"Weak, very, sir; but, thank God, no pain. I feel, however, that the end can't be very far off. You must look out for another sexton, sir, for old Matthew's work is nearly over."
"His will be done," said the Vicar; and the old man breathed a solemn "Amen," which seemed spoken for no earthly ears.
"I've been thinking," at length said Matthew, "that it's ten years since you and I, sir, and Mr. Acres, met at the old lych gate in that terrible storm. I remember I said then that it wouldn't be long before some younger ones would have to carry me through the gate, but God has spared me these ten years more, and now I shall need none to bear me through the gate; for here I am—thanks to your kindness, sir—already within the gate, and even within the House of God itself."
"Yes; and so when God calls you to Himself, He will but take you from one temple to another—from the courts of His House here, to live for ever in His heavenly mansions. 'Those that be planted in the House of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God[206].'"
"If you please, sir, I should like to be buried beside little Lizzie Daniels. 'Tis long ago now since I made that little grave, and I fear the flower-bed is a good deal overgrown with grass, for I have been too poorly to look after it as I used to; but I think you'll know it, sir. She helped in her own quiet, simple way to teach an old man the way to Heaven; and I have never forgotten her lessons. How often she used to talk about this day—Ascension Day! She once said to me, sir, that you had told her we ought to remember this day throughout the year, and to try and lead an Ascension life, and let our thoughts and desires dwell as much as possible where our Saviour has gone before. I have tried to do so—God forgive me, for I have often failed!"
He then drew the Vicar nearer to him, and whispered in his ear, "Be good to dear little Harry, sir, when I'm gone. He loves me so, I fear 'twill break his heart."
The "parson's bell," as it was called, was now ringing, so the Vicar, having promised that his wishes should be fully carried out, was compelled to hasten into the church. He first laid his hand on the noble brow of the good old man, and pronounced the blessing of Heaven upon him, and then bade him farewell, adding, "I hope, my dear friend, we may be permitted to meet again in this earthly house of God; but if not, my heart-deep hope and prayer is, that we may meet in His house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens[207]."
The little window that looked into the church from the sexton's chamber was opened, and none listened more earnestly to the festive service, and to the Vicar's sermon, on that Ascension Day than did old Matthew Hutchinson.
Although it was a common practice with the Vicar on festivals not to preach from any particular passage of Holy Scripture, but simply to make the festival itself the subject of his discourse, yet on this occasion he selected these words as his text: "The patterns of things in the heavens[208]." He showed how that all this world of ours, in which so much that is beautiful and lovely has survived the fall, is full of patterns, or symbols, or types of things in that Heaven to which Christ has ascended; how that the whole Bible abounds with the most vivid symbolism and the most graphic imagery representative of the glories of that Heavenly kingdom; and then, looking round the beautiful church, now so richly adorned with its festive decorations, he explained how the earthly building, in its several parts, possessed a thousand patterns of those heavenly things which make up the spiritual fabric of the Church of Christ. "When we regard the material fabric of the Christian Church," he said, "as a type of the spiritual house, ever rising higher and higher in honour of its Divine Founder, of which the saints on earth and the saints in Heaven are the living stones, we are arraying the noblest work of man with its grandest and most exalted dignity. 'Ye are built upon the foundations of the Apostles and Prophets,' writes St. Paul to the Church of Ephesus, 'Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit[209].' Here, in the symbol of the foundation stones of the material structure, we have represented to us, as it were, at one view, all those heavenly graces and blessings which from the day of Pentecost down to this time have flowed to God's people through the visible ministry and appointed ordinances of the Christian Church. Then, under the figure of the corner stone—the key stone of the edifice—we have gathered up all those old prophecies and types which pointed on forward, through the sufferings and death of the Saviour, up to the time when, having established His Church in the world, He should be Himself the heavenly life of its living members. Long had it been 'contained in the Scriptures: Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner stone, elect, precious; and he that believeth on Him shall not be confounded[210],' and in the fulness of time 'the stone which the builders refused became the head stone of the corner[211].'
"And next see, my friends, how the figure is carried out by the two Apostles, St. Paul and St. Peter, so as to embrace all the faithful members of Christ's Church. They are represented by St. Paul as 'the whole building fitly framed together[212],' and by St. Peter, as the living stones which compose this living temple—'Ye also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house[213].' And this figure of a living temple is thus constantly employed by the sacred writers: 'Know ye not that your bodies are the Temple of God?' writes St. Paul to the Corinthian Church; and, again, 'Ye are the Temple of the living God[214].' St. Jude is following out the same idea when he exhorts Christians to build up themselves in their most holy faith."