Till the Day Dawn

Twenty-fifth anniversary of pastorate—Closing days— Sickness and death

—The cries of bereavement— Funeral addresses

ON the 27th of December, 1894, Gordon completed the

twenty-fifth year of his pastorate in the Clarendon Street Church. The anniversary was observed by his people with appropriate exercises, a reception, and a tea, followed by addresses from his colleagues in the ministry of the city. The eulogy which ordinarily characterizes such occasions was rebutted by him in a brief speech, half humorous, half serious. He distributed the praise heaped on himself to his people and to his " splendid cabinet of deacons," contending that the growth of a tree is due, not to its own excellences, but to the excellence of the soil at its roots, and that his only merit consisted in his staying so long where God had placed him and where conditions were so favorable. He reminded his hearers, on the other hand, of the danger which lay hid in all eulogy of one whose record was not closed, and of the possibility which shadowed himself as well as the great apostle of becoming a castaway on the dark seas of unfaithfulness.

In the evening, while sitting with his wife at home, he took down the " Life of Andrew Bonar," which he had been reading, and, after commenting on the events of the day, opened to these words, saying, " Here is something which just expresses my feelings "

" ' Last night's jubilee passed over very pleasantly in one way, but was to me at the same time very solemn and humbling. I see in the retrospect so much that was altogether imperfect and so much that was left undone. But it was a great gathering and most hearty on the part of all the friends who came. May the Lord save me from the danger that lurks under praise and laudation of friends. I had no idea that I had so many friends in so many parts, and that the Lord had been pleased to use me in so many ways.,.. The anniversary was carried through in a way that interested the people, but as for myself, when I returned home and sat in the evening alone I felt deep and bitter regret at the thought of my past. I think I felt what is meant by being ashamed before God, as Ezra expresses it. And all this was aggravated by the thought of all the immense kindness of the Lord to me and to mine. I have been thinking to-night that perhaps my next undertaking may be this, appearing at the judgment-seat of Christ when I give an account of my trading with my talents. I wish to hide in the shadow of the Plant of Renown, and be found there when the Voice says, " Where art thou? " '"

It was a singular suggestion, a strange premonition, as if he had caught a glimpse of the dark cloud on the distant horizon. Yet all the world was bathed in sunshine still. Children and grandchildren were gathered about his breakfast-table the next morning. With him, too, was his close friend, Dr. A. T. Pierson, whose presence ever was as flint to steel. What raillery, what wit, what flow of anecdote that morning! Retort and repartee coruscated and sparkled. Twenty-seven admirable stories were jotted down afterward by an interested listener, just as birds are picked up by the game-dogs after an unusual shot. The following Sunday he preached as usual. The new year opened, with its round of engagements. Everything looked as if he were entering upon another cycle of usefulness, even larger and more fruitful than the one just closed.

There were, however, indications of a coming break, as of a straining beam upon which additional pressure is being constantly placed. His work during the month of January was continuous and intense. One might almost have believed that he was trying to illustrate the proverb, " The more light a torch gives, the less time it burns." An idea of his ceaseless activity can be obtained from a mere catalogue of his engagements

for the brief two weeks of the sickness which followed. He

was to give addresses at Philadelphia, at Newark, at the midwinter convention of Dr. Cullis's church, at the conference of the Christian Alliance, Boston, at Mount Holyoke College, and two addresses at Rochester, N. Y. This in addition to his church cares at home. " I must get out from under these, burdens for a little," he would say. Yet when suggestions were offered and plans perfected for rest he could never be induced to stop. His system was thus depleted and prepared for the entrance of the disease which was to prove fatal.

Monday, January 21st, was his last day of service. In the evening he attended the annual meeting of the Industrial Home, and went thence to address the Young Men's Baptist Union on the subject of missions. Never did he speak with more delicate humor, with more captivating grace, with greater earnestness; but the lines were deep on his face, as if the graver overwork had been more active than ever, and those who sat near could clearly see that he was far from well. The next day he was unable to leave his bed. The physician was called and the disease pronounced to be grippe, with tendencies to bronchitis. Then for days did he struggle on as in a Winding storm. The fever became violent and was accompanied with intermittent delirium. Night after night he lay in the agonies of a prolonged insomnia. He complained of " the ceaseless storm, the incessant noise as of great raindrops on a windowpane," though all the while the air outside was as still as an Indian summer. He would groan at " the sudden, bursts of blackness " which overwhelmed him " as if he were felled with a club to the ground." Often in those night hours could we hear him whispering John Angelus' hymn

"Jesus, Jesus, visit me;

How my soul longs after thee! When, my best, my dearest friend.

