Page images
PDF
EPUB

his desire to preach to his own congregation from the words, "O spare me, that I may recover strength before I go hence and be no more."

When he had given up all hopes of being present at the Conference, he did not cease to take an interest in its proceedings. At the meetings on Wednesday and Thursday evening messages of sympathy and love from him were read, and to his private friends he frequently expressed his interest in the welfare and prosperity of the Church. He passed away on the afternoon of the 18th of August, only a few days after the end of the meeting of Conference. His end was peaceful and gentle, and he was conscious until within a short time of the beginning of his eternal rest.

His friends in Manchester had thought that they were prepared for the worst, but the announcement that all was over nevertheless came with something like a shock. When they heard that the funeral would take place in Manchester, arrangements were made for a service in the Peter Street Church, in order that the New Church service might be read as well as that of the Anglican Church at St. Luke's, Cheetham Hill Road, where Mr. Hyde had owned a grave. Although there was only time to summon the friends by an informal advertisement in the newspapers, there was a large congregation; the Rev. J. Presland read the service, and the impressive solemnity of the scene will not soon be forgotten by those who were present. The service at St. Luke's was read, at his own request, by the Rev. John Henn, rector of St. John's, Manchester. Mr. Henn is the secretary of the Hospital Sunday Committee in Manchester, of which Mr. Hyde had been an active member, and to some his presence on this occasion was otherwise interesting. St. John's is almost within a stone's-throw of Peter Street, and it was at least interesting to know that a successor of John Clowes was officiating at the funeral of John Hyde. In the funeral procession there were, in addition to members of Mr. Hyde's family and other very dear friends, representatives of New Church Societies near and distant. The ministers were there lamenting the loss of one of the best-beloved of their brethren, the Conference was represented by its Council, and members of the Church from Manchester, Salford, and other Societies went to join in the last mark of respect to one who had been so dear to them. On the following Sunday sermons in reference to the occasion were preached by Mr. Presland to congregations which crowded the Peter Street Church both morning and evening. The text of the morning's sermon was the verse included by Mr. Hyde in one of his messages to Conference, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. They shall prosper that love thee" (Psalm cxxii. 6); and in the course of his impressive discourse, Mr. Presland gave an admirable summary

Mr. Hyde's career, and a just and sympathetic estimate of his char

acter.

And if, in addition to the consolation which those who were dearest to our departed friend can have in the knowledge that, both during his active career and in the course of his last illness, he never ceased to appreciate their unfailing love and their tender care, the sympathy and respect of a multitude of friends in the circle of those who were near and dear in the next degree can afford them consolation, of that they may indeed be assured.

We cannot, perhaps, more appropriately finish this notice than by quoting the concluding words of Mr. Hyde's address on the occasion of his baptism into the New Church in 1858. It is the record of a promise and a determination; and if those to whom the promise was made were asked whether it had been fulfilled by the deeds of his afterlife, no one could possibly doubt about the reply:-" Before you," he said, "whom henceforth I shall delight to regard as my brethren and sisters in the Lord, by virtue of a holy and divine adoption-before you all, I here covenant that this people shall be my people, that their God shall be my God, that whither they go I will go, that their sublime faith, their transcendent hopes, their delightful toil, their glorious anticipations of triumph, shall be the hope and the toil and the faith into which I pray that God may abundantly induct me and preserve me faithful to the end."

IN MEMORIAM.

How sad it is to sit in the old room, surrounded with the familiar things of everyday life, yet miss the face that shed its spirit of life and beauty around. The world goes on in the same way it did in the past, but where to us is its source of enjoyment? Buried in the grave that seems remorselessly to have taken away everything that was dear. The beauty of Nature seems shorn of its glory when the one is absent who shared it with us; the happiness of home seems rent away when the icy hand of Death has grasped and carried away home's central figure; the pleasures of life seem to pall on our senses when the laugh and the smile of one we loved are gone. What compensation have we for love? Riches may remain, but they cannot give sympathy; position and power may remain, but they cannot awaken loving thoughts; intellectual pleasures may remain, but they cannot elevate and gladden the heart, like the voice, and looks, and actions of mother, father, husband, wife, or child.

We turn away from the old scenes with a pain that wrings the heart. We know that Nature will bloom again in the summer-time, and cover the earth with flowers, but the refrain that sounds wildly through every fibre of our being is, that

"The voice of one that is dead

Will never come back to me."

We yearn, oh! how earnestly, yet in vain, for

"The touch of a vanished hand,

And the sound of a voice that is still."

When Nature is deaf to our cry, though our bosoms are as stormy as the beating of the sea on the crags, it is hard to realize that

""Tis better to have loved and lost,

Than never to have loved at all."

When will the trouble cease? Time, that softens all sorrows, will slowly heal the wound, but never will the traces of it be thoroughly removed. It will fix a new shade of character; it may be a sadder one, but it may also be one that is purer and holier. Like the stone that is raised in remembrance of the departed, which as years roll on will become grey and covered with moss, the words of affection partly worn away-so the grave in our hearts may be covered in after years, and the writing of grief be partly obliterated, but the impression will still be there.

