Can any of you who heard it, forget that last sermon of his on Sunday week? Did you mark the look of holy joy in his dear face, as he portrayed the eager readiness of the Baptist for martyrdom, a martyrdom which would solve his last doubt, deliver him from his last sin, free him from his last infirmity, and place before his opened eyes the face of the King? Yes, on Wednesday morning his eyes looked upon Jesus, who for long years had looked on no man. “He has received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way.”
But are you aware that he had proposed to return to the subject of John the Baptist? that very shortly before his translation (for it was translation rather than death), that verse was constantly in his thoughts: “John did no miracle, but all things that John spake of this man were true” (John x. 41). Well, all I can say is of our beloved friend and pastor, if he did no miracle, God did many miracles by him. Who shall reckon up the number of precious souls saved, cheered, taught, strengthened, made meet for the Master’s use by means of him who now rests from his labours, but whose works do, yea, and shall follow him. One thing, I believe, eternity will show—not that your minister was a perfect minister or a perfect man; he had his faults, his mistakes, his sins—but this is what eternity will show, and oh! the weight of responsibility it lays on all of us: “The things which Francis Storr spake of Jesus Christ were true.”
Yet once more. With special prayer and consideration, he drew up for this winter a Course of Wednesday Evening Lectures. Two only, out of the twelve, were delivered. The subject of the third was announced, as usual, in church for the following Wednesday, but the address was not given. And what was the subject? “By it, he being dead, yet speaketh;” “and when he had said this, he fell asleep.” What does that word it refer to—“by it, he being dead, yet speaketh”? Abel’s sacrifice, type of Christ’s, which Abel looked at and God accepted. To the worth of that atoning sacrifice Abel testified, your pastor testified, in life, unto death, and for ever. The lecture was not delivered. His death, not his living voice, was to declare it, for we had the text, and the text only, “and when he had said this, he fell asleep.”
Do you remember, brethren, the last time we all met—he, and you, and I, for prayer and praise and conference at the opening of the year, in that well-loved school-room—do you remember that the speaker was led to quote these lines?—
“The great and terrible wilderness of famine and of drought
Lies in the shadow behind me, for the Lord hath brought me out;
The great and terrible river, though shrouded still from view,
Lies in the shadow before me, but the Lord will bring me through.”
Now he has reached that river, and crossed it, Christ and he—the Master and his beloved disciple. “They two went on;” “they two went over.”
“So they passed over quickly towards the goal,
But the wistful, loving gaze of the parting soul
Grew only more rapt and joyful as he held his Master’s hand;
Methinks or ever he was aware, they were come to the Holy Land.”
And so his favourite oft-repeated text, “Or ever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Ammi-nadib” (Song Sol. vi. 12), was fulfilled. Literally, the words are, “Or ever I was aware, my soul set me on the chariots of my willing people.” Ah! these were “the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof,” which raised his spirits and lifted him heavenward, while he was still down here, his people “made willing in the day of God’s power.” Beloved, we may raise him higher yet! we may gladden his heart still! we may cause his reward to grow exceedingly, we may yet give him souls for his hire, seals to his ministry! Shall we not hear him to-day, dead yet speaking, beseeching us on this his first Sabbath in heaven, to carry on and carry out the work God permitted him to do among us? “If there is therefore any comfort in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercies and compassions, fulfil ye my joy!” (Phil. ii. 1, R. V.).
That we may do it, let us give earnest heed to the prayer of our master’s Christ, for the answer is not doubtful: “While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Thy name. . . . and now come I to Thee, and these things I speak. . . . that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves,” (John xvii. 12, 13).