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Editor's Note: These are all from The Earthen Vessel and Christian Record March - April, 1872); page numbers are given with each heading. Longer articles from this issue appear on the website under their own documents.
A brother minister says (in a note), “I have been to see Mr. Wells: he is very ill; he may live for some time; but, I fear he will never preach again.”
This is painful to us. With Mr. Crowther, in his sermon on the Threefold Deliverance, we have realized the keenest sympathy, where he says, “I would to God that your minister (Mr. Wells), who is now passing through those especially trying personal afflictions, which, with excruciating pain, from time to time, pull down his spirit, and fdl it with sadness, may thus gain a further and more intimate knowledge of God, and the things of God: that out of all this sorrow there may yet come forth a joy and gladness; and but of all this grief and trouble there may yet come forth a knowledge which, if GOD PLEASE, he may YET SPARE HIM TO DECLARE UNTO OTHERS.” [Amen.] “May he grant that in the enduring of affliction with patience, and in the bearing of the will of God, and the glorifying him in the fire, there may be a testimony which shall silence every slanderer; a testimony which shall show that as God has honored his servant in the declaration of the truth faithfully for so many years, so he honors him in his trying circumstances, making him to feel that the things that are seen are temporal, whilst the things that are unseen are eternal.” Before our God, we can add a most hearty Amen to every word of this excellent desire. “Slanderers” have been severe; but, some are called to the higher tribunal. For years there has been a spirit of secret persecution against many of God’s poor servants; “and shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though HE BEAR LONG WITH THEM? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily.” Until our God arise, and have mercy upon his Zion, may we all walk in much godly fear; all wait and wrestle much in earnest believing prayer, and all be faithful in our testimony for the truth. The days we live in are, in every sense, for experimental believers increasingly solemn. ED.
Dear Sir, our hope of Mr. Wells’s improvement is not sustained. He is not progressing favorable, but I fear, the reverse. The pain he is enduring is most distressing. We are in sorrow on his behalf. Will you ask your readers to plead earnestly with the Lord that he would either send his servant a little relief; or to support and sustain him in the furnace, that he may be enabled, by grace, to say, “Father, thy will be done.”
During February, brethren Stringer, Lamboume, Hatton, and Vinall have preached in our midst, and we are grateful to them for their labors. R.
How sorrowful is the fact that the blessed ministers of Christ’s gospel must die. And, yet, when the good old servant, like Mr. John Foreman, is well worn up, it is delightful to see them “willing to depart and to be with Christ, which is for better.”
Dr. John Gill was sitting in his study when death arrested him. One hundred years on the fourteenth of last October, that intellectual and ministerial giant terminated his mortal career. October 14, 1771, in Camberwell, aged seventy-three years, ten months, and ten days. The last words he was heard to speak were, “Oh, my Father, my Father.”
“Clear was his prospect of the promised land;
Where, in full view, he saw his Savior stand.
He, on his everlasting love relied,
Sunk in his arms, and in full glory died.”
We feel it is not too much to say (considering the many huge volumes he has left behind) that for learning, for usefulness, for unceasing devotion, for integrity, and honor, Dr. John Gill was one of the greatest, if not the greatest man the Baptist denomination ever had. By God’s grace, he began well; during a long course of years, he worked on well; and, to the glory of the Lord let it be written, he ended well.
The same can be said of the departed Air. Foreman. In the ministry of the gospel, through sovereign mercy, he began well, lie went' on well, and he has ended well; except, that thousands wish he had gone and prayed with his afflicted brother James Wells: and, if at the mercy-seat they had met together, reconciled and united in Jesus, it would have proved a source of real joy to all the churches of truth in every part of the world. But, that was not to be.
Forty-two years after the death of Dr. Gill, the renowned and beloved William Huntington died at Tunbridge Wells, blessing the Lord, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. July, 1813, saw the earthly climax of a great man in Israel.
Since then, many lesser stars have ceased to shine, and others fast are fading.
“Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head today? And he said, Yea, I know it: hold ye your peace.” 1 Kings 2, 3 & 5.
