DEATHS, SAINTS’

And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, and they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.

—Rev. 14:13

1025 Aristeides Observed The Christians

About the year 125 A.D. a Greek by the name of Aristeides was writing to one of his friends about the new religion, Christianity. He was trying to explain the reasons for its extraordinary success. Here is a sentence from one of his letters:

“If any righteous man among the Christians passes from this world, they rejoice and offer thanks to God, and they escort his body with songs and thanksgiving as if he were setting out from one place to another nearby.”

—J. G. Gilkey

1026 Moody More Alive

Realizing that he would soon be gone from this world one day, Moody said to a friend, “Someday you will read in the papers that D. L. Moody of Northfield is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it.

“At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now. I shall have gone higher, that is all—out of this old clay tenement into a house that is immortal, a body that sin cannot touch, that sin cannot taint, a body fashioned into His glorious body. I was born in the flesh in 1837; I was born of the Spirit in 1856. That which is born of the flesh may die; that which is born of the Spirit will live forever.”

1027 Exchanging Soiled Banknote

Some said that death is paying a debt of nature. But it is not paying a debt, but rather exchanging money at the bank. We bring a crumpled note to the bank to obtain solid gold in exchange. In a Christian’s death, you bring this cumbersome body, which you could not retain long; you lay it down and receive for it, from the eternal treasures, liberty, victory, knowledge, rapture.

1028 Lost?

A little girl whose baby brother had just died asked her mother where baby had gone. “To be with Jesus,” replied the mother. A few days later, talking to a friend, the mother said, “I am so grieved to have lost my baby.” The little girl heard her, and, remembering what her mother had told her, looked up into her and asked, “Mother, is a thing lost when you know where it is?”

“No, of course not.” “Well, then, how can baby be lost when he has gone to be with Jesus?” Her mother never forgot this. It was the truth.

—Junior King’s Business

1029 Returning The Jewels

A lady, when her husband was absent, lost both her children to cholera. She laid them out with a mother’s tenderness, spread a sheet over them, and waited at the door for her husband’s return.

“A person lent me some jewels,” she told her husband on his return, “and he now wants to have them back. What shall I do?” “Return them, by all means,” said the husband. Then she led the way, and silently uncovered the forms of their children.

1030 Angels Rejoice

Phillips Brooks, the writer of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” was one of the greatest pulpit orators and best-loved preachers of the 19th century. No greater tribute could be paid him than the words of a five-year-old Boston girl, who exclaimed after her mother had told her that the beloved Mr. Brooks had died, “Mother, how happy the angels will be!”

1031 Arrived!

There are Christians of a certain tribe in Africa who never say of their dead “who die in the Lord” that “they have departed!” Speaking, as it were, from the vantage point of the Gloryworld, they triumphantly and joyously say, “They have arrived!” What joy, even in sorrow, is ours when we say of our loved ones, who enter life eternal trusting Jesus: “Absent from the body—at home with the Lord!”

—Walter B. Knight

1032 Fanny Crosby’s “Soul’s Poem”

One of Fanny Crosby’s hymns, based on a combination of the thoughts in Ecclesiastes 12:6 and Revelation 22:4, 5 was so personal that for years she never let others see it. Professor Kenneth Osbeck says its revelation to the public came about this way.

“One day at a Bible conference in Northfield, Massachusetts, Miss Crosby was asked by Dwight L. Moody to give a personal testimony concerning her faith and Christian experience. At first she hesitated, then quietly rose and said, “There is one hymn I have written which has never been published. I call it my soul’s poem. Sometimes when I am troubled, I repeat it to myself, for it brings comfort to my heart.” She then recited while many wept, “Someday the silver cord will break, and I no more as now shall sing; but O the joy when I shall wake within the palace of the King! And I shall see Him face to face, and tell the story—saved by grace!” At the age of 25, Fanny Crosby’s wish that the face of Jesus would be the first she would ever see was realized.”

—Selected

1033 Pastor’s Wish Was Granted

Retired Foursquare pastor Melville S. Taylor had often said that when it came time for him to die he wanted the Lord to take him while he was preaching. Last month he was guest preacher at Baseview Assembly of God church in Emerado, North Dakota. He said when he started to preach that he hadn’t realized until then what the Lord wanted him to talk about, commented Steven Robbins, Baseview’s pastor.

