But not yet, my brother. The Lord hath need of you to work in his vineyard. From your repeated and heart-rending trials you will be better qualified, than ever for that important work which the Lord has assigned you in his American Israel. Go on then, my brother, and spend and be spent for Christ; and when you shall have performed your appointed service, you shall be welcomed by those whom you have loved on earth to the society of the redeemed—to the vision of Jesus—to the presence of God.
And you, the dear and only child of the lamented dead! My heart bleeds for you. Your loss is indeed irreparable; but a mother's prayers are your legacy, and they are better than thousands of gold and silver. How much she loved you, and how closely you were entwined about the fibres of her heart, is abundantly evident from the affecting fact, that maternal solicitude, struggling with departing reason, directed her to the bed of her sleeping child to bid him a last and long farewell. Although the affecting circumstances of her removal can never be obliterated from your memory, think less of them than of the pious counsels, the holy example, the fervent prayers of your much-loved mother. Let these dwell on your mind, and they will be a restraint, a comfort, and a support to you under all the various trials of life to which you may be called. God bless you, my dear child! May your life be spared to your surviving parent, to console him in his deep affliction, and to be the prop of his declining years.
The near relatives of our departed friend claim and receive our tender and affectionate sympathy. More especially do we feel for that afflicted sister, who, while she mourns with us on this affecting occasion, has the additional trial of watching around the sick bed of a beloved husband, deprived also of the exercise of his reason. May she be supported, in this season of her deep affliction, by the consolations of that holy religion, which are neither few nor small.
And may all the relatives and the numerous christian friends of the deceased, whether present or absent, be graciously sustained under this painful bereavement, and bow, with humble submission, to the will of God.
Friends of this Church and Congregation, with you too we heartily sympathize.
You have been called in divine providence to repeated trials. We bear record to your disinterested regard to the cause of evangelical religion in our growing country, in consenting to the arrangement by which, for a definite period, you have been deprived of the immediate services of your beloved pastor. You have hitherto had the consolation, and it has been one of no small importance, of the presence and laborious efforts for your good of the partner of his life. With what exemplary patience, with what admirable self-denial, she sustained the peculiar trials of her situation, watching around the couch of a dying brother,[B] administering to the comfort of your late youthful pastor,[C] adopting into her family the orphan and the fatherless,[D] while her best earthly friend was laboriously employed in the service of the church, are well known to you all, and ought to be suitably appreciated. How far she fell a sacrifice to these painful deprivations—to this uncommon self-denial, is known only to Him, who is best acquainted with the intimate connection between the body and the mind.[E] That she died in your service—in the service of her family—and in the service of her God and Saviour, cannot admit of a doubt. You will delight, I know, to cherish her memory, to dwell upon her virtues, and to imitate her example.
And now, my respected hearers and friends, it only remains, that we deposit these precious relics in yonder receptacle of the dead! there to rest, till the trump of the archangel awake the sleeping dust. Then, when the millions of the dead shall burst the cerements of the grave, we doubt not that the bright form of our departed friend, arrayed in immortal youth and vigour, will ascend to meet the Lord in the air, and enter with him into his glory.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] Mrs. Sarah Strong Storrs, the first wife of the bereaved husband, was the daughter of Rev. Nathan Woodhull, of Newtown, Long Island; married April 2, 1812—died April 6, 1818, aged 25 years. Eminently devoted to the service of her Lord in life, and sweetly cheered by his presence in death.
[B] Rev. Charles B. Storrs, President of the Western Reserve College, who left the world for heaven, after five weeks sickness at Braintree, Sept. 15, 1833.