SUNDAY, March 10,1872, will long be remembered as the day when two mighty spirits fled from their attenuated earthly tabernacles to range and luxuriate in spheres and “extended plains” more congenial to their growing love of freedom than the limited and crowded, the burdened and blighted circumstances of this lower little planet ever could be (which astronomers tell ns is the third from the sun).
When we name Joseph Mazzini and James Wells together, we do not wish to imply that they were kindred spirits in the New Covenant or salvation sense of the term. What that great champion of Italy’s freedom was in the sight of our holy God and Father, we know not; but as the pure-minded, self-sacrificing advocate of Italy’s liberation from foreign rule and tyranny, Mazzini was ever struggling; his keen, restless mind; his undaunted will; his fiery spirit; his fear-nothing soul dashed on, until his poor exhausted frame became too weak for further work or suffering; hence, early on Sunday morning, March 10, 1872, in his sixty-fourth year, his spirit left its earthly cloud; we would fain hope, washed, saved, and accepted, in the adorable person of Him who made himself of no reputation, took upon him the form of a servant, was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Whether Mazzini was a regenerated believer in Christ, or not, we dare not decide; this much we know, a wise man said, “I can with freedom testify that Mazzini is a man of genius and virtue; a man of sturdy veracity, humanity, and nobleness of mind.” The same paper which announced the death of Mazzini, gave the following paragraph:
“Another distinguished minister of the Strict Baptist community, the Rev. James Wells, minister of Surrey Tabernacle, has just died, very shortly after the Rev. John Foreman, whose public funeral at Kensal-green was reported in these columns. Mr. Wells had been forty-two years in the Baptist ministry, and his congregation was the largest belonging to that body of religionists.”
On Sunday afternoon, March 10, 1872, two of the deacons of. the Surrey Tabernacle, the brethren Edward Butt and Boulden, might have been seen in Loughborough Park, on their way to their pastor’s residence, to enquire after his health. They saw him very low, but no apparent alteration. They left; but before they could proceed far on their return home, they were suddenly summoned to his bedside. Death was now finishing his work; the pastor’s lips were quivering; in a moment the spirit had fled; they saw his end was PEACE! They closed his eyes in death, and, speedily as could be, went to meet an overflowing congregation of, perhaps, 2,000, or more, with the painful announcement, “Our beloved and revered pastor, Mr. James Wells, is gone to see his Lord and Master, in the home where many mansions are! “The whole church and congregation spontaneously manifested Dr. Sayer Rudd’s Elegy, when, over the mortal remains of John Noble, he sang,
“Now— Zion! bid thy lucid fountains flow:
Stream ye our tears — let loose our woe.
No common sorrows suit a widow’d state;
Great as our loss is—should our grief be great.
Fallen —is, a Prince in Israel, today:
James Wells, alas! resolved to native clay.
James Wells’ as heavenly messenger, no more!
Strain every nerve, and weep at every pore!”
Never, we fear, will the Church of Christ find a genuine life-like successor. Mr. James Wells was a living verification of those words, “If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” The Lord Jesus Christ made him free at the first; ever after that he flew on in freedom; in prayer, there was generally such a freedom of soul as is rarely met with in any man. His one text all through his ministerial life appeared to be this, “Freely ye have received, freely give.” If he had a salvation for his soul, it must be one free from all carnal and creature conditions: if he had a Gospel commission, it must be free from all the trammels and prejudices of men: if he had a pastorate over a church, he must have the church free in all its spiritual and evangelical privileges, and himself free in all the mercies and blessings of a new and everlasting covenant. If he had a Tabernacle to preach in, he must feel that in that Tabernacle he was perfectly free from all the fear and folly of men; and he must have that Tabernacle free from all monetary and financial burdens. God Almighty indulged him with the favor of seeing a beautiful Tabernacle built and paid for; allowed him a few years enjoyment of it, and then he called him home.
“Each opening leaf—and every stroke, Fulfills some deep design.”