“Then he talked about eternal life. He stated in his message that he loved his family, but that if the Lord chose to take him home he was prepared to go right now.” A moment later, said Robbins, the 71-year-old Taylor collapsed and fell from the podium, apparently having suffered a heart attack. Attempts to revive him failed. Taylor’s long-standing wish had been honored.

—Christianity Today

1034 Patrick Henry’s Will

Patrick Henry is a name known to every school boy. Best known perhaps is his heroic exclamation: “Give me liberty, or give me death!” He was an orator of top rank and also a wise and fearless statesman. He had an active and important role in forming the government of the United States and particularly some of the provisions of the Constitution.

However, he lacked business ability in the sense of building up a personal fortune, so that at his death in 1799, his family was not surprised when they opened his will to read: “This is all the inheritance I can give to my dear family: The religion of Christ will give One which will make them rich indeed.”

1035 Bunhill Fields Cemetery

One of the most interesting of London’s ancient cemeteries is Bunhill Fields. There rests the dust of Charles Wesley, Isaac Watts, and Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe. The cemetery is sometimes spoken of as the “Westminster Abbey of Nonconformity.”

Directly across from this ancient graveyard is the chapel of John Wesley, and the house in which he lived and died, and the monument which has been reared to his memory. Just before his death on March 2, 1791, John Wesley opened his eyes and exclaimed in a strong, clear voice, “The best of all is, God is with us!”

1036 Don’t Grieve For Me

When I’ve been to my last service,

And fades softly on the air,

The notes of the last song for me,

And then the final prayer;

When friends arise and slowly walk

Down the long church aisle,

For that last look at my cold corpse,

As they pass in single file.

There may be words of flattery,

And some may even sneer,

Some may sob, and some may cry,

Some may not shed a tear.

But be what may, this much I know,

I will no longer care;

No earthly voice can reach my ear,

As I climb that “Golden Stair.”

Now, pen in hand, I’m writing you

This is my last request,

Don’t grieve for me; don’t wish me back;

For I am one most blessed.

I have a hope beyond the grave;

I am secure in God’s great love.

I leave this world with all its cares

For a mansion up above.

Though it be hard, please wear a smile;

Rejoice, and praise our God!

’Tis only this old shell of mine

You place beneath the sod.

—Edna Blubough

BELIEVERS’ DEATH SCENES

1037 To Be Continued In Heaven

Rev. James Harris, 77, of Oreana, Illinois, collapsed and died at the end of his sermon in a county home for the aged. With his last breath, he said: “I have just one more point to make and then I’ll close.” He made that “last point” in heaven.

1038 His Wish Fulfilled

Alben Barkley the former Vice President was speaking at Washington and Lee University. “I would rather be a servant in the House of the Lord than sit in the seat of the mighty,” he said—and fell over dead.

1039 Faraday Rested On Certainties

When that great Christian and scientist, Sir Michael Faraday, was dying, some journalists questioned him as to his speculations for a life after death. “Speculations!” said he, “I know nothing about speculations. I’m resting on certainties. “I know that my redeemer liveth,” and because He lives, I shall live also.”

—Gospel Trumpet

1040 Called-Held-Kept!

Frances Havergal, the song writer, lived and moved in the Word of God. His Word was her constant companion. On the last day of her life, she asked a friend to read to her the 42nd chapter of Isaiah. When the friend read the sixth verse. “I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee,” Miss Havergal stopped her. She whispered, “Called—held—kept. I can go home on that!” And she did go home on that.

—Pentecostal Evangel

1041 Vanderbilt Still A Needy Sinner

It is said that Vanderbilt, the mighty multi-millionaire, as he neared the opal gates of death, asked a faithful servant to come to his bedside and sing the old Gospel hymn, “Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy.” The aged Negro put much feeling and pleading pathos into the hymn:

Come ye sinners, poor and needy,

Weak and wounded, sick and sore,

Jesus, ready, stands to save you,

Full of mercy love and pow’r!

Let not conscience make you linger,

Nor of fitness fondly dream,

All the fitness He requireth,

Is to feel your need of Him!