When will the trouble cease? Many will say, only when we meet again in a brighter and better world than this. Partly this is true, but it is a spurious consolation if it lead us to neglect our duty here. It is only in proportion as we feel "it is better for us to be here" because He whose omniscience and never-failing love has willed it so, that our trouble fades away. We must feel, and feel sincerely-however dark and difficult it may be that "the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the Name of the Lord," before the healing balm can be poured into our wound, and the tears of sorrow gradually cease. Then, being resigned to the Divine will, the blessings of trial will become to us a new source of comfort, and the herald of a deeper religious life.

The changes of the world are variations in the forms of life. So also the soul in the trials we undergo acquires new power and new phases of character. Death is the gate of life, spiritually as well as naturally. Not even the slightest change of feeling but leaves an impression that tends to the development of our being. But with the new growth our dead past must bury its dead. Our reverence for the

dead will remain fixed for ever, according to the fruit it yields. It is not in the winter of our grief that we look for the fruit,-then all is bare and desolate; it is when time has rolled on, and the tree of life begins anew to bud and blossom. At first we feel only the weight of our trial, and sigh

"Oh the heavy change now thou art gone,

Now thou art gone, and never must return;"

but slowly we shall become reconciled to our lot, and trust in our Father, whose love will never cease.

This trust in God is one of the great fruits of trial. We feel, when we reflect on the past, how feeble are the efforts of man. In vain was all that we could do, in vain all the skill and service we could procure. God took our loved one away; who could resist His power? But the Christian feels that God took him in love, and the consciousness will come home to our bosoms that the same love watches over us, and permits us to remain here for our eternal good. A deep faith in God's love is our only refuge from despair, and a trustful heart will feel that, if we serve Him here, He in His own good time will gather us into His arms and take us to that heavenly home where those who are departed are not lost for ever-only gone before.

And this conviction, that death is but the passage to an immortal life, will comfort us in the walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Stoicism, with all its virtue, is not adequate to the occasion. The old Greek, when told of his son's death, might say that "he knew he begat him mortal;" but the Christian will rejoice to feel that the lost one was an immortal who now,

"like a star,

Beacons from the abode where the eternal are."

What else can reconcile us to the loss? If there be not an eternity, then the separation is final. Though sorrow and the absence of the lost may sometimes lead to doubt, it is only in our weaker moments. The eye of faith, sooner or later, will pierce through the gloom, and we shall feel—

"So long Thy power hath blessed me, still

Lead Thou me on

O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till

The night is gone;

And with the morn those angel-faces smile,

Which we have loved (so well) and lost awhile."

Only awhile, for we yearn, all of us, to be able to meet again those who have gone before. The sympathy we feel for them is the token

of our future reunion. The more we are like, and the more we love, our departed relatives and friends, the more probability is there of the relationship being resumed in heaven; for the associations of heaven are associations of love.

We who are left behind-is there nothing to be pitied in our lot! Yes, watcher on the height; yes. There is comfort also. You are not left desolate on a barren land. There yet remain hearts whose pulse beats warm and true. Solitary as you may feel now, there is not only a Father's eye watching over you-the Protector of the widow and the fatherless and every bereaved one-but there are also human friends whose love will comfort you in your distress, and, in time, make the earth smile once more for you. The presence of sorrow and trial calls forth human tenderness, and though every heart "knoweth its own bitterness," sympathy of friends will not be unavailing. You will thank God that there are many who have not bowed the knee to Baal.

Every day that we pass brings to our remembrance some trait of the departed. At first the feeling is sad, for it reminds us of our loss, but the time will come when these memories will be cherished as our dearest thoughts. For it is not the frailties and the imperfections that recur to us so much as the happy, loving ways that made our life full of joy. These recollections purify the heart. Blessed shall we be if they lead to holier thoughts and deeds.

Our angel-lovers are still with us, though unseen. They have entered into their rest, into their heavenly home, but it is only a rest from the strife and cares of the world, not a rest of indolence. They are now God's ministering spirits; their love is now with us, watching our growth in spiritual things, and yearning like us for a reunion in heaven. More able to do God's will, they strive to help us to press forward in the way of righteousness, and they find therein their purest joy.

Weary and sad one, now left on earth, wait and be patient. God's ways are not as our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts. Seek thy Saviour, for He has said, "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Trust in the Lord, and believe in His providence, and you will feel that the departed "was not, for God took him." If our life here has been one of resignation to God's will, and devotion to His service, then will He, in His own good time, by the waves of His mercy, bear us to the shore of eternity, to enter those heavenly mansions where dwell the "just made perfect," in the experience of joy and peace, which earth cannot give, and mortals never knew. "I go to prepare a place for you."

VERUS.

« PreviousContinue »