“HE that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord!” God forbid that, we should glory in any man, speak or write unduly of any man; except so far as the Divine purpose, the sovereign power, and the sacred presence, can be evidentially illustrated in that man’s life and labor. It is of the grace of God that was in the man; and of the power of God that went forth with the man; yes, it is only of Christ Jesus, in his Gospel chariot, that we would speak: hence, if we might be permitted to suggest one Scripture as suitable for a funeral discourse on this solemn occasion; if we might be allowed to declare the deep heart-thoughts of our departed friend’s best moments when coming near the brink of the river; if we may say for him, what he, by the Spirit of God, would have said for himself, then no words more meet to the point can be found, than were those of Paul, when to the Corinthians he said,
“And His Grace, which was bestowed upon me, was not in vain; But I labored more abundantly than they all,
YET NOT I,
But the Grace of God which was with me.”
Look at the man’s origin: a country boy that could neither read nor write; no educational advantages whatever; no domestic training; no associations at all calculated to improve either his mind or his position. Nevertheless, as God “formed Jeremiah in the belly” as the Almighty sanctified and ordained that man to be a prophet; equally so, we believe did the holy and eternal Creator and Governor of all, “form,” “sanctify,” and “ordain” our departed brother to be a minister of the Gospel, and an unflinching witness to the Truth of that New and Everlasting Covenant which was so clearly revealed unto his soul, when deliverance from sin, death, and misery was wrought for him, when about twenty-one years of age. And, no sooner did the Spirit and Truth of God take possession of James Wells’s new and inner man, then off lie went:
“To tell to sinners all around What a dear Savior he had found.”
And this he did not in a careless, half-hearted way and manner, but with intense and burning zeal, he labored almost night and day, for over forty years; and we shall say that in that forty years he did the work of seventy years; and his age might be more correctly computed .at ninety, than at sixty-nine.
From early dawn, till dark midnight,
He did his work pursue;
With all God’s given power and might,
For years he stronger grew.
But, —lest his M aster’s glory should By him eclipsed be, —
A gentle cloud—did him enshroud: —
But— now, —from that his FREE!
Free— in the blissful realms above;
Free— in the fullness of God’s love,
He, rest, and pe ace has found.
“It touched him to the very quick” said Dr. Norman Macleod, when on preaching Dr. Macleod-Campbell’s funeral sermon, he referred to his expulsion from the ministry of the Scotch Establishment. “That event,” said Dr. Macleod, “Dr. Campbell felt most profoundly and deeply. It touched him to the very quick!" Ah! and we dare to say, that when a host of those who had for years been most lovingly served by our departed brother, entered a public “Protest” against some, perhaps, unintelligible sentences of a published sermon, that protest “touched him to the very quick.” WE KNOW IT DIT! We heard him speak of sleepless hours! We saw him weep like a child! —and if we had been one with those Protestors, we should look into the grave of our departed fellow-soldier, and confess that we fired one shot into his poor heart, which ultimately proved his death-wound. We have the deepest confidence that in the essential features of his ministry, our departed brother’s meaning was correct, although his expressions were not always clearly understood. Some who opposed him have expressed their grief over those circumstances which separated them from one they had long loved, and on whose behalf our departed brother had often labored with affection and zeal. In fact, we heard Mr. Crowther affirm that even Mr. John Foreman said, “I love my brother Wells with true affection: I deeply feel for him in his affliction, and I pray for him every day.” We also know that Mr. C. H. Spurgeon wrote a letter of condolence, of sympathy, and of earnest prayer for the welfare of the Church at the Surrey Tabernacle to Mr. Edward Butt, worthy alike of the head and of the heart of the pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle; and when we saw Dr. Allen, C. H. Spurgeon, and a host of Godly ministers all surrounding the coffin on the day of the funeral, we were solemnly persuaded that more unity of spirit, more real love in the heart, and more genuine faith in the grand old doctrines of the cross, live among many of our ministers than we are always prepared to acknowledge.
