DEATH THE CHRISTIAN'S GAIN. A SERMON, PREACHED IN ST. MARY'S MARYLEBONE, SUNDAY AFTERNOON, MARCH THE 16TH, 1862. ON THE OCCASION O F The Death of THE REV. JOHN HAMPDEN GURNEY, M.A., PREBENDARY OF ST. PAUL'S, AND RECTOR OF ST. MARY'S, MARYLEBONE. BY BROWNLOW MAITLAND, M.A., INCUMBENT OF BRUNSWICK CHAPEL, ST. MARYLEBONE. (Published by request). LONDON: ACTON GRIFFITH, 8, BAKER STREET, PORTMAN SQUARE. A SERMON. PHILIPPIANS I. 21. "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." WHEN should faith, my friends, shine out brightest, but in seasons of gloom and sorrow? When prove her divine power so manifestly, as in the hour of Nature's weakness, and the failure of earthly hopes? In fulness and strength of life, in the lap of ease and prosperity, it is easy to trust and be satisfied: faith seems scarcely needed, her power slumbers unexercised, her light is pale and dim. But let the shattering hand of calamity dash down the fabric of earthly happiness, and quench the lights which sparkled through its chambers, and lay the scene in darkness and desolation; and then the might and glory of faith come out into clear manifestation. To see her rising calm and majestic over the darkened wreck, holding forth her lamp of heavenly radiance, and gazing through the vista of Time into the eternal home as if she already counted it her own :-oh then we confess her divine! GOD grant us, shall we not cry, God grant us that noble gift of faith, that come what may of trial and loss, we may still be stedfast and immoveable, undismayed by sorrow, victorious over the world, stronger than death itself! from us, We are as one family to-day, under a common bereavement and sorrow. He is gone who for fourteen years filled a central place among us, and exerted an influence for good throughout the length and breadth of our community. He is gone, the friend whom we esteemed and loved,-the counsellor whom we trusted, the pastor whose animating words roused our hearts to new efforts of duty, and whose bright example ever seconded what he taught. He is gone, with his vigorous intellect, and still larger heart,—with his manly boldness, which covered, yet hid not, a deep fount of tenderness and sympathy,—with his impatience of all narrowheartedness and petty egotism and selfishness,—with his open-handed charities, and straight-forward sincerity, and thorough singleness of purpose. In the midst of his activities, his usefulness, his unfinished purposes and endeavours, he is gone: one touch of a mysterious blight on the springs of life, and almost ere we had time to miss his presence, his place among us is empty, and we shall see him no more. Το many of us it will scarcely seem real as yet; for a time his presence will haunt our half-conscious musings; it will move through our dreams; we shall almost expect to meet him in our streets, or to hear his voice again from the pulpit. Vain illusion! It is all over; he is gone e! The pen has dropped from the nerveless hand: the tongue has stiffened into silence: the heart has ceased to beat: he is gone! As I stood two days ago by the open vault, thinking of all that he had been among us but two or three weeks before, and saw all that was left of him to sight and sense lowered down into the darkness to lie hidden and undisturbed till the trump of doom, it was brought home to me as I had seldom felt it before, that great is the mystery of death. I may say without fear of contradiction in the presence of you all, that those who knew him best honoured and trusted him most. |