p. 27 | A Starless Crown by Dr. S. J. Spaulding

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 22, 1863

A Starless Crown.

By Dr. S. J. Spaulding

Dr. Dolson told me that a man in the General Hospital greatly desired to see a chaplain, and accordingly I went to see him. When the nurse had put aside the mosquito netting, the poor man began to converse with me very freely, speaking of his home in Hopkinton, N. H., where he had a wife and two children. He had once been a member of a Freewill Baptist church in that vicinity. He asked me if I thought it possible that his great desire would be gratified before he died. I told him I could hardly judge without knowing what it was. "Oh," said he, "I want to be the instrument in the conversion of one soul. I cannot die and wear a starless crown, a starless crown!" There was a depth of earnestness in his expression and manner very affecting, and the whole fear of the man in dying was, not that he was an unforgiven sinner—not that he should fail of heaven—not that his friends would not come to Jesus, but that he should wear a starless crown.—Dr. S. J. Spaulding.