In reviewing the last six years of Mr. James Wells’s ministerial life, we behold three great features. First, in the erection of the New Surrey Tabernacle he achieved a noble victory. When he began that movement, he was over sixty years of age; he had preached there nearly forty years; and men were telling us that our churches, and doctrines, and ordinances were fast dying out: even a few of Mr. Wells’s chief friends thought he was taking a wrong course; but James Wells had faith in the enterprise; his heart was set upon it; instrumentally he built it, paid for it, and a more handsome monument to his memory never can be erected. It stands to declare to generations yet to come that the Gospel as given by God to James Wells to proclaim was a power most triumphant—a power constraining thousands to devote themselves and their substance to the glory of God. Secondly, in the progress of this great finishing-stroke of his life-work he suffered severely. Thirdly, God’s great promise was realized in his experience: “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee.”
HIS FIRST PULPIT -pages 102 to 104
“Now be my heart inspired to sing The glories of my Savior King:
Jesus! the Lord!! how heavenly fair His form! How bright his beauties are”
SOME refined folks do not choose to say anything about their origin; but, to them that “follow after righteousness,” the Lord says, “Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.” And Paul makes no hesitation in saying of himself, “Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious; but I obtained mercy,” &etc. To be preserved from our youth up, in all that is morally pure, is a great privilege; but when the Redeemer said, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance,” it seems to sound with hope of mercy for such debased worms as many of us feel ourselves to be.
We are not aware that any black moral spot ever fastened itself upon the fair character of our recently departed brother. Three phases in his life, we think, comprise the whole. First, he was a poor, unlettered, but hard-working rustic. Secondly, a deeply-convinced, but richly enlightened, and truly saved sinner. Thirdly, a devoted, and earnestly faithful minister of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We have given in another page, the original experience of his soul when called, by the Spirit and power of God, into the kingdom of Grace. Of his natural life, we purpose to give a chapter distinct in itself. We now come to the time when James Wells was a laboring man in Chelsea; a member of the Baptist Church under Mr. Upton, near Brompton; and when he was only about three-and-twenty years of age; perhaps not quite so much.
In the course of our ministrations in the districts of Camberwell, Brixton, and Walworth, we have occasionally been introduced to the company of a very godly saint, who is now about eighty-six years of age; and who, with her husband, was among the first Christian friends and hearers Mr. Wells ever had. She is called Mrs. Tennant; and is now living in Clarendon street, in the Camberwell New Road. We sat down the other day with this choice mother in Israel, and heard her relate the following little narrative. “When the first Surrey Tabernacle was about to be erected for the ministry of John Church, I ran about to collect all I could to obtain help towards the building. My husband and I were both members there. When trouble overtook our pastor, and one Mr. Com took the pulpit of the original Surrey Tabernacle, we found so very little com, and such quantities of chaff, that we left it; and my husband having obtained some work out Chelsea way, he went there to lodge for a time; but my washing kept me near to the Borough. My husband generally coming home on Saturdays, and returning again on Monday mornings. Once when he came home he said to me, the man in whose house I am lodging is a good Christian man. I saw him one day reading his Bible; and I asked him if he would come up and converse and pray with me in my room. So, he did come; and some sweet times we have had. “One evening, my landlord told me (said Mr. Tennant to his wife) that in the floor-cloth factory where he worked there was a young fellow, who had recently professed faith in Christ; and my landlord said, “I really think there is some good thing in him.” “Ask him,” said Mr. Tennant, “to come and spend an evening with me. I will see, if I can, what he is made of.” So young James Wells, and his fellow-laborer came to see Mr. Tennant; and Tennant clearly discovered that there was the grace of God in James Wells’s heart; that there were good natural parts about him for preaching; and that his soul really was all on fire to preach to others those Gospel Truths which had been made so dear unto his own soul. The church where he was a member wanted him to go to college but this could not be. So, Master Tennant said to James, ‘If you will go out into the Broadway next Sunday morning, and preach in the street, I will go and stand with you.’ This was agreed to; and the next Sunday morning, Master Tennant, James Wells, and another or so, went into Westminster Broadway; and there, by the side of a cat’s-meat shop, James Wells preached his first public sermon. Like Lydia of old, the proprietor of the shop invited our friend James into his house; offered him a room; and there, from time to time, the young preacher continued his ministry: there a Christian church was formed of six members and from hence our friend travelled on. A school-room was then taken in Westminster (says Mrs. Tennant), and my husband said to me, ‘If you go over some Sunday evening, and hear the young man, I will take care of one child, and you can take care of the other,’ for we had two little ones then. Accordingly, on a certain Sunday evening, off we marched. When I sat me down in the school-room (says Mrs. Tennant), I thought it was such a singular place for a chapel; there were broken boards in the floor; there were dirty marks on the walls; and there were three boards nailed together for a pulpit and a piece of wood laid across for the preacher to lay his Bible on. I thought, a curious sight altogether. When Mr. Wells stood up to preach, he said, ‘I cannot tell you what chapter or verse the text is in. I think my wife said it was so and so; but you who have Bibles, and can read them, must search until you find it. On he went preaching there was extraordinary originality and power with the ministry. The place became crowded; and at length they removed to a little chapel in another part; this became filled to overflowing, so that fainting and falling down were common enough. “Where could we get a larger place? No one could tell. One day, says the widow, Mr. Barnes, Mr. Butcher, Mr. Wells, and myself, went out chapel hunting; and we hunted in vain. All returned to my house, tired and discouraged. But as they sat at dinner, it came into my heart so powerfully, James Wells must have the Surrey Tabernacle! I told them my thought; they laughed at me, and said that was not likely. I said, You go and seek for it. This was in September. After much talking, Barnes and Butcher went to seek for it; in a few days, they came and told me, they had agreed to take it; and Mr. Wells could enter into it at Christmas. This he did; and from hence began his career of prosperity in that place.”
We heard much more from this sainted lady; but “The History of the Three Surrey Tabernacles,” has yet to be written; and must be deferred this month, to make room for the funeral services. Surely, the hand of the Lord was mighty in all this! “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound!”
MY DEAR MR. BANKS, I was privileged to hear the last sermon Mr. Wells preached; this was on Friday evening, November 11, 1870.1 was agreeably surprised to see him enter the pulpit; for I did not expect to see him there as he was so poorly on the Wednesday previous at the Tabernacle, that I thought he would certainly rest until the Sabbath. His prayer was short, yet comprehensive, and savory. After the second hymn, he arose, and gave out for his text, the last clause of the 11th chapter of Isaiah. “Like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.” Though I little though that it would be the last time I should hear him from the pulpit, yet he treated the subject in that luminous, masterly manner that it is fresh in my memory to this day. From the preceding verses he showed the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing poor sinners from darkness to light; from slavery to liberty; from enmity to love. He then set forth the various analogies between the deliverance of Israel from Egyptian bondage and the souls being brought out of Satan’s kingdom into the light and liberty of the Gospel of God. He seemed to be particularly happy in his work that evening, and spoke with much cheerfulness, and with his usual rapidity. He concluded the service with a few words in prayer, in which he was wont, with marvelous facility to summarize the subject of his discourse. He had scarcely reached the vestry before that hemorrhage set in which was the commencement of his last and fatal illness. It was not till Sunday morning, on entering the vestry of the Tabernacle, that I heard of this; for I fully expected to see him in the pulpit on that day, finding him, to all appearance so much better on the Friday. But I then learnt that the great loss of blood had utterly prostrated him, and that it was with great difficulty he reached his home on Friday.
Thus, ended the ministerial career of James Wells, whose memory will be cherished by thousands for the good received under his ministry.
I may remark, as one of the many witnesses that still remain of the great power that attended the word spoken by him, that I was favored to hear him constantly for nearly a quarter of a century, and yet there was to the very last a freshness and a power in his preaching which time, so far from diminishing, did but increase its attractive force. The first time I heard him was on a Friday evening at Red Cross street; when that chapel was pulled down, we went to Jewin Crescent; from thence to Bartlett’s passage, Bartlett’s Buildings, where we met for nearly fifteen years. I heard the first sermon he preached there, and during the whole fifteen years I was favored, with few exceptions, with the opportunity of attending. It has been remarked by many, that the Friday evening lectures have been made especially useful, the preacher being mostly favored with great liberty, and usually led into those paths of experience which find out the tried and tempted of the family of God. We have had many instances come before us at our church meetings of the power of the word upon the hearers, and many have borne testimony of the good they have received at these weekly lectures.