At the conclusion of the hymn, Vanderbilt, forgetting his millions, said, “I’m a poor and needy sinner!”

1042 To Glorify God In Heaven

“I do not go to heaven to be advanced,” said Brainerd on his dying bed to Jonathan Edwards, his biographer, “but to give honor to God. It is no matter where I shall be stationed in heaven, whether I have a high or low seat there, but to live and please and glorify God … My heaven is to please God and glorify Him, and give all to Him, and to be wholly devoted to His glory.”

1043 Regretting Wrong Sign

William Barclay tells of an old man who, as he lay near death, was obviously troubled. When asked what was disturbing him, replied, “One day when I was young I was playing with some other boys at a crossroads. We reversed a sign post so that its arms were pointing in the wrong direction, and I’ve never ceased to wonder how many people were sent in the wrong direction by what we did.”

—Charles N. Pickell

1044 Benjamin Franklin’s Epitaph

When Benjamin Franklin was about to die, he asked that a picture of Christ on the Cross should be so placed in his bedroom that he could look, as he said, “upon the form of the Silent Sufferer.”

He wrote in advance the epitaph to be on his gravestone: “The body of Benjamin Franklin, Printer, like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out and stripped of its lettering and gilding, lies here … Yet the Work itself shall not be lost; for it will, as he believed, appear once more in a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended by the Author.”

1045 Webster Said “Amen”

On the night of Daniel Webster’s death at Marshfield, October 24, 1852, his physician, Dr. Jeffries, knowing Mr. Webster’s religious faith, suggested that he should read to him one of his favorite hymns. Mr. Webster having intimated his consent, Dr. Jeffries read Cowper’s hymn, beginning.

There is a fountain filled with blood

Drawn from Immanuel’s veins.

He read on till he had finished the last stanza:

Then in a nobler, sweeter song,

I’ll sing thy power to save,

When this poor lisping, stammering tongue

Lies silent in the grave.

Then, although his tongue was one of the least feeble and stammering of human tongues, Webster in a clear, strong voice replied. “Amen! Amen! Amen!”

1046 Benhoeffer’s New Life

During World War II, a prisoner wrote: “Sunday, April 8, 1945, Pastor Benhoeffer held a little service which reached the hearts of all. He had hardly finished his prayer, when the door opened. Two evil-looking soldiers came in and barked: “Prisoner Benhoeffer, come with us!” The words meant only one thing, the scaffold. As he bid his fellow prisoners good-bye, he said, “For me this is the beginning of a new life, eternal life.””

1047 Moody Saw Heaven

“A few hours before entering the “Homeland,” Dwight L. Moody caught a glimpse of the glory awaiting him. Awakening from a sleep, he said, “Earth recedes, Heaven opens before me. If this is death, it is sweet! There is no valley here. God is calling me, and I must go.” His son who was standing by his bedside said, “No, no, father, you are dreaming.”

““No,” said Mr. Moody, “I am not dreaming: I have been within the gates: I have seen the children’s faces.” A short time elapsed and then, following what seemed to the family to be the death struggle he spoke again: “This is my triumph; this my coronation day! It is glorious!””

—G. W. Ridout

1048 “The Sun Is Up”

An old saint of God lay dying. At his request the friend who was sitting with him turned on all the lights in the house. Time passed and the old man became weaker and weaker. Finally when the night was darkest outside, the old pilgrim lifted his head, looked around, and said, “Put out the lights; the sun is up,” and he was gone to the place where the sun never sets. Telling of it later the friend said, “Wasn’t that strange?”

No, it was not strange, for there is a light in the valley of the shadow for God’s people.

—Al Bryant

1049 Promoted To Be King

The late Duke of Hamilton had two sons. The eldest, when a boy, fell into consumption which ended in his death. Two ministers went to see him, the youth took his Bible and read II Timothy 4:7 “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course. I have kept the faith, henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.” When death approached he called his younger brother and with great affection said, “Now, Douglas, in a little time you will be a duke, but I shall be a king.”

