Handing me a neat, little, precious volume, he said, "Take this book and study it, and commence speaking for Jesus, and help me in my meetings." Surely to such to die is gain.
Who; who, would live alway away from his God—away from yonder Heaven, that blissful abode where the noontide of glory eternally reigns, and the smile of the Lord is the feast of the soul?
Dearly beloved, we may well ask, "Who are these arrayed in white robes?" Oh, what celebrated personages are above! The prophets, the apostles, the reformers, and the martyrs of Scotland are there. For in a dream of the night I was wafted away to the moorland and moss, where the martyrs lay. When the minister's home was the mountain and flood. When they dared not worship God in daylight. Only at the dead of night, when the wintry winds raved fierce, and the thunder-peal compelled the men of blood to crouch within their den. Then the faithful few—true followers of the blessed Jesus—would venture forth to some deep dell by the rock o'er canopied; then, amid the glare of sheeted lightning, those men of God would open the sacred Book and words of comfort speak. Ah, it cost something to be a Christian in those days, when from the high foaming crest of Solway to the smoothly polished breast of Loch Katrine, not a river nor a lake but has swelled with the life's tide of religious freedom. From the bonnie highland heather of her lofty summits to the modest gowan on the lea, not a flower but has blushed with the martyr's blood. But, beloved, the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church. What holy, loving lessons does God teach us by the history of the true Church, and a thoroughly consecrated people—lessons of love, hope, fortitude, and long-suffering!
"Oh, Jesus, our Master, command to beat faster
These weary life-pulses that bring us to Thee."
Our dear departed sister had the true missionary spirit. She feared not the things she was called on to suffer for Christ in her great work in this city. Let us who are left behind catch her magnanimous and heroic disposition in working for the blessed Jesus. Oh, that the spirit of our noble ancestry might come upon us! Oh, that the Holy Spirit of God may enter into all our hearts to-day, that we may be more humble, more loving, more zealous, more sympathetic, and more sincere in our toil for Christ and His Church; then to die will be gain! and to Him shall be all the glory, world without end. Amen.
6 ([Return])
The substance of a sermon preached by the Rev. Duncan McNeill Young, in the Allen Street Presbyterian Church, New York, November 1, 1886, on the occasion of the death of Mrs. James Knowles, a city missionary who triumphantly departed this life on October 30, 1886, in the seventy fifth year of her age.