2 Kings ii. 5: “Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to-day? and he answered, Yea, I know it, hold ye your peace.”

Would not an empty pulpit to-day have been the most effective sermon? The voice which for thirty-four years has spoken to you from this place, so faithfully, so fervently, so wisely, and with the eloquence always of love—that voice is silent. There was once “silence in heaven about the space of half-an-hour;” and a still silence might be a speaking testimony here, to him who on Wednesday week was ministering in this church, and the Wednesday after was called home—a testimony to the life which he led, to the truths which he taught, and the precious fragrance of loving words and deeds which he has left behind. It seems as if God Himself were dealing with us, too closely almost for human intervention; dealing with our consciences, our memories, our hearts. The Lord has taken away our master from our head to-day. Should we not hold our peace? Ought we not to be dumb and open not our mouth, because He is acting? Should we not in thought and imagination go in and stand before our Master, judging ourselves that we be not judged of the Lord, accounting to Him for the way we have dealt with His servant, and then, convicted every one of us—as well we may be, the preacher first—by our own conscience, go out one by one, saying, “How dreadful is this place: this is none other but the House of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” For a gate of heaven truly it is. It has been the gate of heaven for twenty-five years to the speaker, and but for words spoken at this gate, God only knows whether he would be able to-day to subscribe with his hand unto the Lord and say, “I am His.” Sermons reckoned by the thousand, full of sacred truth, full of sanctified common sense, full of marked originality, full of “power and love and of a sound mind”—these have to be accounted for.

And his prayers, public and private—prayers put up for us on every possible occasion—effectual fervent prayers of a righteous man standing ever in thought and feeling in the presence of God, and in the sweet, bracing, healthful atmosphere of unfeigned love to man, these are responsibilities which none can evade.

What a true pastor he was! what a faithful friend! what a saintly servant! what a large-hearted man! Which of us but has had proof, nay, countless proofs of his loving-kindness? Which of us could ever have succeeded, even if we had wished, in making that man our enemy? Oh! brethren, tears may well be in our hearts to-day—well may we weep for ourselves and for our children, weep because he is gone, weep because not one of us appreciated him enough, prayed for him enough, loved him enough, while he was still here. Oh! but he was a pastor who pressed his dear people to his heart, and then bore them up on that large heart of his before his divine Master,—every one of us, and our needs were continually in his mind. And now the Master has need of him, and has come and called him away; and, after a short and comparatively easy passage, he has forded the river, and gone up the shining path, and we stand alone and cry, “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof,” and we see him no more.

And yet he would not have us silent to-day. He would bid us encourage ourselves, encourage one another in the Lord. He would exhort us to preach the Word. He would remind us that the time is short, and beseech us to buy up the opportunity. Let us do it, checking our tears. Did not we hear only yesterday that word of Christ, “Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die”? Is there then loss to-day of any man’s life amongst us, or only of the ship? “Not lost, but gone before,” is that life, if the word of Christ be true. Our pastor “is not dead, but sleepeth.” The ship is broken by the violence of the waves, but all the life is “safe to land.” The casket is shattered, but the precious jewel is in the hand, nay, in the very bosom of the Saviour. “He is not dead, but sleepeth.” Dead four days? Nay, but alive, with a life far brighter and keener and more joyous than he ever had on earth! He sleeps well, and presently the Lord of life will say, “I go that I may awake him out of sleep.” And how near that day-dawn, that awaking time may be, the morning of the resurrection, when the dead in Christ shall rise first. Meanwhile, the voice that speaks to us from that farther shore, aye, and will speak “till thought and memory flee”—that voice saith in death, when it cannot be silent, what it would have hesitated in its humility to say in life: “Be ye followers of me, even as I am of Christ.” And so we call upon the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of the Living God and of Jesus, and offer this prayer—

“Refining fire, go through my heart,
Illuminate my soul;
Scatter Thy life through every part,
And sanctify the whole.

“My steadfast soul from falling free,
Shall then no longer move,
And Christ be all in all to me,
And all my heart be love.”

Turn we now from our dear master who has been taken away to that Master, still more dear, that perfect Master, “chiefest among ten thousand, and altogether lovely,” who remains. They fail, but Thou remainest. Human friends, comforters, pastors forsake us, but Thou, O Christ, art with us all the days even unto the end. Even an Elijah, that chief of the prophets, had to go up and stand before his Master. But we, beloved, have a kingdom which cannot be moved, and a kingly Master who cannot die. He, “the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever, is able to keep us from falling. He shall preserve us blameless, and present us faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.”

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Earth and heaven are not very far apart. When we stand at the foot of the ladder with the ascending and descending angels, when we sit at the feet of Jesus, some down here, some up there, but all, all for ever at His feet, and all, all for ever in His hand, and every one of us receiving of His words—when this is so, beloved, heaven draws very near to earth, and earth to heaven; and when the gate opens to receive some loved one in, we can almost hear the music and the singing. There is just this difference and distinction: here on earth we are labouring to enter into rest; there they are resting in the midst of joyful labour, being so close to their King. We might be closer than we are, and thus have more “days of heaven upon earth.”

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And now, feeling sure on this occasion of your forbearance and sympathy, I add a few things which may interest you concerning our earthly master, father, teacher, friend, taken from our head to-day by the Lord.