Shall our separation end? "

For with all the intense physical suffering there went along a sense of isolation and of desertion. On the Wednesday night

before his death this feeling seemed to be overpowering. He

asked that every one might leave the room that he might be alone and face to face with Jesus. Then followed such a heartrending confession of unworthiness, such an appeal for the presence and companionship of the Saviour, such promises, with strong crying and tears, of renewed consecration, of greater diligence and devotion in God's service, as are rarely heard. It was as if the Gethsemane prayer were again ascending.

Conscious of his condition and with a presentiment of the approaching end he called his wife to his side and said, " If anything should happen, do not have a quartet choir; I have selected four hymns I want sung by the people. Write them down: ' Abide with me,' ' The sands of time are sinking,' ' Lord, if he sleep he shall do well,' ' My Jesus, I love thee.' This was done, to his apparent relief.

The next morning it was clear that he was worse. The long period of sleeplessness was fast wearing him out. Toward evening the doctor, coming in, said in a cheery voice, to rouse him from his lethargy, " Dr. Gordon, have you a good word for us to-night?" With a clear, full voice he answered, "Victory!" It was as if, after the typhoon-like sickness, he had passed the last range of breakers and had been given a glimpse of the Eternal City gleaming beyond.

This was his last audible utterance. Between nine and ten in the eveniag the nurse motioned to his wife that she was wanted. As she bent over him he whispered, " Maria, pray." She led in prayer; he scarce followed sentence by sentence, trying at the close to utter a petition for himself; but his strength was not sufficient for articulation.

Five minutes after midnight on the morning of February 2d he fell asleep in Jesus. In a few minutes the solemn tolling from the belfry of the church apprised his people that their pastor and friend was gone. The stars in the dark sky looked down calmly as ever. The crunching of the snow outside under an occasionally passing team alone broke the silence as the chamber door was closed upon the still form, tenantless now " until the morning breaks and the shadows flee away."

That night the wires carried to thousands the message of bereavement. With the morning the returning replies of a sorrowing sympathy began to pour in. First came scores of yellow envelops— brief, heart-wrung exclamations from those who could not wait to write; then a flood of letters from near points, widening out as the days passed, until every State and Territory was represented. With the mails from beyond the sea came the same words— from England, from France, from Cape Colony, from Brazil, from the West Indies, from India, from Japan. "All the religious papers from Sweden," wrote a Kansas Swede, " have dwelt upon our loss." Finally, weeks after, messages of sorrow arrived from the lonely mission stations far up the river-ways of Africa and from the extreme western provinces of China. " We have been holding a memorial service here in Yachow [Szechuen] for him," wrote a missionary. It was only one among many such.

What a revelation of love this vast pile of letters constituted! What utterances of grief, what acknowledgments of indebted-

