Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1899-05-11
The Close OF a Sweet Life.

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A life of rare sweetness, of unusual
usefulness and of great strength closed
in this city, this week. When Rev. Charles
F. Penney was laid at rest, Tuesday
afternoon, on the hill overlooking the
city where so much of his life work
was done. not only this community but
the Whole State suffered heavy loss.
The loving tributes paid to his memory
a. the funeral exercises came from the
hearts OF the speakers, and not for a
long time has there been such general
sorrow over the death of zone of our
citizens. Everybody knew DR.. Penney,
and all loved him. His work brought
him into touch with many men and
many interests, and his sphere of in
nuence was very wide. For the length
of a generation he was the beloved and
faithful pastor of an Augusta church,
and in this and in other cities his
gentle presence was like benediction
| wherever he appeared.
Editor Dngley of the Lewiston
Journal was a student at Bowdoin
College in the class following Mr.. Pen
ney and they were lifelong friends
Mr. Dingleys tribute to the dead poet
preacher is a beautiful thing. worthy
its theme, as the following extracts
shows:
once in a while God gives the world
a poet and calls the poet to be prophet
in the spiritual world. Close to half a
century ago in Auburn, Maine. was
young man. student at the academy
easily an Elijah from the plough. He
came from the land of New Gloucester.
impressed strongly from the beginning
not with religious but with Christian
inspirations. AS young man amOl-
tious of letters, he was more ambitious
of sweetness and light in the spiritual
world. Gentleness of soul. spirituality
/ of insight. serenity of temperament are
phrases which in part described MN IN
those student days. He was scholar
by intuition and a saint by nature re-
inforced by grace. In
school and college this retiring, cheer
full man Penney commanded love
which is far superior to respect; for his
piety possessed Messianic qualities.
He cultivated the graceS of the heart
which make the mind urgent, potential,
clear. graphic His imagination was
spiritually fortified by his graphic
sense of the biblical contents.
Nor was Charles +. Penney dis
qualified from speaking his mind be-
cause of the sweetness of his tempera-
ment. His poetic sense enlivened,
quickened and vitalized the truth. He
saw the truth in its large relations
rather than in its petty details. He
was SO early on the ground where the
Good Samaritan stood that he could
be just to the well-fed and magnificent
to the ill-fed. He was incisive when it
pleased him but never intolerant. He
lived in a denomination but he never
lived merely a denominational life. He
was first good and great afterward
In certain lofty and
unique sense Mr.. Penney was a mar
tyr. He lived many years the life Of
pain and found the anodyne of suffer
ing in a superb gift of self-controI
wrought in the way all real self
mastery is achieved. That Mr.. Penney
left his mark on his time against such
stress and storm shows the superiority
of mind over matter. of vision over
sight, of spiritual over all other forms
of power. AS his great eXemplar was
a man of sorrows, acquainted with
grief-so was the pupil. He lived a
tragic life in his own soul. His best
sermons were written in the heat of a
moral enthusiasm for which pain sup
piled background. 1t is
this divine economy of the Universe
which makes great the legacy that
such men as Charles F. Penney leave
to the life and mind. Names may be
obiterated; shafts Of marble may turn
again to the earth; but the after career
Of saint embodies all there is in in
fuence, repeated in new personality in
ages that know no end