Edmund Booth (1810-1905)

BOOTH, STEVENS

Posted By: Wilma Spice (email)
Date: 9/29/2013 at 22:27:49

Funeral Sermon for Edmund Booth
Rev. A. O. Stevens

The world passeth away and the just thereof (and the pleasure thereof): but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. I John, 2:17

I have been asked to preach to you a sermon this afternoon and my mind turned to these words which were written by an old man. John is supposed to have been about one hundred years old when he wrote the Epistle which contains this verse. There are some impressions which possess much force to an aged man. As he looks backward he sees that many things have changed since he was a boy. If he attains a great age he has seen his friends one by one slip away; and is ready to exclaim with Tennyson's Sir Bedevere:
"Now I see the true old times are dead.
The whole round table is dissolved,
Which was an image of the mighty world
And I the last to go forth companionless,
And the days darken round me, and years,
Among new men, strange faces, other minds."
It was Father Booth's lot to outlive the companions of his youth, and doubtless in his later years he was profoundly impressed with the transiency of life. "The old order changeth, giving place to new."
You who have for a quarter of a century been living in the middle states must go back and visit the old home home hidden among the eastern hills. As the train carries you along your mind pictures the scenes of childhood. You recall the farm-house, the orchard, the flat rock where you used to play. But no sooner have you alighted from the train than you feel a sense of disappointment. Everything is changed. The little cottage in which you were born has been effaced by a modern building. The old farm has passed into alien hands. on the street you meet only strange faces. Thus the truth is borne home to us that the world passeth away and the pleasures thereof.

How true this is of our physical body. We are in the prime of life. We come home from our work in the evening and and feel an unwonted weariness. We think we need a rest and take a vacation. But we are not entirely refreshed. We wonder for a little while what is the cause, until the truth dawns upon us that we are feeling the effect of years. Our physical strength, like the sun, has mounted to mid-heaven, hung there for a little
time, and is now slowly declining.

Father Booth possessed an uncommonly strong body, else he would not have attained to this great old age. Diseases which commonly prove fatal, he survived. But the end was nevertheless inevitable. The body is of the earth earthy; to the earth it must return.

The same thing is true of the mental faculties. The human mind, that wonderful handiwork of God, with its power to think, to reason and to will, reached the point of greatest vigor, and the inevitable decline sets in. Those who like our friend obtain to great age must find themselves at last slipping into their childhood.

The world passeth away and the possessions thereof. How uncertain is the smile of fortune! The riches which we hoard, hoe often they disappoint us. It is probably true that the majority of business and professional men find themselves in old age dependent upon their friends for support. It is as if God would remind us that we must not place too much dependence upon the material things of life. And even if we are more fortunate than many, and have all our wants amply supplied down to the close of life, "whose then shall these things be?" Our riches�for which many of us have sinned, for which some of us have sold our souls'we must leave behind with the perishing body.
Is this then the end of life? When we close the dear eyes, fold the tired hands and place the flowers upon the casket, is the farewell final? That brother of mine, dying out there in the flood-bound train in Kansas, leaving behind the young wife and little boy, is he gone forever? Shall I never see his face again? If so, then I sing with Browning's Paracoisus, life is "a poor cheat, a stupid bungle, a wretched failure."
But 'tis not so. There is that in us which lives. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; that which is born of the spirit is spirit." The soul of man which the Divine Spirit has touched and quickened into new life shall not perish.
I would this afternoon preach to you the Gospel. This is the Gospel: "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have eternal life." True there must be belief. There must be the willing response to the touch of God. God thrusts heaven upon none of us. I say it reverently: God can thrust heaven upon none of us. He may bring heaven to us. We must enter in.
What takes place in the inmost soul of man, none but he and his God know. We cannot draw aside the thick curtain and see into the Holy of Holies. It is doubtless as well so. Yet we who believe in these eternal things are made glad when those whom we love give intimations that they have entered into the presence of the Most High.
Knowing intimately as I do the children of our departed brother, I am glad that I can say that there were in the latter days of Father Booth's life some marked intimations that his mind was turning more towards things spiritual' circumstances small in themselves and yet giving hope that before the departure peace was made between him and his Maker. He has lived his life. For many years he occupied a prominent place in this community. He has been called home. He is in the hand of a God just and merciful. May we all so live, that when the time for our departure comes we shall be fully ready and fit to enter into the larger heritage.

At the close of the discourse Mr. Stevens read the following letter from Rev. S. F. Millikan, now of Kingsley, Iowa, and for seven years pastor of the Congregational church of Anamosa, having preached the funeral sermon for Mrs. Booth:
Kingsley, Iowa, March 30, 1905
Dear Bro. Booth: The long battle is over, and your strong-souled father has found rest at last in the Everlasting Arms.

I can never forget how, soon after your mother's translation, he thrilled me with two words. I had written with his pencil some heartfelt appreciation of her worth and of his great loss. He read the lines slowly; then, lifting his right hand, said in full tones, though there were some tears in his eyes, "STORMS STRENGTHEN."

His faith, his hope, his love and his resignation shone like the sun in these words. He has finished his course. It was time for him to rest.

Source: Anamosa Eureka, Anamosa, Iowa, April 6, 1905