Through this same channel, Baxter, Alliene, Doddrige, Scott, Hall, Fuller, Foster, Wesley, and a host of others that we might name, live in the libraries of Christians of the present age, and are heard with telling power in all the evangelical pulpits of christendom. The man whose thoughts are thus transmitted through the press, possesses an influence over human minds and passions, which no figures can compute or imagination conceive. For example, Spurgeon preaches on of his best sermons; it is heard by two or ten thousand people, as the case may be, and they are deeply moved by it. It is then taken up by the press, published by tens of thousands of copies, and read by multitudes in every section of the globe. In the first instance, he speaks simply to a London congregation; but in the second case, his audience is the world.
The first Mrs. Judson sleeps beneath the hopia tree, and Judson himself found a watery tomb; but through the press, their sufferings, labours, achievements, as given in their own touching, eloquent strains, are giving direction to millions of hearts, and rousing the missionary impulses of the Church universal. The same may be said of Buchanan, Swartz, Brainard, Carey, Marshman, Ward, Williams, Cook, Knibb, and many more, whose names and memories are embalmed in the hearts of untold millions.
But let me remind you, my hearers, that life after death as well as before, is invested with the marvellous power of speech. It is said of righteous Abel, he “being dead, yet speaketh.” Is not this true of those with whom we once held sweet communion and delightful association on the earth? Do we not hear their voices echoing from the other side of the flood, and saying, “Fear not—be not dismayed; the struggle will soon be over, and the victory will soon be won. Gird on thy armour, be faithful unto death; a crown is in reserve for thee.”
Some of those living dead who address us, were once our own flesh and blood. It may be a beloved mother, who died in the triumphs of the gospel, that speaks to us from the celestial hills. Hark! what does she say? “Son, daughter, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves. The moment I closed my eyes in death, I opened them to gaze upon the transcendant beauties of these celestial regions. All that I ever conceived of the bliss, the joy, the glory of heaven, is as a dreamy shadow compared with what I know see, hear, and feel. What disclosures of the Infinite are here made! what songs of victory and praise break upon my ear! what rapturous joy swells my bosom! I left my church in conflict below, to join my church in triumph here. I am separated from some I love on earth; but I am joined with those I love in heaven. Prepare, dear children, to meet your glorified mother in glory.”
Of all the beings that speak to living man, it appears to me none speaks so impressively, so tenderly, so lovingly, as a departed, Christian mother. For myself, I seem to hear ringing in my ears, the lullabys of my mother, that she sung in the days of my childhood. I seem to listen to that voice, as it went up in prayer from a mother’s loving heart, that her sinful boy might be regenerated, sanctified, saved. The counsels and admonitions of my mother’s tongue, long since silent in death, come echoing over the hills and across the waters, and make their appeal direct to my heart, with all the pathos and tenderness of maternal love, bidding me onward, onward in the path of duty, in the way to heaven. The hand that smoothed my pillow in the hour of sickness, and administered the needful remedies to counteract disease and restore to health, appears to be still stretched out in love to perform the same motherly acts. I speak from experience, then, when I say, that a pious mother, though dead, speaks in accents sweeter and more impressive than those which angels use.
Cannot you, my hearers, call to mind some departed one, in whom you feel a special interest—a father, mother, husband, wife, child, brother, sister, relative, friend? Listen. Is it a father that speaks from the heavenly hills? What does he say? “Son, daughter, I once wrestled with doubts, fears, temptations, trials, as you do now; but here I am, reaping the laurels of victory. Urge your way in the path to heaven, and I will stand at the gate of the celestial city, to bid you welcome. Is it a mother? how tenderly does she say, “My dear child, I once pressed thee to my bosom in all the ardor of a mother’s love, and my prayers for your salvation, unworthy as I felt them to be, have been graciously answered; and I am just now waiting for the blissful moment to arrive, when I shall say to my Saviour, here am I and the child that thou hast given me.” Is it a husband that speaks? What does he say? “My loved wife, we were united on the earth with strong ties—death came, and those ties were severed; but other cords bound us in perpetual union, these shall never be sundered. The separation is momentary; we shall soon meet where parting is unknown.” Is it a wife that speaks? What does she say? “Husband, in girlhood and in riper years, I loved you with all the enthusiasm of my firth love. That love was ultimately tempered and sanctified by the region of the Cross, and then how earnestly I prayed to God for you when you knew it not. You loved the society of the gay and of the worldly; and when watching for your coming the midnight hour, strong cries and tears were sent to heaven in your behalf. Early I went to my grave, drooping as a frost-nipped flower, and I told you not the reason why; but in solitude you pondered, and that prayer that had been lying before the altar, and that had been baptized in scalding, burning tears, gushing from a woman’s loving, confiding, but aching heart, was at length answered; and as I looked down from my seat of glory, I saw you a penitent at the foot of the Cross; and now I bid you be of good cheer: you will soon join me in the triumphs of the skies.” Is it a child that speaks? What does he or she say? “Father, mother, early you taught me the way to glory, not thinking I should reach this blessed place before you; but my master called—I had to obey; and while you were weeping in sadness, I was singing hallelujahs to God and to the Lamb; and while you committed my clay-cold body to the grave, and mingled my tears with the clods that covered it from your sight, my soul, released and glorified, was filled with the unutterable joys of this celestial state. Come, come, I long to greet you on these blissful shores.” Is it a brother or sister that speaks? What does he or she say? “My dear brother, my darling sister, once we were intimately associated under the same parental roof. We lay upon the same mother’s fond bosom, and listened to the same father’s prayer; we read the same Bible, attended the same school, engaged in the same plays, went to the same church, and the same blood coursed in our veins. I was taken, and you were left; heaven is now my home—I partake of its delicious food, and drink from its pure fountains; I mingle in its glorified society, and join in its sublime anthems. Are you, oh! are you prepared to meet me here? If so, all is well; if not, hasten, hasten to make your peace with God.” Is it simply a friend that speaks, or one who was once our neighbor, or a member of the same community, or of the same church? Still the voice is powerful, urging us to a diligent improvement of all the means of grace, that we may be prepared for a better inheritance.
