Obituary by George W. Rine

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 15, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 15.

Obituary.

By George W. Rine

CHINNOCK.—Fell asleep in Jesus at the Students' Home, in Healdsburg, Cal., March 27, 1889, Miss Nellie Chinnock, aged 24 years and 12 days.

This is the first time in the history of the Healdsburg College that death has invaded the happy precincts of the Students' Home. Nellie's parents and her sister Alice, whom she had not the privilege of seeing during her illness, still live at North Bloomfield, Ohio, where she was born. Nellie is the only one of a family of twelve members upon whom the hand of death has yet been laid. Her parents, five sisters, and four brothers all survive to mourn their loss.

Sister Chinnock was reared in the Seventh-day Adventist faith, with which body she united at the age of fourteen. She lived at her home in Ohio and in Battle Creek, Mich., until last September, when she came to California, arriving at Oakland just in time to attend the late camp-meeting for 1888 at that place. Happily at that meeting she determined to have a deeper and more thorough work of grace wrought upon her heart. By confession of sins and contrition of heart she experienced in rich measure the saving power of divine love. As the result of this new experience, she became more fully imbued with the spirit of the Third Angel's Message, and expressed her determination to devote the remainder of her life to the service of her Master, in whose love she then so much rejoiced. From Oakland she came to Healdsburg to attend the College the remainder of the school year, and has since been a member of the student family. Her genial, happy, hopeful disposition won for her the esteem and sympathies of all her associates in the school, Home, and church. The good work of seeking a more thorough conversion and consecration of life to God, which she began at the camp-meeting, did not cease with her till death. The series of prayer and revival meetings held in the Healdsburg church during and after the holidays, were to her, as they were to many others, an occasion of great spiritual profit. Thus the last six months of her life, which she spent in California, seem to have been to her a season of preparation for the final and solemn ordeal through which she was destined so soon to pass.

Her illness, which was of a severe and unusual character, was of about four weeks' duration. She frequently acknowledged the blessing of God in effecting temporary relief from suffering, and her recovery was confidently expected until a few days before she died. But our heavenly Father, who doth all things well, decreed that she should sleep, and thus she passed away, fully assured that when He who is "the resurrection and the life" shall appear she would come forth clothed with immortal beauty to constitute a jewel among the blood-bought treasures of the cross. While we mourn our loss and sympathize with the bereaved parents, sisters, and brothers, we are consoled with the assurance that her sufferings are forever ended. The funeral was attended by a large number of sympathizing friends and acquaintances, the members of the College attending in body. Words of comfort and counsel based upon Psalms 116:15 were spoken by Elder R. S. Owen. G. W. RINE.

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