses. His sympathy for them in all their sorrows was manifestly unaffected. Except, perhaps, Martin Luther, no other man since the Master himself, so nearly touched the life of the common people all along the line of their experience. He understood them. They understood him. Witness John Ploughman.

Then his nature was so cheery and sunshiny, so social. He was no misanthrope, no recluse, but a mingler in the everyday affairs of life. Moreover, his discernment of human nature was only equalled by his sturdy independence. He believed in the natural dignity of man, as man, without regard to fictitious distinctions of rank and wealth. Human patents of nobility were no more to his rugged Puritan mind than the "titular dignitaries of the chess-board."

Such a character must have told mightily in his preaching. But Mr. Spurgeon was not only a preacher, but a teacher of preachers (The Pastor's College). That preacher whose preaching never leads others to preach, may well doubt that he is one himself.

(1)  Debt. Perhaps, more than any other man of his generation, has Mr. Spurgeon impressed the English-speaking world with the impolicy, degradation, slavery, and sin of debt. In the erection of almshouses, orphanages, colleges, churchhouses, and mission chapels — costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, he never incurred a debt. "Pay as you go" was his watchword.

His publications (see "John Ploughman's Talk" & "J. P.'s Pictures") have teemed with proverbs, illustrations, and exhortations on this subject. He impressed the world that debt is folly, extravagance, bondage, shame, sin. Let us as preachers, Christians, citizens, and churches lay the lesson to heart.

(2)  His life and ministry have demonstrated that the doctrine of a free salvation, none of works but all of grace, promotes the highest form of practical piety. The believers of this doctrine do not "sin the more that grace may abound." His ministry and its results prove that not Arminianism but, "The grace of God that bringeth salvation ...teaches us, that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world."

(3)  His ministry has demonstrated that a free salvation, none of works but all of grace, promotes and produces the most effective work. Work, not to be saved, but because saved. While his life affirms with unspeakable emphasis: "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he has saved us by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed upon us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour," it also effectively exhorts: "This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men."

(4)  His ministry has demonstrated that while salvation is free, none of works but all of grace, yet the sinner must seek the Lord — must pray for forgiveness, must mourn over sins, must strive to enter in at the strait gate.

(5)  His ministry has demonstrated the power of a gospel which insists on man's depravity, the necessity of regeneration, the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, and the undiluted doctrine of substitutionary, vicarious expiation.

(6)  But perhaps, greatest of all lessons, his ministry has demonstrated and illustrated the truth of the scripture:

"And I, If I Be Lifted Up, Will Draw All Men Unto Me."

That the preaching of "Christ and him crucified," "the glorying only in the cross," "the knowing nothing but the cross," out-draws in attractive power ALL other themes. What sensationalist, relying on adventitious aids, on flaming advertisements, on slang and ribaldry, on theatrical methods and trick of elocution, ever did gather and hold — in one place — attentive thousands for nearly forty years?

Like Paul, Mr. Spurgeon could say: "And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God."

The world needed this lesson. The times were out of joint. The church was drifting from mummeries to infidelity. We needed to go back to first principles. If any man seeks popularity, he will lose it. If he loses it he will find it.

During the previous year, on Sunday morning June 7, 1891, he preached for the last time in the Tabernacle, # 2208 — The Statute of David for the Sharing of the Spoil, completing forty years of preaching the gospel (although only 57 years of age), over thirty of them in the Metropolitan Tabernacle. Spurgeon finally broke down, not from influenza or overwork, but from a combination of rheumatism, gout and Bright's disease (kidney). Despite occasional improvements to his health during the final 8 months, his condition remained mostly poor.

His symptoms became alarming and a specialist was called in. Twice-daily prayer meetings for his recovery were held at the Tabernacle. The doctor's verdict was: "The case is a very difficult and dangerous one." Among those who sent letters or messages of sympathy were the Prince of Wales, the Prime Minister (Mr. Gladstone), and several members of the nobility. The Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of England, as well as the Chief Rabbi, prayed publically for him.

In September he seemed to rally a little and was allowed out for short drives in the country. He went to Eastbourne at the beginning of October and then at the end of the month to Menton (located in Southern France, on the Mediterranean, Spurgeon would relax here as this was thought to be a healthy climate for his affliction of gout). He left England as Dr. A. T. Pierson of America began in his place at the Tabernacle. For the weekly "penny pulpit," other previously unpublished Spurgeon sermons now began to be selected [continuing to the year 1917, with no duplications].

In France Spurgeon went for drives, and as he was able, for walks (mainly in the garden of Villa Les Grottes). His secretary, Mr. Harrold, as well as other of his London friends, spent as much time as possible with him. Even here he continued his studious habits, and he had his "Cozy Corner" where he wrote many cards and letters, reviewed books, and wrote for The Sword and The Trowel Magazine. When he had periods free from pain he continued working on Matthew — The Gospel of the Kingdom, and completed Memories of Stambourne, published in November. (all re-published by Pilgrim)

Just before Christmas he said, "I have turned the corner... I shall hail the day when I may again speak with you." It was not to be. Within 3 weeks, his last exposition of the doctrines of grace would be to a small company of guests in the Hotel Beau Rivage at Menton.