I cannot yet fully realize the fact that I shall see his face no more, that face which ofttimes beamed with delight when expatiating upon one or other of the doctrines of the glorious Gospel of the blessed God. His eloquence was the eloquence of affection; Jesus Christ in the perfection of his atonement and the eternal dignity of his priesthood; Jehovah the Father, in the sovereignty and immutability of his counsels in favor of his elect; the Holy Spirit in the absolute freedom and invincibility of his operations in quickening, enlightening, comforting, and establishing; this is the Triune Covenant God his soul adored, and under the power of whose love, shed abroad in his heart, he was ofttimes constrained to exclaim when preaching, “Bless His dear Name!” His heart was so often inditing a good matter in private reading and meditation that when he came into the pulpit his tongue was as the pen of a ready writer, and it was evident to those who have tasted that the Lord is gracious, that he lived upon the Gospel provision he set before the people. I have often heard him say that, if a man does not get his subject by secret prayer to, and fellowship with, the Lord, there will be no power attending that man’s ministry; but if the Lord be pleased to open up his word in secret it is a sure sign that he will be with the minister in the delivery of the message.
I cannot refrain from expressing my earnest desire that the Lord of the harvest will be pleased to raise up others of a similar spirit to our late dear pastor; men who, deeply feeling the plague of their hearts, and the utter ruin they are under by the fall, and by the same Divine Teacher led into the mysteries of redeeming love, may be gifted to preach the same to others. The Lord makes his own ministers, and those whom he makes, he qualifies for the work whereunto he appoints them; he gives them an ardent desire to understand the mysteries of the kingdom, and fulfils that desire, here a little, and there a little. This keeps them seeking his face and his counsel. This is the only safe position both form minister and hearer. I hope that we, as a church and people, may have grace to watch his hand, and wait upon him for wisdom to direct. Yours sincerely, J. Mead. 9, BoysonRoad, S.E. March 16, 1872.
LINES -page 106
Written on hearing, for the first time, of the Death of Mr. James Wells. By WILLIAM STOKES, Manchester.
“Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel 2 Sam. iv. 38.
Why that mourning? why that sadness In yon home of love and praise?
Why no more the voice of gladness,
As in former, happy days?
Know ye not, then, that a princely-Royal “watchman on the walls”
At last has fallen in his armor,
As each heavenly warrior falls?
Great in might, he braved all danger,
Facing every vaunting foe;
To coward fear he lived a stranger,
And, for truth, dared all below.
Bold in speech, his words were darted Through and through each foeman's shield;
Before him fell the ranks, fainthearted,
Or, with trembling, fled the field.
Great he was, yet, never weary Of the work his Master gave;
But, through days, all dark and dreary,
Stood forth, bravest of the brave.
Raised by grace from lowly station,
Taught in Heaven's own school alone;
He received an education To halls, and colleges, unknown.
More he knew of Christ, and glory,
Than “the Classics” e'er could boast,
And, in sweet Redemption's story,
Was, himself, a mighty host.
“The common people heard him gladly,”
As they heard One greater still,*
Whom proud priests, enraged, drove madly,
With the foul intent to kill+.
Wells! thy “Surrey” mourns with weeping;
But this truth sweet comfort gives,
While, in death, thy dust is sleeping,
CHRIST THE SAVIOR EVER LIVES!
* Mark xii. 37. + Luke iv. 28, 29.
“Howl, fir-tree, for the cedar is fallen.” Zech. 11:2.
Dear brother Wells has reached his home, His Savior called, and bid him come To join the ransomed throng on high, And live with him, no more to die.
