Lucius William Hart 1827-1915

HART, LIVINGSTON

Posted By: Ann Bowler (email)
Date: 11/1/2011 at 15:11:47

From a Funeral Booklet once owned by Alberta Smith McKinney
“LUCIUS W. HART” (cover)
“1827-1915”
“A tribute to the memory of Lucius W. Hart, written and complied in loving appreciation of his noble life.”
“Obituary” “Written By George and Pervilla Hart”
“LUCIUS WILLIAM HART was born in Glastonbury, Conn., October 28, 1827, and died at the home of his sister, Mrs. F. B. Drake, in Otho, Iowa, September 27, 1915, at the age of eighty seven years and eleven months, lacking one day. Between the above dates a noble life was lived, the biography of which the master has written in the book of Life. We will only record a few facts in this brief sketch. The real life can never be written with an earthly pen.

“In 1834 Deacon Norman Hart and his wife , Marcia (Hale) Hart with their three children, Norman H., Lucius W. and Caroline E., drove from Connecticut to Adams County, Illinois, being six weeks on the road. The Hart family lived in Adams and Hancock counties for ten years. George D. Hart was born in Adams county. In 1844 the family moved to Kane county, Ill.

“Lucius obtained a good common school education; worked at home with his father on the farm mostly, sometimes in the sawmill driving the big wheel. On May 1, 1851, he was united in marriage to Miss Catherine Livingston of Big Rock, Illinois. To this union four children were born: Dewitt Clinton who died near Kalo in 1889, baby Carlton who died during their trip to Iowa and is now buried on the east bank of the Boone river about three miles below the present site of Webster City, Cora the wife of Frank R. Payne of Milwaukee, Wis. Both his daughters survive him, also eighteen grandchildren and twenty great-grand-children, his brother George and sister Caroline. His brother Norman died in 1908.

“In 1854 the Hart families ame to Otho township, Webster county, Iowa, where they still live, only those whom death has claimed and who live ‘Over Yonder,’ but their influence is still here.

“Lucius Hart was converted early in life. He, with his father and mother, his brother Norman and sister Caroline, constituted the
Charter members of the Otho Congregational church, which was organized March 13, 1855.

“Mrs. Hart died twent eight years ago. Since that time Mr. Hart has made his home with his daughter, Mrs. Frank R. Payne, and spending his summers in Otho for several years past with his sister Mrs. Drake. His health had been failing all summer. Dropsy and its complications held him in its grip, but he was patient through all, and was able to sit up every day. On the night of the twenty seventh he went to supper in his wheel chair as usual. After supper his brothers him undress, and as his head pressed the pillow the Kind Master took him home in the twinkling of an eye, and was ‘Asleep in Jesus.’ He was buried from the Otho Congregational church Sepember 30, 1915. Services were conducted by Rev. Fawkes and Rev. Duncan. The floral tributes were many. The hymns seemed to have been written for him alone--’How Firm a Foundation,’ ‘It is Well With HIS Soul’ and ‘Deliverence Wiil Come.’ Interment was made by the side of his wife in Otho Cemetery.”

“AS A MAN. AS A FATHER, AS A CHRISTIAN. By His Son-in-law Frank R. Payne.
“THERE is an old and trite saying that runs something like this, ‘If you want to know a man, live with him.’ That I began to do in the year 1876 and soon learned to know him as a MAN. A man of moral rectitude and strong religious character, a man much above the average in his farm and business life. His motive seemed always to be not how much he would gain in a transaction but what was right. Withal as unassuming and as gentle this manly man as tho he possessed all the gentler instincts of woman-kind. Such a man he continued to be until the very end of his earthly career.

“But I would speak of him as a FATHER. I knew him and loved him best of all as a father. I was but a youth, indeed, but a lad when first I came to know him as my father, my father in the true and deepest sense. For more than thirty years there existed between us the tender relationship of an affectionate father and, I hope, a dutiful son. I cannot recall, as I think of the years gone by, of a single word of harshness or chiding that for a moment might have mared the cheerfulness of that sacred relationship; but I can and do recall many, very many little acts of kindness, multitiudes of helpful and thoughtful deeds, in the home and all about him, and great large generous acts that could have been nothing less than the outpourings of his big heart of sympathy and tender love. As a father his father love surpasses all other conceptions of mine of father love, save one and only one the Father love of God.

“What a rich legacy is ours, what a rich inheritance is yours, you his children and grandchildren of his own family blood and tie. I even envy you for his very blood courses your veins. How proud you ought to be of a father and grandfather such as was he.
“Would that I might speak also of the outpouring of his constant love and mine. Some day, yea even now, he may know how deeply the son loved the father of so mang years. Farewell dear father farewell, but only for a night.

“But as a christian, and best of all as a christian did I know him and shall I ever remember him until we meet again. His constant and christian walk surpassed my best conception of human endeavor to follow the Master’s footsteps. What remarkable characteristics he did possess, meek as a child, tender as a mother, cheerful, grateful and kind to the end. His thoughts seemed always lofty and pure and his counsels genuinely from the heart, eminating from a consecrated life. His life, it seems to me, could have been nothing less than the rich fruits of ‘Growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ,’ Those who knew him best loved him most and that as a christian.

“He has gone from our view, a thin mist I believe it is, hides him from our human view; dark to us it may seem but not to him; he has not gone out into darkness but into light supernal. He has not gone out into the shadows but into that city where they need not the light of the sun nor the moon nor the stars for his Christ is the light thereof. If we could catch the language of our departed one, me thinks he would say, ‘Sorrow not but look away to the great, loving, tender yet sorrowing and sin-bear-ing heart of my Christ. In Him I lived on earth. ‘In Him all fullness dwells,’ He can and will permit us to meet again in the presence of the King.’”