Selecting and editing the first sermon to be published for the 1892 year Spurgeon chose: "Gratitude for Deliverance from the Grave" #2237 Psalm 118:17-18..."I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord. The Lord hath chastened me sore: but he hath not given me over unto death.". It was Martin Luther's text on his study wall and it was also inscribed on Spurgeon's Jubilee House at the back of the Tabernacle. Spurgeon included a brief note for the readers —

This sermon begins a new volume; in fact it commences Vol. 38 of the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit. I have, myself, selected it, and prepared it for the press, because it is most suitable as my own personal testimony at the present moment. The subject is even more my own this day than it was seven and a half years ago; for I have been in deeper waters, and nearer to the mouth of the grave. With my whole soul I praise delivering grace. To the Lord God, the God of Israel, I consecrate myself anew. For the covenant of Grace, for the revelation of infallible truth is the Bible, for the atonement by blood, and the immutable love of the ever-blessed Three-in-One, I am a witness; and more and more would I abide faithful to the gospel of the grace of God. I see each day more reasons for faith, and fewer excuses for doubt. Those who will may ship their anchors, and be drifted about by the current of the age; but I would sing:

"My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing, and give praise!"

The whole passage, Psalm 118:17-18, is inscribed upon a marble slab on the Jubilee House at the back of the Tabernacle, and I am told that many went to read it while I lay in the greatest peril through sore sickness, and were comforted thereby. When the Lord permits me to reform, I must raise yet another memorial to his praise. — CHS

In that sermon, Spurgeon remarked —

Those preachers whose voices were clear and mighty for truth during life continue to preach in their graves. Being dead, they yet speak — and whether men put their ears to their tombs or not, they cannot but hear them... Often the death of a man is a kind of new birth to him — when he himself is gone physically, he spiritually survives, and from his grave there shoots up a tree of life whose leaves heal nations. O' worker for God, death cannot touch thy sacred mission! Be thou content to die if the truth shall live the better because thou diest. Be thou content to die, because death may be to thee the enlargement of thine influence. Good men die as dies the seed-corn which thereby abideth not alone. When saints are apparently laid in the earth, they quit the earth, and rise and mount to Heaven-gate, and enter into immortality. No, when the sepulchre receives this mortal frame, we shall not die, but live.

He was not to be delivered from the grave for long. He became too ill to write letters by January 6 and by January 24 had seriously declined (seven days later he would enter heaven). He had given two short readings from his own printed sermons in his hotel room in Menton to a number of guests, the last two occasions (January 10 and 17) on which he spoke "in public."

At last, on January 31, 1892, after long suffering with a diseased body, he went the way of all flesh so far as his body was concerned, but his spirit entered into Glory. Spurgeon's mother, Eliza, joined her Saviour four years before, aged seventy-five.

His father John was eighty-one years of age when he received the message of his son's death. He bowed his head and said, "What a happy meeting there has been between Charles and his mother!" John would die on June 14, 1902, ten years after his illustrious son (aged 91).

The telephone wires to Menton became blocked with many messages of condolence from all parts of the world, including one from the Prince and Princess of Wales. The preacher's body was placed in an olive wood coffin and after a memorial service at the Scottish Presbyterian Church it was removed and returned to England for burial in London.

Before the burial the body lay in state at the Tabernacle (Feb. 8, 1892). The greatest crowds ever seen there commenced as 60,000 people passed before the coffin, and a similar crowd again the next day. On the tenth, the day of the funeral, the building was filled to overflowing for the funeral sermon. Four memorial services were held in one day:  in the morning for members of the church, the afternoon for ministers and students, the evening for members of other denominations, and a late night one (10:30 p.m.) for the general public.

Ira D. Sankey sang "Sleep on, beloved, sleep and take thy rest" and "Only Remembered By What I Have Done." Among others who took part were Drs. Alexander MacLaren and F. B. Meyer. The Bishop of Rochester pronounced the benediction and Dr. A. T. Pierson of America led in prayer.

Mrs. Spurgeon, in her tears, watched him pass over to the Celestial City saying, "Like his namesake, Mr. Valiant-for-truth, he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side." Then she fell on her knees and said: "Blessed Lord Jesus, I thank Thee for the precious treasure so long lent me; now, be pleased to give me strength and guidance for all the future." [The Shadow of the Broad Brim, by Richard Ellsworth Day, pg. 233-234]

Hundreds of thousands lined the five-mile route from the Tabernacle to the cemetery, the writer's grandfather and father (then a boy of 12) being among them. Flags were at half-mast and church bells were tolled. The burial service was conducted by one of Spurgeon's own students and close friend, Pastor Archibald Brown (who later became pastor at the Tabernacle). He said...

