TENNESSEE.
A Remarkable Conversion and Triumphant Death.
MISS HENRIETTA MATSON, NASHVILLE.
How often have God’s dealings with His children seemed strange and sad, when those who were just ready to do valiant service for Him, here amid the need of a lost world, are called up higher—called to rest, rather than toil—to wear the crown, rather than longer bear the cross.
But God’s ways are not ours, and since we know that He ever cares for His own cause, we may believe that He calls the loved one to a higher usefulness. Such were some of the thoughts that came to our hearts when, on a beautiful June morning during the summer vacation, we read the words, “E. J. Park died yesterday afternoon,” followed by an account of the triumphant death of a student of Fisk University, who had gone to Texas to teach school.
Eugene Park came to Fisk University several years ago, a pleasant, careless boy, who had never bestowed a thought upon his eternal interests. For a long time he was but little moved; both the warnings and the entreaties of the Gospel seemed to fall unheeded upon his ear, and we often felt that he became only more careless and indifferent.
At last, however, the Spirit strove with him, and he began to ask, “What must I do to be saved?” though at first there was not in him that fixed purpose which would lead him to arise and go to his Father. And so he halted for months, wavering and undecided, until a mighty conviction seized him that he must find God, and that speedily. Sin, in all its enormity, was revealed to him, and he seemed indeed to realize that he was lost, unless the Saviour should interpose and deliver him.
He then gave himself entirely to seeking God. He could not study, and there were many long hours in which he could neither eat nor sleep, so powerfully was he wrought upon. One morning in Chapel, at devotional exercises, while in this intense state of mind, the reading of the Scriptures so affected him that he sobbed aloud. Hoping to calm him, and at the same time point him to Christ, the hymn was sung, “Oh, the blood, the precious blood!” but he was so overcome that his friends were obliged to take him away, and a few of us gathered and prayed with him. Still the light from the Sun of Righteousness did not break in; the precious blood was not applied to his soul until the next day, when Jesus Himself drew near, and the Lord of Glory revealed Himself as the One altogether lovely, and the Chief among ten thousand. His soul seemed in a rapture of joy for days. He came to the school with his Bible always in his hand, as though he could not be parted from it even for a moment.
Then followed years of ripening in the Christian life, with frequent seasons of such blessing that he could not speak of Christ without tears. He early gave himself to the ministry, feeling that to preach the everlasting Gospel would be his highest joy, and was pursuing his studies with this in view. He was not, however, without temptations to a worldly life, though we are assured that the dear Saviour kept His own, even unto the end. His death was a beautiful illustration of the triumph of the Gospel of Christ. Far from friends and home, yet he was not alone, for that Friend that sticketh closer than a brother was near.
He had been ill for several days, and one morning he told those about him that he should go home at three afternoon, and precisely at the hour named the summons came. He had sent messages to his mother and friends. “Tell them,” he said, “that Jesus is with me and saves me. Oh, how sweet it is to die in the arms of Jesus.” He then sung, “Washed in the blood of the Lamb,” “Safe in the arms of Jesus,” and “Sweeping through the gates to the new Jerusalem.”
And now we, in our sorrow, think of him as thus “safe.” We hoped he would labor long and successfully for the Master; but he has been called up higher, and is now, we believe, among the ransomed in the New Jerusalem, where he has learned the new song, even praise unto our God.