“A Synopsis of the Address Given by REV. FRANCIS FAWKES, Pastor Emeritus of the Otho Congregational Church, at the Funeral of L. W. Hart.”
“My Dear FRIENDS: We meet on this occasion to render our final tribute of love and respect to our dear friend and brother, L. W. Hart. We do not meet to bury brother Hart. We simply meet to lay in the silent tomb the material, the mortal teniment, or the house he lived in. We cannot entomb a soul. That is impossible. A soul cannot be buried. ‘Dust thou art, to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul.’ We should look upon our brother as ascending.

“You all know our friend and brother, whose remains lie now before us. Some of you have known him sixty years or more. You were fellow citizens, pioneers, brothers together, engaged in the hard work of preparing Iowa for its subsequent prosperity. Personally I have known brother Hart for forty two years, and have been led to place him in the ranks of my very dearest friends. Brother Hart was a friendly man, tried and true. He proved his friendship to many people by the very deeds of kindness he did for others. He was a friend to his pastor. He could not rest content when he knew that some necessary things were needed at the parsonage. His hand grasp was a benediction. No finger tipped morality, but a good firm grasp of the hand that revealed the very soul of friendship at the back of it. Brother Hart was a liberal man. His liberality extended not only to the church and sunday school, but beyond, to the dark regions of pagonism, where the Missionaries have gone to do work he could not do. The local calls for help in just causes did not fail of recognition, yet he rang no bells before him when he went to do a gracious act. His left hand knew not what his right hand did. No blast of trumpets went before him when he gave alms.

“Brother Hart was a faithful man in church relationship, making it a point to be in the house of God every sabbath if possible. He was always on time. If not on the dot, he was before the dot. The church covenant was to him a sacred thing, binding him to a company of christian people under solemn obligations to serve the Lord in peace, harmony and love.

“Brother Hart was a faithful husband and kind father. His home was the home of peace, where strife and brawls were ruled outside. He was eminently a just man. He made it a rule never to wrong a neighbor. With him the scale of justice hung in the even balance, and if for lack of judgment or ignorance one scale should overbalance, then he would take the lighter compensation rather than impose an injustice on another man.

“But of the virtues and Christly traits of character our brother manifested, ‘The half cannot be told,’ Brother Hart was super-eminent for modesty. One of the modest men I ever knew. His voice was seldom heard in public gatherings. A man of few words, but he meant what he said and spoke to the point. I have known a great many good people during the years of my ministry, a great many good, earnest, all-round saints, but among them as far as I remember, but few surpassed our brother in genuine christian manhood. And if I should name a text of scripture that might be regarded as a summary of his christian character and spiritual understanding it would be the thirty seventh verse of the thirty seventh Psalm, ‘Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace.’ Some may say, ‘Who is the perfect man, and where shall we find him?’ That question is a pertinent one and God alone is absolutely, infinitely perfect. He has perfect power, perfect wisdom, perfect in knowledge, love and justice. He is infinitely so. For any man to claim for himself or for another man to be absolutely perfect, is presumable to be equal with the God-head. Faulty, earth born men cannot even claim equality with the angels, for those distinguished sons of God have never known sin, have never stepped aside from the time of their creation down to the present time; they have been truly loyal to God. Now in regard to the spirits of just men made perfect in heaven, they certainly stand on a higher spiritual plane than the struggling souls yet on earth, and in any way, those struggling souls on earth cannot claim to be absolutely perfect. Where then shall we look for the perfect man? We must look for the perfect man in the sense of the scripture. To those regenerated souls on earth who have chosen for their pattern the one perfect man--Christ Jesus, and are doing their best to live up to the spirit of that standard, there is much to be gained from their transfer from earth to heaven. The body with its ailments, its propensities and weaknesses is a serious hindrance to perfection. In the ascent from earth to heaven the body is left behind and the soul is liberated from the domination of the body, and enters a new environment of perfect beings, perfectly free from sin. There can be no taint of sin on the garments of the justified, and so, when we mark the perfect man, it is him who constantly strives with all his power to attain to that all perfect pattern set before him in the person of Jesus Christ. He can be perfect in comparison to those around us, who live careless, sinful lives; who live without Christ for their pattern; a man perfectly honest, perfectly trustworthy, perfectly faithful; a perfect trust in God. Take a sinful, polluted man and stand him by the side of brother Hart and I could truthfully say, brother Hart is perfect, but in comparison with God, no man is perfect. In regard to the stainlessness of human life I am sure our brother would never have claimed the possession of perfection, but as he looked to Jesus for strength and wisdom and light through all his earthly life; so he became more and more like him from following in his footsteps, as the soul made perfect through suffering left the body a pure, redeemed sinless soul in the presence of Almighty God. We can truly say, ‘Mark the perfect man.’ As God is infinitely perfect in His sphere, so we in our poor finite sphere, can be perfect in our ideals and aspirations. Mark the perfect man; behold the upright. Picture a man standing upright in his manhood, physically, morally and spiritually. Standing straight as a ramrod. Stooping not forward nor backward. One who will not stoop to injure the poorest mortal on earth. Will not stoop to any mean thing. An upright man. Mark the perfect man; behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace. Not the peace of death. Not the peace of annihilation. Not a quiet inactive peace that does nothing, thinks nothing, cares nothing, but the peace of God that passeth all understanding.

“If our brother should meet the veterans of time as he enters the pearly gates, and they should congratulate him on getting through this sin cursed world, me thinks he would say, ‘Not unto me be the glory, these blood washed robes, this dazzling crown, to Him be the glory, who sits on yonder throne. He who died for me, He who redeemed me, He who led me all the way; in whose strength I traveled through nearly four score and ten years of earthly pilgrimage, to Him be the glory for ever and ever.’

“’Mark the perfect man, behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace.’”