His knowledge of Scripture was wonderful, was it not? and his memory for quotation—not the words only, but chapter and verse—up to the very last, after ten years of total blindness.

His knowledge too of that piece of intricate and, alas! disordered mechanism, the human heart, was remarkable. How his sermons turned us inside out, so to speak, but all loving, wise, and persuasive, leading us to Christ and to comfort.

The wondrous mixture in his disposition and character of thorough humanity and great spirituality—of manliness, vigour and cheerfulness, with a very tender, sympathising heart! How he could turn at once, and without causing any jar to our feelings, or any sense of discrepancy in his action, from the brightest play of mirth and humour to fervent, pleading prayer. How real and transparent he was, both as a man and a Christian!

There is another thing I desire to mention. “When the messengers of John were departed, Jesus began to speak unto the people concerning John: What went ye out into the wilderness to see, a reed shaken with the wind? . . . a man clothed in soft raiment? . . . a prophet?” You remember that that, on Sunday week, was the text your dear pastor last preached from; and what reply can we give to that question as regards himself? Was he a fickle, changeable man, “a reed shaken with the wind”? Was he a man living delicately, surrounding himself with luxury, and not rather a man given to self-denial, rising very early in the morning, winter and summer, and depriving himself of comforts, almost of necessaries, for the sake of his beloved poor?

“But what went ye out for to see, a prophet?” Yea, and a true prophet concerning the things of God. If you know not now, the day is coming when “ye shall know that there has been a prophet among you.” For myself, I desire this once publicly to testify that I have never heard a sermon from his lips (and I have heard many) or spent half-an-hour in his company (and I have spent many), without gaining conscious benefit to my soul.

Can any of you who heard it, forget that last sermon of his on Sunday week? Did you mark the look of holy joy in his dear face, as he portrayed the eager readiness of the Baptist for martyrdom, a martyrdom which would solve his last doubt, deliver him from his last sin, free him from his last infirmity, and place before his opened eyes the face of the King? Yes, on Wednesday morning his eyes looked upon Jesus, who for long years had looked on no man. “He has received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way.”

But are you aware that he had proposed to return to the subject of John the Baptist? that very shortly before his translation (for it was translation rather than death), that verse was constantly in his thoughts: “John did no miracle, but all things that John spake of this man were true” (John x. 41). Well, all I can say is of our beloved friend and pastor, if he did no miracle, God did many miracles by him. Who shall reckon up the number of precious souls saved, cheered, taught, strengthened, made meet for the Master’s use by means of him who now rests from his labours, but whose works do, yea, and shall follow him. One thing, I believe, eternity will show—not that your minister was a perfect minister or a perfect man; he had his faults, his mistakes, his sins—but this is what eternity will show, and oh! the weight of responsibility it lays on all of us: “The things which Francis Storr spake of Jesus Christ were true.”

Yet once more. With special prayer and consideration, he drew up for this winter a Course of Wednesday Evening Lectures. Two only, out of the twelve, were delivered. The subject of the third was announced, as usual, in church for the following Wednesday, but the address was not given. And what was the subject? “By it, he being dead, yet speaketh;” “and when he had said this, he fell asleep.” What does that word it refer to—“by it, he being dead, yet speaketh”? Abel’s sacrifice, type of Christ’s, which Abel looked at and God accepted. To the worth of that atoning sacrifice Abel testified, your pastor testified, in life, unto death, and for ever. The lecture was not delivered. His death, not his living voice, was to declare it, for we had the text, and the text only, “and when he had said this, he fell asleep.”

Do you remember, brethren, the last time we all met—he, and you, and I, for prayer and praise and conference at the opening of the year, in that well-loved school-room—do you remember that the speaker was led to quote these lines?—

“The great and terrible wilderness of famine and of drought
Lies in the shadow behind me, for the Lord hath brought me out;
The great and terrible river, though shrouded still from view,
Lies in the shadow before me, but the Lord will bring me through.”

Now he has reached that river, and crossed it, Christ and he—the Master and his beloved disciple. “They two went on;” “they two went over.”

“So they passed over quickly towards the goal,
But the wistful, loving gaze of the parting soul
Grew only more rapt and joyful as he held his Master’s hand;
Methinks or ever he was aware, they were come to the Holy Land.”

And so his favourite oft-repeated text, “Or ever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Ammi-nadib” (Song Sol. vi. 12), was fulfilled. Literally, the words are, “Or ever I was aware, my soul set me on the chariots of my willing people.” Ah! these were “the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof,” which raised his spirits and lifted him heavenward, while he was still down here, his people “made willing in the day of God’s power.” Beloved, we may raise him higher yet! we may gladden his heart still! we may cause his reward to grow exceedingly, we may yet give him souls for his hire, seals to his ministry! Shall we not hear him to-day, dead yet speaking, beseeching us on this his first Sabbath in heaven, to carry on and carry out the work God permitted him to do among us? “If there is therefore any comfort in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercies and compassions, fulfil ye my joy!” (Phil. ii. 1, R. V.).

That we may do it, let us give earnest heed to the prayer of our master’s Christ, for the answer is not doubtful: “While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Thy name. . . . and now come I to Thee, and these things I speak. . . . that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves,” (John xvii. 12, 13).