ness, it contained! "Oh, how we loved him!" "How I

honored and revered him!" "He was Great-heart to us

poor pilgrims." "The loss is paralyzing." "We are dazed

with sorrow." " O my friend! " * " The loss is almost irreparable." " We are heartbroken." " The loss to the world is past telling." " My dear benefactor is gone." " ' Help, Lord; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men.' " " I loved him as I did no other man." " His influence for good has been incalculable." " Dear, dear Gordon! I loved him dearly, and always have. Faith is hardly equal to this. How can he be spared!" "I never knew one more transparent and more lovable." " He was the whole world's good friend." " He was a living conscience to the city." " There are many of us who owe to him more than we can ever tell." " All that was truly dear to me in Boston seems gone. We sorrow most of all that we shall see his dear face no more." " I never met him but I learned to love him." " I bless God that I ever knew him." " I thank God for that perfect life, that simple, childlike, pure spirit which has strengthened me in the most holy faith." " I have never seen him, but for twenty years I have been indebted to him as to no other minister." "O man greatly beloved!" "'O my father, my father! the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof.'" " Would God I had been more worthy of his companionship. I must try now to be more like him." " I am almost prostrated, for I can never forget his kindness to us in affliction." " No other departure of any man or any ten men, save of my own sons, could have stirred me so to the depths." " I cannot put language into form that would describe the stricken sense under which we suffer here at the news." " The greatest and truest saint it has been my privilege to know!" " I never spoke to him but once; yet I think of him as a brother." " Express to the children my sense of thankfulness for a share of their dear father's love, of grief at his removal, of determi- * A single exclamation on a sheet of paper sent from some train flying through the night far away in the West. nation to follow with them in his footsteps." " I can scarcely realize that I shall not look again on that noble countenance." " God help us! No human being can! What are we to do without him? " " How we loved him! He was the Apostle John of our day." " He loved the drunkard as well as the moralist." ^* " So great is the loss that I have been wishing I could have accepted the ' enemy's ' summons if thereby he could have been spared." " We shall not be able to get along through life without him." t " His genius, his simplicity, his modesty, his bravery, his evangelical fervor, his firm adhesion to the gospel of Christ, his unity of life, have given him an incomparable place in our hearts." " He was the rarest and most Christ-like spirit I have ever known." " I went to bed last night and remained awake a long time weeping before the Lord. I truly loved him." " When I received word of his death I immediately left my office, went to my home; then had prayers with my wife. After which we spake of the loss to God's Zion. I am homesick for heaven."

The funeral occurred on the following Tuesday. All through that winter morning a great concourse passed tearfully and slowly by the casket. Men were sobbing convulsively like children. Strange faces in great numbers of the poor and of the meanly clad there were— a significant reminder of much that the right hand had hid from the left. A group of Chinese members were observed weeping in a comer of the vestry. One of them, a poor laundryman, when told that flowers were refused, laid three dollars upon the coffin for the preaching of the gospel of the resurrection among his countrymen. " Dr. Gordon would have wished it," he said. The suggestion was taken up, and a large sum was immediately subscribed by the young people of the church for a memorial missionary fund.

^* From a reformed man.

t From a misspelled letter evidently from some humble one whom he had helped.

At one o'clock the casket was brought upstairs and placed in the spot where monthly for twenty-five years the dead pastor had poured wine and broken bread to his flock in the communion feast. The church was filled to its utmost capacity and hundreds regretfully turned homeward from the closed doors. Outside the wind cut like a sand-blast and the snow wraiths tore circling through the streets; for it was the coldest day of winter.

A deep sense of awe and of subdued triumph seemed to have taken the place of outpouring grief. The crowding memories of his hfe were to the multitudes, as his living presence in the death-chamber had so often been, "a cup of strength in the great agony." The towering floods of anguish were held back as by the very hand of Jehovah, so that we passed through that afternoon dry-shod. It was not " the dark day of nothingness." The heavens had opened and a vision of victory had been vouchsafed. Never was faith more convinced; never were " those mighty hopes that make us men " more potent. On that day all in the vast gathering realized with more than intuition that the dead had reached the blessed goal, that Christ had reached him out the shining hand.

The singing was pervaded with a solemn power. Grief and triumph had here their common outlet, flowing commingled in an unhindered tide. Every soul in the house seemed to be singing, and the sound was as the noise of many waters. What a vindication of congregational music! How spectral the singing of the conventional quartet would have seemed after those mighty billows of sound thundering along with the inspired words of Samuel Rutherford!*

Four of the dead man's comrades spoke for him that day. Dr. Henry C. Maine represented the missionary interests for which he toiled; President Andrews, of Brown University, recalled the old days and the alma mater he had served in

* " The sands of time are sinking," etc.

later years; Joseph Cook, his unswerving fidelity to Christian truth and his unfaltering championship of struggling causes and Dr. Pierson the labors at Northfield and the many campaigns through which they went together.

