Harrison Allen (1815-1885)

ALLEN

Posted By: jane austin (email)
Date: 6/30/2016 at 04:12:40

Sudden Death.

Our community has never been more painfully started than it was last Friday morning when it was announced that Harrison Allen had died very suddenly of apoplexy af his residence, three miles north­west of Sanborn, Thursday evening at seven o'clock.

Father Allen, as he was familiarly called, was nearly seventy years of age, of the strictest integrity and purity of life; a man enjoying in the best and largest sense the confidence, love and esteem of his neighbors. He was an earnest and positive Christian, and so careful was he in his life and conversation (hat the most searching scrutiny could not lay ought agains' him, He endeavored earnestly (o fill well his slation in life, and whether we view him as husband or father, as neighbor or friend, as a church member, or in any other position which he may have been called on to fill, we found him the same conscientious, faithful and self-sacrificing man, whom to know was to love and res-.pect. The great aim of his life appeared to have been to so live that the cause of the Master might not be injured by any word or act of his. Yet he was not one to make a parade of his religion. He expected rath^g to be measured by his life than his profession. "Some clocks do not strike.— You must look at them if you would kuow the time. Some men do not lalk their Christianity; you must look at them if you would know what the gospel can do for human nature," Such an one was father Allen.

Time may in some measure lessen the grief of relatives and friends, but the place made vacant in the family circle, in the church and in the community can not be filled.

The funeral services were conducted by Eev. S. C. Bascom, at the house at 12 o'clock on Saturday. Notwithstanding the drifted condition of the roads, and the cold, a very large concourse of relatives, friends, and neighbors followed the body to the place of burial, in the Sanborn cemetery. However sudden the call of death may have been, none who knew the deceased will think for a moment that he was unprepared. Verily he could say, I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith and henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of everlasting life.

Sanborn (Iowa) Pioneer, Jan 9, 1885 , p5