The Veteran Disabled: Laid Aside by Sickness

“He holds me when the billows smite,
I shall not fall.
If sharp ’tis short, if long ’tis light;
He tempers all.”

James Hamilton says that old age is a sort of Terra del Fuego, a region where the weather never clears. Cloud and drizzle darken and dampen many of its days, and there is little reason to expect that it will be otherwise while life shall last.

Uncle John could hardly be called old when he began to break. Before he had seen sixty years infirmities were pressing heavily, and thereafter he saw few hours altogether free from pain. It is not strange that it was so. The only wonder is that his bodily vigor was retained unimpaired so long. Had he not come of sturdy stock he could not have borne the strain of the previous five-and-twenty years. His unflagging spirit constantly overlooked the body, or overestimated and overtaxed its powers. Nature will ultimately exact the penalty for such violation of her laws. No matter how good the object in the attainment of which strength is overtasked, the effect is not likely to be averted or escaped. God wrought no miracle to save his servant from the consequences of his exhausting and ahnost superhuman work.

For the last three or four years he was much of the time really unfit to keep about. Mind and body had been kept on the tightest stretch. They now needed rest. But rest was precisely that of which he would not hear. His soul was as alert and eager as in his prime. Flesh and blood must serve it still. The feet must not stop running if they were tired. Let him keep right on till he dropped in the harness. That was the way he wanted it arranged. His Lord did not so order it.

A year before he entered on the rest that remaineth, the physical system got so utterly out of order that it stopped short, unable longer to obey the still resolute spirit that sought to urge it on.

The last public work undertaken was at Minden, Montgomery County, N. Y., the following account of which is given by Rev. J. H. Weber:

“In the summer of 1877, while visiting Coxsackie on the Hudson, I heard much of the labors which Uncle John had performed there the previous winter. It immediately occurred to me that he was just the man I had been praying for and looking for to assist me in meetings on my own field.

“Arrangements were made with the Tract Society, and on the third of December a letter came telling me to meet him at Fort Plain. When the train arrived the first man to step off was Uncle John. On the way to my house I saw he was sick, and determined to make it as comfortable and easy as possible by providing a warm room to stop in by night, and a horse to carry him around by day. He wanted to start out that very afternoon, but I persuaded him to rest.

“The next day we started out from house to house, and a day or two later he said to me, * Brother Weber, we have not got hold of the right string yet; but keep on praying, and the Lord will show it to us yet, before long.’ That day I had a call for a funeral service at Bethel, and when he heard of it he appeared to feel impressed that the Lord would open the way there, and that that would be the place to take hold. During the funeral I was convinced that the Spirit was working there beyond a doubt, and so appointed meetings for the following week. The first night Uncle John did not get there, as he had a meeting fixed for elsewhere; but when an invitation was given nine rose for prayer.

“The next night he arrived and appeared to be in his element at once. He prayed, he sang, he talked, and the whole congregation seemed melted into tears. In his visitations no shop or store or house was passed.

“In one yard he saw a man of more than seventy chopping wood. Uncle John stopped and began to question him about his hope. He frankly avowed that he was a spiritualist, that he did not believe the Bible, but added that he was willing Uncle John should do all the good to others that he could. A few more words of entreaty were pressed on him, and then we passed along, Uncle John praying that God v»^ould ‘save that dear old man.’ To-day he is a consistent Christian, and a member of the Lutheran church.

“Into the stores and shops he would often run for a few minutes, and talk to those there found, and sometimes offer prayer. One man since his death has said to me, * I don’t believe that I should ever have been converted if he had not come into my shop and prayed for me and plead with me as he did.’

“Sometimes a group of thoughtless or reckless young men would come into the evening service, and by talking and laughing disturb the meeting. Soon as anything of the kind was begun. Uncle John would quietly move that way, and getting into the knot would drop down and offer such a prayer as would shame them, and sometimes solemnize every soul.

“So for two weeks the work went on, till the last night came that he was to be with us. Such words of encouragement to the converts, such exhortations to the ungodly, it seems to me I never heard, nor do I expect ever to hear their like again. When the address was finished he fell upon his knees and offered the last prayer we were ever to listen to from his lips. When the service was over all crowded around him, anxious for one more grasp of his hand. To each there was a word of personal advice and a ‘God bless you,’ to which many a heart sent back a like response.

“When we parted the next morning, he said, * The Lord be with you, my dear brother, and with this people; and remember old Uncle John Vassar sometimes in your prayers.’

When he reached his home, with the last days of 1877, the labors of love which for more than a quarter of a century he had pushed so unremittingly were substantially at an end. For more than six months he lay entirely prostrate, passing through frequent paroxysms of pain that were pitiful to behold, and that medical skill was powerless to prevent or greatly lighten. When midsummer came he began to rally, and for a time it seemed not impossible that he might yet do a little light work in the vineyard of the Lord. He was seen upon the streets once more, and filled occasionally his seat in the sanctuary on the Sabbath or in the social meetings of the week. His once quick step had grown slow, but his voice was clear, and something of the old smile again lit up his face. It was only the brief brightening of the lamp, however, preparatory to the going out.