But, my hearers, be reminded, that not only voices from glory speak, but tongues scorched with the fire of hell speak. The profane swearer, the guilty Sabbath breaker, the boasting infidel, the painted hypocrite, the arch seducer, the reeling drunkard, the polluted sensualist, the avaricious man and the moralist, the worldling and the almost Christian. All speak to us from their shroud of flame, and say to us in the language of the rich man in the parable, “Come not to this place.” Ten thousands times ten thousand voices are continually speaking in thunder tones to the wicked, warning them to escape the fury of eternal fires. Young man, I hear a voice coming up from that dark world. Who speaks? Your associate in sin. He was once with you in the theatre, at the card-table, in the ball-room, and where the sparkling glass went round, and boisterous mirth was heard. By his own folly he cut short his days, and where is he now? In hell he lifts up his eyes, and in wailing accents cries aloud to you not to add to his unutterable torments, by becoming his companion in suffering, as well as his associate in guilt.
O friends! the dead speak to us. They speak to us from the past; they speak to us from their graves; they speak to us from heaven; they speak to us from hell. Let us see to it, one and all, that we heed the solemn message.
But I selected this passage, “Your fathers, where are they? Your prophets, do they live for ever?” feeling that it is peculiarly appropriate to the painful event which we are called upon to improve. I refer to the death of our venerated FATHER CRANDAL. He has for some time constituted the only connecting link between the fathers of our denomination and their successors in the ministry. Thomas Handly Chipman, Edward and James Manning, Harris and Theodore Ansley, and Joseph Crandal, for many years stood prominently before the people as the “Fathers” of the Associated Baptist Churches of these lower Provinces. A class of most excellent and useful men were united with these valiant soldiers of the Cross in their day; such as Estabrooks, Hammond, Ennis, Peter Crandal, Reece, Davis Harris, Potter, Towner, Burton, M’Culley, and others of the precious memory. All those first mentioned were converted to God about that same time, and embarked together, with the exception of Thomas Ansley, in the great work of winning souls to Christ. These men were all preserved to a good old age—all of them to three score years and ten, some of them to upwards of four score years, and one, Harris Harding, to the extraordinary age of ninety-six years; and what is remarkable, they all retained their pastoral connection with the churches over which they were called to preside in the days of their youth, until their Master called them to their reward. They lived to see the third and fourth generation called, sanctified, and saved, and to introduce them in person into the churches which they had planted in the morning of their ministry. No marvel, therefore, that they should be spoken of as the “fathers” of the denomination. Father Crandal was the last of the eight patriarchs to leave the conflict below. One after another took his departure, in the full assurance of a blissful immortality. Joseph Crandal, last but not least, has gone also. Your father, where are they? your prophets, do they live for ever? These fathers all sleep in death; Father Manning in the old grave-yard at Cunard; Father Chipman at Nictaux; Father Harris Harding at Yarmouth; Father Ansley at St. Andrews; and Father Crandal at Salisbury; all side by side with the precious dust of those whose souls they had been instrumental in bringing home to Christ. Sleep on, ye heralds of salvation, until your Master bids you rise! The trumpet will ere long sound long and loud, and yon and your beloved associates in death will hear that sound, and start from death’s sleep, to meet your Lord in the air. “Sown in corruption, raised in incorruption; sown in dishonour, raised in glory; sown in weakness, raised in power; sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body.” Yes, “death shall be swallowed up in victory.”
“So Jesus slept. God’s dying Son
Passed through the grave, and blessed the bed.
Rest here, blest saint, till from his throne
The morning break, and pierce the shade.
Break form his throne, illustrious morn;
Attend, O earth, his sovereign word;
Restore thy trust a glorious form,
Called to ascend and meet the Lord.”