The addresses were in part as follows

" It has been deemed fitting that one of the representatives of the American Baptist Missionary Union, associated with Dr. Gordon in a far-reaching form of foreign mission enterprise, should say a few words in connection with this service that he should speak a word concerning Dr. Gordon's relation to missions. If I were to express it in one word, I should say that Dr. Gordon's interest in missions was integral; it entered into his very spiritual personality; it was but the natural breathing and outcome of his being; it was no form of service that was put on as a garment, no perfunctory performance, no line of duty taken up because he had been elected to fill some official position. Missions with him, as with the God who instituted them and with Jesus Christ his Son, who by his atonement made them possible, were constitutional. He could no more think of missions as geographically limiting his thoughts, his heart, his life, his enterprise, than you could think of there being limits to the sympathies of our Lord Jesus Christ.

" He was naturalized to all Christ's work. To him that work was a circle, not an arc. It was globed. Hence he was as much at home in alien cities as in his own Boston, at the World's Missionary Conference in London as some of us saw him— easily king of missionaries as he was imperial among pleaders for missions, the one man without whom no single session was thought complete till they had heard his voice. Hence it was that in Edinburgh and Glasgow and throughout Scotland he was welcomed everywhere, and fitted into the relations and voiced the missionary interest of these people just as naturally as if he were addressing his own prayer-meeting here in Clarendon Street Church. So their testimony was, ' He fed us with the finest of the wheat.' He enlarged their horizon in respect to the world and gave them a relish for its conquest. Hence it was that in Paris, with the McAll Mission workers, he was not only welcomed, but eagerly sought for, cabled for; they must have him, and for them he crossed the seas again and again. Hence it was that in our own land he was sought on all platforms where missions were to have a peculiar and effective advocacy. Hence it was that the student volunteer movement, the great conferences at Northfield and Ocean Grove and elsewhere, regarded his presence and his addresses as indispensable. Hence his favor for the Salvation Army movement, which he commended and cheered when almost all men set it at naught. Hence it was that in the stables of street-car drivers, on the wharves along the shore in Boston, or in refuges of the lost, he was everywhere welcomed as the supporter, advocate, and brother, vitally linked with all these organizations of any and every name.

" But who shall tell what our beloved brother was to the American Baptist Missionary Union— our counselor, our inspiration, our pride; none so meek as he. I may be allowed to say, without disparagement to any one, that all through his official relations to that body, through so many weary years in our committee-rooms in this city, he often surrendered opinions of his own respecting ways and means in deference to his brethren, whom he was always ready to think of as more to be considered than himself. He was always ready to take the

field for us, and was the bulwark of that organization. How

this noble church has stood by him and followed him, till at length they only wanted to know his thought and they would anticipate it! There was with him no pulling of people's doorbells to extract from them unwilling offerings; no passing around nervously, hat in hand, to beg for Peter's pence; but rather a quiet exaltation of the lofty privilege of giving and a

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reminder of the blood mortgage on all men to redeem the world....

" History in its ongoings, as Dr. Gordon viewed it, was missionary history. He was not a man sailing over a trackless deep without chart or compass, with no desired haven in view. History was not to him a confused mass of incidents, as it is to the materialistic thinker of our day— an insoluble riddle, a hopeless tangle. The history of the world, as he viewed it, started from a beginning, and went on through the middle to the end in an orderly way, and the end was a glorious and divine consummation. The one last word that escaped his lips was 'Victory!' He believed that this was assured in history. His faith swept the entire perspective, and hence it was that he saw great mountain-peaks in that wondrous landscape where some of us, perhaps, see only hillocks, if we see even these. His view of history was simply the successive stages of the plan of human redemption, with its glorious culmination.

" If some thought at times that his view of proper mission work was superficial or pessimistic, I bid them think again. If some think that he emphasized unduly what he regarded as the great and immediate duty of the church in this present age, viz., to preach the gospel 'for a witness^ let them think how long, how ardently, how profoundly he pondered the words of the Lord, for his words they are: ' This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come.' What Dr. Gordon meant by the ' witnessing ' is not that superficial postboy, flash-light method of Christian enterprise which some imagine. What it is let his own tremendously earnest and concentrated efforts, which burned out the fires of this life, testify. He meant all that Jesus Christ meant when he said, ' To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.' Christ's

37^ ADONIRAM JUDSON GORDON

personal ministry, from the manger to the throne, he believed to be but a witness; the beginnings of things, not the consummation of them; the foundations only of the eternal kingdom that God was to rear. He meant all that the Apostle Paul meant when he spoke of his consummate privilege ' to testify the gospel of the grace of God.'

