p. 15 | In Memoriam by D. E. Lindsey

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 3, 1902

In Memoriam

By D. E. Lindsey

D. E. LINDSEY

HAVING read the late reports of the death of some of our faithful missionaries, and being especially touched by the appeal of our dear Sister Fischer, of Porto Rico, whose hospitable parents, Brother and Sister J. F. Jones, of Baltimore, Md., cared for my wife and me when we sought to proclaim the message in their mission field, I submit the following beautiful lines (author unknown) found in The New Mirror, New York, Oct. 21, 1843:—

On the Death of a Missionary

“How beautiful it is for man to die Upon the walls of Zion! to be called, Like a watch-worn and weary sentinel, To put his armor off, and rest in hope.

“The sun was setting on Jerusalem, The deep-blue sky had not a cloud, and light Was pouring on the dome of Omar’s Mosque, Like molten silver: Everything was fair; And beauty hung upon the painted fanes, Like a grieved spirit, lingering ere he gave Her wing to air for heaven. The crowds of men Were in the busy streets, and nothing looked Like woe or suffering, save one small train Bearing the dead to burial. It passed by, And left no trace upon the busy throng. The sun was just as beautiful; the shout Of joyous revelry, and the low hum Of stirring thousands rose as constantly! Life looked as winning; and the earth, and sky, And everything, seemed strangely bent to make A contrast to that comment upon life. How wonderful it is that human pride Can pass that touching moral as it does,— Pass it so frequently, in all the force Of beautiful and simple eloquence,— And learn no lesson! They bore on the dead, With the slow step of sorrow, troubled not By the rude multitude, save, here and there A look of vague inquiry, or a curse Half-muttered by some haughty Turk whose sleeve Had touched the tassel of the Christian’s pall. And Israel, too, passed on—the trampled Jew! Israel,—who made Jerusalem a throne For the wide world—passed on as carelessly, Giving no look of interest to tell The shrouded dead was anything to her. O that they would be gathered as a brood Is gathered by a parent’s sheltering wings! They laid him down with strangers; for his home Was with the setting sun, and they who stood And looked so steadfastly upon his grave Were not his kindred; but they found him there, And loved him for his ministry of Christ. He had died young. But there are silver heads Whose race of duty is less nobly run. His heart was with Jerusalem; and strong As was a mother’s love, and the sweet ties Religion makes so beautiful at home, He flung them from him in his eager race, And sought the broken people of his God, To preach to them of Jesus. There was one Who was his friend and helper,—one who went And knelt beside him at the sepulcher Where Jesus slept, to pray for Israel. They had one spirit; and their hearts were knit With more than human love. God called him home, And he of whom I speak stood up alone, And in his broken-heartedness wrought on Until his Master called him.

“O, is it not a noble thing to die As dies the Christian with his armor on? What is the hero’s clarion, though its blast Ring with the mastery of a world, to this? What are the searching victories of mine, The lore of vanished ages? what are all The trumpetings of proud humanity, To the short history of him who made His sepulcher beside the King of kings.”