He was a valiant m an of God,
He spread his Savior's fame abroad; His mortal tongue and Gospel voice Oft made a thousand hearts rejoice. But lo! a hand, the hand of death,
Has stopped his Christ exalting breath; His long affliction, groans, and cries, Are changed to songs beyond the skies. Truth to his heart was dear and sweet, Nor did he from it once retreat; Christ was his high and noble theme, Who did from hell his Church redeem. An iron pillar, firm and strong;
A brilliant star, with fluent tongue;
A ready scribe in holy things;
A servant to the King of Kings.
In Gospel armor well arrayed,
No finite power made him afraid;
He firmly stood on Gospel ground, Melodious free-grace notes to sound. But now his voice is heard no more; He's landed on the blissful shore; There, on his Savior's face to gaze, And join to swell his lofty praise.
His church and people left behind, May God for them a pastor find; Elijah's mantle on him fall,
And be a blessing to them all.
His widow, may the Lord sustain,
His children teach to know his name; Give all submission to his will,
And hear him say, “Tis I, be still.” Farewell, dear brother, till we meet To cast our crowns at Jesu's feet;
To part no more, but reign with him,
In breathless regions, free from sin. Thomas Stringer.
Respecting a visit to Mr. J. Wells the night previous to his death.BELOVED, but Afflicted Friend in the hope of the Gospel, This is Monday morning, March 11, 1872, and I have just received the following note from my dear son Robert:
461, Old Kent Road, S.E. Sunday evening, March 10, 1872.
My Dear Father,
This afternoon, at ten minutes past four, the Lord was pleased to relieve our dear minister, Mr. James Wells, from his long and painful suffering, by gently taking him home to his heavenly rest. The scene at the Tabernacle, this evening, you may better imagine than I can describe.
Your affectionate son, Robert.
I was in bed when this note reached me; for, although I preached with much feeling, enjoyment, and with deep solemnity of mind, twice yesterday, still I am not well; and, although 1 had been with Mr. Wells on the previous evening, I was not prepared for the account of his departure. However, I will simply relate to you the nature and result of my visit.
During the whole sixteen months Mr. Wells has been ill, I never saw him; I always understood he was not able to see anyone; and, being very diffident, fearful of intruding where my presence might be any burden, I did not feel I could dare to call on him. However, our brother, Mr. Edward Butt, kindly invited me to accompany him to see Mr. Wells on last Saturday evening; and I agreed so to do. But, after this arrangement was made, I heard such "distressing accounts of his suffering, that I expected it would be impossible for me to see him. On Saturday morning, however, I received the following note from Mr. Butt:
March 8, 1872.
Dear Brother Banks,
We tea at five on Saturday, when we expect you. I was with brother Wells till nine last evening; the Lord is very gracious to him. We had a wonderful meeting.
In haste, yours truly, E. Butt.
Consequently, I went to Mr. Butt’s house at five, and from him I learned how marvelously and how certainly the Lord had turned the captivity of our brother Wells’s soul; so wonderfully, graciously, scripturally, and satisfactorily, that Mr. Butt said to me in his garden, “I never saw such a scene before, and never expect to see such another, as I witnessed in our brother, James Wells, last evening.” Then he described the whole of what took place, which I shall give from him if permitted. We had a pleasant cup of tea; and then set off for Mr. Wells’s house. On entering it, one of the friends in waiting came down, and from her statement of his affliction, I felt certain 1 should not be permitted to see him. After a little, Mr. Butt took me by the hand, and led me up into the chamber where the good man lay as near to death as could be.
As soon as we approached his bed-side, I believe someone told him we had come, whereupon he liked up both his arms, and clapped his hands together in most jubilant and joyful feeling; he then flung his arm around Mr. Butt, and embraced him; after which, with his left hand he grasped my hand, and with his right hand he stroked my forehead, patting my head, and smoothly passing his hand over my forehead in the most affectionate manner, calling me “one of his blessed little brothers.” After many precious things had been said by him, I told him that all the day those words had been with me, “We went through fire and through water, but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.” I said to him, “You have gone through fire and through water, soon the Lord will bring you into the wealthy place.” And I felt most certainly persuaded that the Lord would soon receive him unto himself. He said he had enjoyed blessed communion with the Lord that day; and, in the midst of much he said, this sentence came very distinct, “Tell all the men of God what he has done for my soul.” I told him the first text I heard him preach from with power was this, “Who holdeth our soul in life, and suflfereth not our feet to be moved.” And, I said, “How true, in the experience of both of us have those words been.” “Yes, dear me,” he said.