" Dear Friends: I do not consider it profitable that I should say much on a solemn occasion like this, for I stand here in an official relation. Were I to speak personally, detailing the knowledge I had of this good man, it would take more time than I have any right to occupy. Dr. Gordon was a graduate of Brown University. He graduated in the class of i860, and he was a light in that class. He was very dearly beloved by his classmates. Quite early in his ministry to this congregation he was chosen to be a member of the governing board of Brown University, and I cannot tell you how faithful he has always been in that relation. He not only attended the meetings whenever possible— and the occasions when it was not possible were very few— but he entered warmly into all matters brought before the board. He always showed an uncommon grasp of the college's business matters, keeping them in mind from one year's session to another. I felt very proud of Dr. Gordon on this account. He was mainly engaged in spiritual work, but he was never so lost in it that he was not able to take up any necessary temporal details. I believe that the men most immersed in business also respected him on account of this quality. Not to speak further upon this, I wish to mention a Hne of Dr. Gordon's activity of which very few even in this church, even those very intimate with him, have been aware. He was accustomed to tear himself away from his toils here and run down to Brown University for a single day or more to assist in our services. Two or three times on these occasions it was absolutely indis-

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pensable that he should at night come back to Boston for some duty. He would then fly to Providence again and resume work. It is not every man— not even every good or every able man—who can touch the hearts of students. In all my acquaintance I have never met many—never more than two or three—who began to have the power in this sort of work that Dr. Gordon had. He never came to us without bringing a blessing, a large blessing, never without leaving behind him a permanent blessing. Never did he speak a word in our student body without so impressing many a student heart that the impress of that lesson must abide forever. It was my privilege during such visits within the last four or five years to become acquainted with Dr. Gordon personally as I was never acquainted with him before. I had often listened to his preaching, sometimes in this chiu-ch, sometimes elsewhere, always with great delight; and I had on a few occasions drawn near him to seek personal counsel. What multitudes could say the same! Still, till the times to which I refer when he came to our college to address the students, I felt that I had not much personal acquaintance with him. Till then I never knew the immeasvu-able depth and breadth of his religious life; but these visits revealed it. After the meetings were over and before he could take the train— sometimes, indeed, before the meetings —he would come to my house, where I had the privilege of conversing with him. I enjoyed a precious opportunity of this kind the very last time he came to us, in November, 1894. He preached to a large number of students, and personally prayed with some; then he came to my house and we talked about many, many things. It would be impossible, even if we took this whole afternoon, to-night, to-morrow, and all the month, to go over all that you, the other friends of Dr. Gordon, know about the immensity and grandeur of his religious Hfe....

" I wish to lay emphasis also upon the amazing catholicity of this good brother in thinking of those who differed from him. I suppose that the man does not live— I suppose the man has never lived—who ever heard from Dr. Gordon's h"ps the first bitter or even reproachful word about any who did not agree with him. He went his way, he saw the light, he heard the call of our Lord Jesus Christ in the road before him. He followed, and he followed with absolute fearlessness."

" If I were at this moment on my death-bed, there is no preacher of my acquaintance with whom I should more gladly consult, were he alive, than that one who has been snatched from us so recently, and who now knows what light is while we sit in the shadow. Were I a student beginning a course of theological study, there is no one to whom I should look for safer advice in comparing Scripture with Scripture than to that servant of God who in this city lived a biblical life and preached an unadulterated gospel. If I were commencing a career of advocacy of moral or social, industrial or even political reforms, I do not know where I could find one who would be a more judicious guide than he would have been who was a warrior in his best days for many a noble reform, and who now lies dead on his shield on the field of battle....

" These three tests of a public career are the severest we can apply: Would we ask this man to give us advice when we take our leap into that unseen holy region into which all men haste? Would we follow him in our study of God's Word? Would we take him as an adviser in conflict with the evils of our day? I do unreservedly pray God that the mantle of this servant of his may fall on young theological students, may fall on young reformers, may fall on all who are preaching God's Word, may fall on all who knew him on either side the sea, may fall on the missions which he befriended to the very ends of the earth. Let us sorrow only for ourselves. All the mysteries of his providence God himself understands, and this ought to be enough for our peace. There are no broken columns in cathedrals that God builds— no unfinished arches.