Beloved President, faithful Pastor, Prince of Preachers, Brother Beloved, Dear Spurgeon — we bid thee but "farewell" yet only for a little while "goodnight." Thou shalt rise soon, at the first dawn of the resurrection day of the redeemed. Yet is not the "good-night" ours to bid but thine. It is we who linger in the darkness; thou art in God's own light. Our night, too, shall soon be past, and with it all our weeping. Then, with thine, our songs shall greet the morning of a day that knows no cloud nor close, for there is no night there.

Hard Worker in the field, thy toil is ended!  Straight has been the furrow thou hast ploughed. No looking back has marred thy course. Harvests have followed thy patient sowing, and Heaven is already rich with thine ingathered sheaves, and shall be still enriched through years yet lying in eternity.

Champion of God, thy battle long and nobly fought is over! The sword, which clave to thine hand, has dropped at last; the palm branch takes its place. No longer does the helmet press thy brow, oft weary with its surging thoughts of battle; the victor's wreath from the Great Commander's hand has already proved thy full reward.

Here for a little while, shall rest thy precious dust. Then shall the Well-beloved come, and at His voice thou shalt spring from thy couch of earth, fashioned like unto His glorious body. The spirit, soul, and body shall magnify thy Lord's redemption. Until then, beloved, sleep! We praise God for thee; and, by the blood of the everlasting covenant, we hope and expect to praise God with thee, Amen.

A rather ornate vault housed the preacher's coffin, embellished with a sculptured portrait of the Prince of preachers and a Bible opened upon Isaiah 45:22 — "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else."

He was buried in Norwood Cemetary on February 11, 1892 among his elders, deacons and members who had pre-deceased him. Buried later by his side was Mrs. Spurgeon, dying October 22, 1903 (Archibald Brown once again officiating at the funeral service).

The voice that was once described as "a silver bell" now lay silent, having uplifted the Saviour and drawn many to Him. During his pastorate a total of 14,692 had been baptized and joined the Tabernacle. His sermons continued to be published for a further twenty-seven years (and have been republished from time to time ever since) —

"I am crucified with Christ:  nevertheless I live; yet not I,  but Christ liveth in me: and  the life which I now live in the  flesh I live by the faith of the  Son of God, who loved me,  and gave Himself for me."
	A Friendly Cartoonist Pictured SPURGEON as
Galatians 2:20	"GREATHEART," one of John Bunyan's characters in his book,
The Pilgrim's Progress — which was read by Spurgeon over 100 times!

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-Brief Excerpt here: He, to whose memory we pay our sad respect tonight, has been spoken of in his various public capacities — preacher, author, tutor, benefactor; and right well the themes were handled; but there were only two men in the world fully qualified to speak of him as a father — and I, thank God, am one of these!

The man who was so good to other people's children, was, you may be sure, a good father to his own. So busy a life prevented him from taking a very active part in the upbringing of his boys; besides, my precious mother was the best possible trainer. We learned from father's example rather than by his precept. And if his home-life might be told, it would prove as striking as his public life. I fear me, we have not profited by it as we should; but it was bound to tell.

There, at "home, sweet home," we marked his generosity, so unstinted that scarcely anyone appealed in vain, unless, indeed, he himself, just then, was as poor as the applicant, by reason of his constant giving. There we saw the daily, hourly piety, so natural and unconstrained, the trustful confidence in God, the humility which ever spake in praise of others, but never in his own.

What, I suppose, will prove his last letter to his distant son, reached me almost at the same time as the tidings that he had ceased to live. He did not often write. How could he amid such toils? And when he did, the letter was not long, but there was much in little. This last was a perfect benediction; and if no other message comes to me, this will well content my heart. "The Lord bless thee, my son, and thy spouse, and the little one! God's own triune blessing rest on the three!" Then there were some words of kind encouragement in the work of the ministry.

A few loving words by way of tribute from Son Charles, to the memory of his beloved Father, addressed to the Church and Congregation worshipping at South Street Baptist Church, Greenwich.

-Brief Excerpt here: What my Father has been to me, to many thousands, and the world at large, none can ever fully estimate. There was one trait in his noble and godly character which, among many others, always shone out with a lustre peculiarly its own. His humility demands, of those who speak of him, the utmost regards, for words of eulogy concerning himself was ever painful to him; his creed in this, as in all other matters, being "Not I, but Christ."

He had an Eleazar grip, as regards his hold of the Old Gospel, and he said, in the words of David in respect to "the Sword of the Spirit," "There is none like that, give it me?" As a preacher, second to none; and although my judgment may be deemed very partial, I venture to express the opinion, that since the days of the Apostle Paul there has not lived a greater or more powerful exponent of the doctrines of grace, or a more faithful preacher of the saying which is worthy of all acceptation, "that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." What multitudes have been saved through his instrumentality!

While the wonderful voice is silenced by death, one cannot but rejoice that thousands of his discourses are preserved in the volumes of printed sermons, and these shall in years to come, bring forth fruit, for "He being dead yet speaketh." Pages could be filled by my pen in writing of this beloved Father: but I must refrain. The loss is great because he was such a Father, but it is not only mine, my sorrow is shared by many.

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LAST MODIFIED  July 29 - 2004