1050 From Poorhouse To Mansion

Though we may have little of this world’s goods we have much for which to praise God. A woman was dying in the poorhouse. The doctor bent over her and heard her whisper, “Praise the Lord.” “Why, auntie,” he said, “how can you praise God when you are dying in a poorhouse?” “Oh, doctor,” she replied, “it’s wonderful to go from the poorhouse to a mansion in the skies!”

—The Christian

1051 Message To Baylor Students

Dr. Samuel Palmer Brooks was president of Baylor University in Texas from 1902 until his death in 1931.

On his deathbed he wrote a message to the senior class of 1931 which has become immortal to the students of Baylor.

“I stand on the border of mortal life but I face eternal life. I look backward to the years of the past to see all pettiness, all triviality, shrink into nothing and disappear. Adverse criticism has no meaning now, only the worthwhile things, the constructive things that have built for the good of mankind and the glory of God count now. There is beauty, there is joy, and there is laughter in life—as there ought to be, but remember, my students, not to regard lightly nor to ridicule the sacred things, those worthwhile things.

“Hold them dear, cherish them, for they alone will sustain you in the end, and remember, too, that only through work and oft-times through hardships may they be attained. But the compensation of blessing and sweetness at the last will glorify every hour of work and every heartache from hardship.”

1052 Wheaton Professor’s Farewell

Dr. Effie Jane Wheeler was a member of Wheaton College faculty for sixteen years. She wrote the following to faculty and student body before she entered into the presence of her Lord:

My doctor at last has given what has been his real diagnosis of my illness for weeks—an inoperable case of cancer of the pancreas.

Now if he had been a Christian he wouldn’t have been so dilatory and shaken, for he would have known, as you and I do, that life or death is equally welcome when we live in the will and presence of the Lord.

If the Lord has chosen me to go to Him soon, I go gladly. On the other hand, I remember that Christ is still the Great Physician. And so in simple faith and trust I say to Him, “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me whole.” I await His answer utterly at peace.

Please do not give a moment’s grief to me. Think of me only happily, gaily, as I do of you. My interest is as keen as ever in everything over there—Memorial Student center and buildings that are to follow, commencement affairs with all the joy and lightheartedness.

I do not say a cold good-bye, but rather a warm “auf Wiedersehen,” till I see you again—by God’s power and grace on campus this fall or later in the Blessed Land, where I may be allowed to draw aside a curtain when you enter.

With a heart full of love for every individual of you.

—Effie Jane Wheeler

1053 Dying Words Of Believers

•     Matthew Henry—”Sin is bitter. I bless God I have inward supports.”

•     Martin Luther—”Our God is the God from whom cometh salvation: God is the Lord by whom we escape death.”

•     John Knox—Live in Christ, Live in Christ, and the flesh need not fear death.

•     John Calvin—”Thou, Lord, bruisest me; but I am abundantly satisfied, since it is from thy hand.”

•     John Wesley—”The best of all is, God is with us. Farewell! Farewell!”

•     Charles Wesley—”I shall be satisfied with thy likeness—satisfied, satisfied!”

•     Baxter—”I have pain; but I have peace. I have peace.”

•     Preston—”Blessed be God! though I change my place, I shall not change my company.”

•     Goodwin—”Ah! is this dying? How have I dreaded as an enemy this smiling friend!”

•     Everett—”Glory, glory, glory!” (this expression was repeated for 25 minutes and only ceased with life itself).

BELIEVER’S DEATH SCENES

1054 More Last Words

•     William Carey the missionary—”When I am gone, speak less of Dr. Carey and more of Dr. Carey’s Saviour.”

•     Susanna Wesley—”Children, when I am gone, sing a song of praise to God.”

•     Lady Glenorchy—”If this is dying, it is the pleasantest thing imaginable.”

•     Edward Perronet, pastor—”Glory to God in the height of His divinity! Glory to God in the depths of His humanity! Glory to God in his all-sufficiency! Into His hands I commend my spirit.”

•     John Pawson, minister—”I know I am dying, but my death-bed is a bed of roses. I have no thorns planted upon my dying pillow. Heaven is already begun!”

•     Adoniram Judson—”I am not tired of my work, neither am I tired of the world; yet when Christ calls me home, I shall go with the gladness of a boy bounding away from school.”

BELIEVERS’ GRAVESTONES

1055 “Who Plucked The Flower?”