" It is as a reformer that some of us look to Dr. Gordon as one who could not be spared. We do not see his successor in the pulpit; at least, not precisely his parallel. It would be hard to find a man who had such a grasp upon the confidence of the Christians of the United States, and who was as pronounced as he in advocating strong doctrines on the subject of the temperance reform. As a preacher he was first, midst, last, biblical. It would have amazed his audiences if he had often quoted the secular poets or illustrated his courses of thought by anecdotes of adventure of a secular kind, or if he had been in any way sensational in the bad meaning of that

word. He was pungent. He was spiritually incisive. He

held the sword of the Spirit, and was able to thrust it through and through the fabric of error, through and through even hard hearts. But if he quoted at all in his discourses, it was usually from the Puritan divines; it was from the deepest students of the inner life; it was from the biographies of those saints of the modern and of the medieval and of the apostolic church who are canonized by the universal consent of Christendom. And you feel that in their presence he was in company fit for his own soul, and that his own was fit for this company. The astonishing thing to me in Dr. Gordon, when I heard him, was that he seemed to be one with Savonarola and with Wesley and with the Friends, who have spoken most effectively from the impulse of the inner voice. He was one with St. John and with St. Paul in his doctrine, and it seemed natural for him to compare Scripture with Scripture and bring out meanings not often emphasized.

" He made a geodetic survey of his life along the loftiest summits, and found the trend of those heights pointing definitely in certain directions. This, as I suppose, is one of

382 ADON/RAM JUDSON GORDON

the most safe and searching tests any man can apply to his own career: In his highest moments, what is said to him? What do those highest moments mean if, when placed in hne, they all trend in a given direction? Dr. Gordon believed, not that he had special illuminations, but that he was in the way of duty; for year after year his efforts along the lines of an apostolic ministry were prospered; year after year his devotions, his study of the Bible, his watchful analysis of current providences, gave him more and more confidence that God was encoiuraging him....

" Read Dr. Gordon in full. Read all his many books several of them are religious classics. It is a remarkable fact that, in this city of Boston, three books have been written that are worthy to he on the table by any dying couch, side by side with Thomas k Kempis's ' Imitatio Christi ' and Jeremy Taylor's ' Holy Living and Dying.' These three were among our brother's volumes, and entitled ' In Christ,' ' The Twofold Life,' and ' The Ministry of the Spirit,' the last coming from the press within a few hours of our bereavement. They are fit to be placed among the religious classics approved after long experience by Christians of every name. I believe they will live as such, and in this opinion I am not singular. It is held by men of far better judgment than myself, who are, many of them, here to-day. I believe it will be indorsed by the churches as the years roll on. Mr. Spurgeon and a dozen other critics I could mention have spoken of Dr. Gordon's books in terms which one might think fulsome, if personal acquaintance with their value had not shown the merits of those writings so powerful, so quiet, so filled with the Spirit. I read Dr. Gordon's volumes from end to end. The Scotch said, when Dr. Pierson and Dr. Gordon made a tour as lecturers after the great World's Missionary Convention in London in 1888, ' Dr. Pierson inspired us; Dr. Gordon fed us.' Several times the cover had been worn off and replaced on his copy of the Greek New Testament. Dr. Gordon was the superior of most of us in spiritual insight. He was born with wonderful natural capacities in the direction of religious thought, emotion, and intuition. He was a thinker, he was a philosopher, and he was a mystic also. He had a great head, a great heart. He was able to get a bucket down very deeply into the wells of spiritual truth. I advise you to notice what crystalline waters he brought up, and to drink often from those fountains.

