The Venerable Dead

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 18, 1871

The Venerable Dead.

“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints,” at whatever age they may fall, is true of all the righteous dead. We bury such in hope, and their graves are dear to us; but when the pious aged die, and the long journey of the good and the truly great terminates, and we lay them down to rest from their long and faithful toils, the places of their repose are doubly sacred. As we stand about the graves of those godly men and women who are cut down in the strength of manhood and womanhood, feelings of regret may steal over us, that they did not live to fill the measure of their days with well-doing, and longer bless humanity with their usefulness. But when the aged die, who have adorned a long life with good works, and have nobly fought the fight of faith, until they are full of days, and long to lay their weary limbs down to rest, we acquiesce in the decisions of Providence which release them from suffering, and give them repose.

Within six months past we have buried both of our venerable parents. Mother died in January last, in her eighty-third year, and father has recently fallen in his eighty-seventh year. We have laid them down to rest, side by side, in Oak Hill Cemetery, in hope of a glorious resurrection to immortal life, at the second appearing of Jesus Christ.

Dea. John White was born in old Bloomfield, now Skowhegan, Maine, April 12, 1785, and died July 5, 1871, having lived eighty-six years, two months, and twenty-two days. He descended from one of the Pilgrims who came to America in the ship May Flower, and landed upon Plymouth Rock, December, 1620. On board that ship was John White, the father of Peregrine White, who wore a pair of silver knee-buckles, such as may be seen in the picture of the venerable signers of the Declaration of Independence. The knee-buckles worn by this man were afterward given to his son, John Peregrine White, who was born on the passage to this country, to be handed down in this line of the White family to the eldest son of each successive generation, whose name should be called John. Dea. John White had those buckles thirty years, when he gave them to his son John, now of Columbus, Ohio, who has passed them down to his son John. Both the son and the grandson were at the funeral.

Our father possessed from his youth great physical strength and activity of body and mind. With his own hands he cleared the heavy timber from his land in Palmyra, Maine. He toiled on the same farm for more than half a century, until at the age of seventy-four years he left it, and sought rest in the more congenial climate of the West.

His religious experience of sixty-five years has been marked with firmness and zeal, and yet with freedom from that bigotry which prevents investigation and advancement. At the age of twenty-one he was converted, and joined the Congregational Church. Several years later he was immersed and became a Baptist deacon. Still later he embraced the views held by the Christian denomination, which were more liberal than those of the Calvinistic Baptists of those days. He then joined the Christian church, and served them as deacon forty years. During this entire period he was present at every conference meeting held by the church, excepting one, which, according to their custom, was held on Saturday afternoon of every fourth week.

As early as 1842 our father read with deep interest the lectures of William Miller upon the second coming of Christ, and he has ever since that time cherished faith in the leading points of the Advent doctrine. In 1860, with our good mother, he embraced the Sabbath, and to the period of his decease often dwelt upon the evidences of the Bible Sabbath with clearness and much pleasure.

One year since, in consequence of mother's failing health, our parents left their old home, and it has been our pleasure to tenderly care for them in life, and to bury them in death. Mother was one of the sweetest and best women that lived, always right, and ready to die. Father had ever been a man of sterling integrity and godly life, with an earnest temperament and decided turn of mind. During his last year the Spirit of God seemed searching, softening, refining, and fitting, him for Heaven. And in that entire year no one heard him speak an impatient word. He often related facts in his early experience of deep interest to our family and visiting friends, and after joining in family devotion would frequently give expression to the joys of the Holy Spirit which rested upon him in great measure. And near the very close of his life, when sight had almost failed, he preserved his dignity, and stepped down into the valley of death like a man of God. To the very last he gave frequent expression to his feelings of gratitude to attending friends, and for the slightest favor, would return those golden words of courtesy, “Thank you.”

Throughout the entire period of his manhood, Dea. John White has been a candid reformer. He was among the very first in Maine to superintend a Sunday-school, and was from the first an ardent supporter of temperance movements. He has ever been an advocate of civil and religious liberty. He loved his country, and in his age his loyal feelings were stirred as he witnessed her bloody struggle for freedom; and it was his joy to live to see the slave power crushed.

His long and useful life has now closed. But “he being dead, yet speaketh.” His name, with the good actions which have crowded his life, is embalmed in the memory of numerous relatives and friends who survive. God grant that we may all be impressed with this illustration, in a good degree at least, of the sacred injunction, “Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace.”