There is an inscription on a child’s tombstone in an English churchyard, as follows: “Who plucked that flower?” cried the gardener as he walked through the garden. His fellow servant answered, “The Master,” And the gardener held his peace.

1056 Ascended

In a London cemetery is a grave and a headstone with very unusual but beautiful wording. It was erected by the famous pastor Joseph Parker for his beloved wife. He could not bring himself to write the word “Died,” and instead chose the better word “Ascended.”

When he himself passed away, his friends had his headstone carved with the following inscription: “Joseph Parker, Born April 9, 1830, Ascended November 28, 1902.”

1057 Nevertheless …

When Sir James Simpson, the great physician and the discoverer of anesthesia lost his eldest child he erected on the grave an obelisk pointing like a spire toward the heavens. On it he carved the words, “Nevertheless, I live,” and above the words a butterfly, to suggest his invincible faith in Christ.

1058 No Fear

Into the granite that marks the grave of one of America’s greatest astronomers is carved these words: “I have lived too long among the stars to fear the night.”

1059 World’s Northernmost Grave

From a nineteenth-century book of anecdotes comes this report:

“The earth’s northernmost grave is near Cape Beechy, on the brow of a hill covered with snow. In it is buried the body of a member of the Nares Expedition. A large stone covers the dead, and on a copper tablet at the head is engraved: “WASH ME, AND I SHALL BE WHITER THAN SNOW.””

1060 Only “J.C.”

After much searching in the old cemetery of Plain Palais, at Geneva, I found the grave of John Calvin. Not far from the wall, it was covered with grass, and the shadows of the cypress free above it were playing to and fro over the grave as if to remind one of the shadowy brevity of human life. On the stone, hardly a foot high, are the letters “J.C.”

Across the lake rises the costly and magnificent cenotaph of one of the dukes of Brunswick. But who today is the Duke of Brunswick? Who was he then? But the man whose initials are graven on that humble grave, in keeping with his theology which exalted God and humbled man, lives forever.

—C. E. Macartney

1061 St. Bernard’s Tomb

In examining St. Bernard’s tomb in the present century the explorers came upon a few poor bones and a little dust wrapped in yellow silk, with the still uneffaced letters which spelt out, “A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me.”

—W. Robertson Nicoll

1062 “Freddy!”

Spurgeon used to tell of an epitaph he once came across in the obscure country cemetery in England. The headstone was small and of inexpensive material, and on it were chiseled just two words: “Freddy!” as if someone had called a boy’s name. Then underneath this, as if the boy had answered, just one word, “Yes.”

1063 Hush!

In the Church of St. Nazaro, in Florence, is an epitaph upon the tomb of a soldier, as fit for the whole toiling race as for his own restless life: “Johannes Divultius, who never rested, rests—hush!”

—Walter Baxendale

1064 Epigram On Deaths (Gravestones)

•     Those who love God never meet for the last time.

—W. G. Elmslie

•     Death is not a period but a comma in the story of life.

—Amos J. Tarver, in Christian Herald

•     At a funeral service in Winona Lake, Indiana: “We are not in the land of the living, but in the land of the dying—someday we shall be in the Land of the Living.”

•     No one cries when children, long absent from their parents, go home. School is out. It is time to go home. Vacation morning is a happy occasion.

—Beecher

•     We go to the grave of a friend, saying, “A man is dead.” But angels throng about him saying, “A man is born.”

•     The Christian, at his death, should not be like the child who is forced by the rod to quit his play, but like one who is wearied of it and is willing to go home.

—Gotthold

•     When I go down to the grave I can say, like so many others: I have finished my work, but I cannot say I have finished my life. My day’s work will begin the next morning. My tomb is not a blind alley. It is a thoroughfare. It closes in the twilight to open in the dawn.

—Victor Hugo

•     An aged Scotchman, while dying, was asked what he thought of death, and he replied, “It matters little to me whether I live or die. If I die I will be with Jesus, and if I live Jesus will be with me.”

—A. C. Dixon

•     Death did not first strike Adam, the first sinful man; nor Cain, the first murderer: but Abel, the innocent and righteous.

—Bishop Hall

See also: Heaven ; Martyrdom.