"Two facts concerning Judson Gordon I am very sure history will remember: first, that he was polygonal; next, that

every side of him was biblical. He was distinguished as

preacher, pastor, evangelist, reformer, editor. He was the scholar's assistant toward the narrow and strait way. One of the most difficult things he ever did, I think, was to bring the holy awe of self-consecration to the somewhat thoughtless, always rather impetuous, circles of students in many colleges. He was a traveler; he faced strange audiences abroad, and fed them; he was in his family a priest. He was known here in the attics and cellars as one who could imitate the Saviour in going from house to house doing good. He built this church on the pattern shown to him by the Holy Spirit in Scripture and life. These are only a few sides of his work but every side was scriptural. I revere exceedingly this comprehensiveness in his religious outlook and culture and activity. He was not one of those who tried to master so many things as not to be an authority on any one of them. In all these departments of his activity he was looked upon by many of us, I am sure, as a leader."

" My brother, against the day of thy burying have I kept this alabaster flask, and I come now beforehand to anoint thy body for the burial.

" There are some things that ought not to be spoken of a yet living man; but our lips may perhaps be unsealed when God has taken him. I dare not speak— and it would not be proper nor delicate— of what this loss is to me personally. He was a great man. I never knew a man who lived on the bosom of God as he did. I never expect to see his like; I never knew his like; he has no successor. When God made him, he broke the mould. As I look upon this life which I have studied intensely for years and from the inner circle of friendship, there seems to be in it a strangely rounded symmetry. He was so heavenly in character. Did you ever see such a countenance as his was? When I sat here on the platform at his late anniversary, and looked at him, I went away from the place with just one verse of Scripture prominent in my mind, which has remained so ever since: ' And all that sat in the council, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.' He was a ripe fruit, and the Husbandman simply bent down and plucked it at its ripeness; he wanted a closer taste of it at his own banquet board. You could not expect to keep him longer, for the light on his brow was the light of anticipated transfiguration. But then his lifework, like his character, was singularly complete. Just look at the twenty-five years of work in this church! Think of the maminess and the boldness of his testimony to the whole rounded gospel. Look at the way in which he administered this church, which by the grace of God he led by a gradual process into such illumination as to the mind of God and such elimination of worldly elements that it was a fitting place for the Holy Ghost to preside; and the Holy Ghost did preside here as I venture to say he presides in, perhaps, no other one church in the United States. That church is itself a living epistle....

" There is something beautiful to me in God's taking him away right in his prime, in the fullness of his beauty; for we

remember men as they make their last impress upon us. We

shall always remember Adoniram Judson Gordon as the full-

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grown man in his prime of intellect, in his prime of Christian achievement, in the midst of the glory of the work that has grown to this point and now never could decline under his hand, for his hand is no more upon it. Is not that better than for him to have grown old, to have decayed in intellectual power, to have declined in social influence, to have dimmed the majesty of his imperial scepter?

" He will be remembered as the full-statured man, whose power was full-orbed and whose sunset was without a cloud. He is forever beyond the possibility of marring his own lifework even by imprudence or incaution, and no one else can impair its symmetry. When his character and career reached their nearest approximation to the ideal, God suddenly crystallized the vision into permanence, and so it will forever stand for men to contemplate and imitate."

On a warm day in the following spring, when the frost had left the ground and the trees stood clothed in living green, the casket was taken from the vault and laid in its final resting-place in Forest Hill Cemetery. It had been the first impulse of the dead man's friends to put him in the uplands of his old home, where his grave should face the solemn arc of

snow-tipped mountains which circle half the horizon. "A

man's birthplace may well be his burial-place," said Joseph Cook, when he heard of it, " but I think his battle-field may better be. For one, I wish we might have the privilege of often standing at the tomb of this warrior. I could have wished that he might have remained with us here at the edge of the great deep."

The suggestion was pressed by others. It was recalled how eagerly Gordon himself had sought out the graves of Eliot, of Brainerd, of Edwards, and how much inspiration their simple headstones had been to him. In the hope, therefore, that in days to come his memory might quicken those who should stand above his grave, he was buried hard by the city vi'here his hfework was wrought out. Over him was placed a massive boulder with this inscription:

PASTOR A. J. GORDON
I836-I895
"until he come"

Not to him had it been given to be "caught up to meet the Lord in the air," as he had hoped and prayed. Rather will it be his to return with the Lord and with those tarrying within the veil, when the trump of the archangel shall enswathe the whole earth. To this return, to " the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ,'' his grave alone among the thousands in the great cemetery bears written and explicit testimony.