He was then perfectly himself; and spoke for some time upon “the precious truths of the gospel .” Then, with my hand clasped in his, he sunk into an exhausted state; and in that state he lay for some time. I felt his cold clammy hand, and the throbbing and catching of his arm, as though the season of dissolution was very near. After watching and waiting for some time, Mr. Butt spoke a few words in prayer, and we bid him “good-bye,” never to meet in this world anymore; for, in a few hours after that, in quietness, his lips quivered, his spirit fled; and the lifeless corpse was all that was left of that most vigilant, valiant, laborious, and long-honored servant of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
And, now, I ask,
“Shall we meet beyond the river?”
Shall we there, around the throne, adore the glorious God-Man-Mediator and Great High Priest of our profession? Of HIM, the exalted Lamb in the midst of the throne, we have both delighted to speak and write, and of him adoringly to sing. Surely, then (although we have each had our weaknesses and sorrows; and, although by a large number of the laity and ministerial classes we have both been much reproached, yet, surely, as penitent and praying believers in JESUS, THE SON OF GOD), we shall in perfection prove that they are “blessed whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered, and to whom the Lord will not impute sin.” Beloved brother Foster, I pray these few lines will be a comfort to you as in your chamber you are confined; and that when you are favored to draw near to God you will remember your old friend,
Charles Waters Banks.
“A Great Man is Fallen in the Camp Today!”
Even while amidst the transient things that gladden, That flit across the breast and die away,
Lo! suddenly we hear of sounds that sadden A great man's fallen in the camp to-day!
A marshalled warrior from the field retires, Draped with the victor's laurels lately given, Worn by fatigue he peacefully expires,
And gains the sublime vestibule of heaven.
Our brother's undergone the grand transition, And safely moored in that ethereal goal, Where myriad spirits reap the full fruition Of bliss ineffable with his wrapt soul!
In yon dull chamber where the fond one weepeth, There the pale ashes of a Christian lies,
All fears be hushed, “he is not dead, but sleepeth;” Rejoice, ye saints, the Christian never dies!
We hear some plaintive voices softly crying, “How are the mighty fallen,” in the way?
Ye winds awake, and send the echo flying, Another jewel's gathered home to-day.
Rest, frail mortality. the enraptured spirit, Long bound by ties of earth, a prisoner here, Now rises, disencumbered, to inherit Supernal bliss, and breathe celestial air. Beyond the bounds of fond imaginations, Through the bright vista of unmeasured space; We fain would trace him to his destined station, And hear the welcome of the King of Grace. Waltham Abbey.
There anguish is unknown, for there the weary, Rest from their pains; O, may that rest be mine: No night, no sorrow, yea, and naught that's dreary, Can intercept the visual ray divine.
O, that his hallowed mantle, white and holy, Were on some less successful prophet cast: That child-like spirit, honest, grave, and lowly, That so adorned the life which now is past.
No regal dignity, no gilded story Of ancient lineage, prompted him to boast.
He rested in the ante pasts of glory,
A pensioner upon the Lord of Hosts.
His voice was music, face and spirit comely,
Lit with those radiant truths he loved so well;
His manner plain, his style and language homely.
That drew the heart as with a mystic spell.
Those eyes, now sealed in death, oft gleamed with pleasure,
As his full heart impelled his joyous tongue To speak of Christ his hope, his only treasure,
The sum of all he ever wrote or sung.
Adieu, awhile, fair soul, death cannot sever,
The love we bear thee like to that above;
O, boundless ocean, roll along forever,
Till all the saints are swallowed up of love.
Midst friends and foes now silent, cold and earthy,
We leave the relics of this aged sire;
And parting, say Rest in Pace,
Weep not, beloved, what more could you desire?
W. WlNTEIS,