Remarks of the Rev. Dr. B. Sunderland at the obsequies of
Dr. Peter Parker, Friday, January 13, 1888.

The event which convenes us to-day though not unanticipated, has nevertheless awakened an emotion of sympathy-and as we feel it -even a grief that proclaims the sundering of the fondest earthly ties, the suspension of the most sacred earthly relationships.

Though it has come to pass in the ordinary courses of nature and has closed the earthly life of a man in the ripeness of his age an age of four score and four years-still no gradual approach, no gentleness of coming, no abundance of preparation for it could altogether mitigate the shock of the final moment or the suddenness of the inevitable separation.

Dr. Parker with his life-long Christian faith and devotion, his deep and spiritual reading of the word and providence of God, conscious of his growing physical infirmities, realizing the changes which year by year and month by month were bearing him toward the brink of the river, and his own transit from the visible, to the invisible world, nevertheless lost nothing of his great interest in the fortunes of the Redeemer's Kingdom among men, in the vast questions of human civilization and national destiny, or in the success of whatever may tend to diffuse the light of the Christian Gospel among the benighted and imperiled families of the globe.

To the very last and as long as reason and memory were clear he regarded with an almost paternal solicitude every movement in his own and in other lands which might possibly affect favorably or unfavorably the triumph of Evangelical Christianity among all the races of mankind: and to him it was in some sense doubtless a source of regret that he should be withdrawn from the personal co-operation, contact, intercourse and fellowship of so many with whom he had been so happily and honorably associated in so great a variety of patriot-

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ic, philanthropic and Christian endeavors.

None of these things, however, interrupted his most sacred
meditations upon the life to come or dimmed for a single moment the
conviction of its realities or the hope of eternal glory which so
surely possessed him.

Especially in these last years the Word of God was the man
of his counsel, and became more and more a lamp to his feet and a
light to his path-and, through the wide range of literature with
which he was so famidar, that seemed only to attract him which more
clearly rendered to his thought the wisdom of the infinite mind
or the vital consciousness of the human soul in its yearning after
God, and the supreme experience of the coming immortality.

But what shall I say to you-his family and friends, of this
great and good man-even this Prince in Israel. How can I fitly
speak of one whose character and achievements have been so conspicu-
ous and so beneficial to the world. No poor words of mine can add
any thing to his fame, while in the soberness of our last offices of
reverence and affection we come to bury and not to praise him.

The life which has just now here closed on earth is already
written in many an archive of our century. In America, in England
and in China his name is famidar as a household word. Extended
over a period of one of the most eventful chapters of the world's
history this life was associated with the most eminent factors that
have given shape and direction to many of the great modern reform-
atory movements and many far-reaching and international affairs.

A thorough Evangelical Christian, a preacher of the gracious
Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the righteousness which is
by faith-a distinguished physician and surgeon, a fellow of Scientif-
ic Associations, a regent of the Smithsonian Institution, President
of the Washington Branch of the American Evangelical Alliance, a men-
ber of the Executive Committee of the American Colonization Society,

a prominent figure in the vast undertakings of modern Evangelical missions, keenly alive to everything that concerns the highest welfare of mankind, his venerable presence was for a long period seen and felt, among many bodies of the most distinguished philosophers and philanthropists and Christians in this and in foreign lands.

Yet in all this he was simple and humble as a little child, A Christian father, the husband of a Christian woman and the head of a Christian household, the Crown and Chief of a large family relationship, fortunate in his temporal prosperity, fraternal towards his brethren in the ministry of Christ, affable, accessible, and loving in all his associations, combining with singular fidelity the most noble dignity with the gentlest courtesy and amenity of life.

But the ruling principle, the master passion of his mind and the very key-note of all his life was the unwavering trust and child like confidence of his soul in Jesus Christ as the Redeemer and Saviour of the world, and his unfaltering reliance upon the word of God as the eternal counsel and revelation of infinite wisdom to man- kind.

In the many conversations it was my privilege to have with him during the long period of his illness and suffering this quality and direction of his thoughts were ever uppermost and conspicuous.

Thoroughly familiar with every portion of the Sacred Volume, his mind would revert to and his lips recite passage after passage and promise after promise of the great and precious Book, not in the old speculation of philosophic analysis, not in the tasteless scrutiny of a cavilling criticism, but as if he were actually feeding on the word of God as to him "the very bread and water of eternal life".

His religion was experimental and his faith correspondingly profound. Anchored in the great doctrines of Christianity as propounded by Christ and the apostles, by the orthodox Christian fathers, by the reformers and confessors of the 16th. century and by

the great preachers of evangelism since that day, he had no sympathy with the vagaries of the modern "new theology" and deplored with strongest lamentation its pernicious influence on modern missions and on the whole church of God both at home and abroad. Confined so long by disease and suffering in his own chamber, his thoughts were constantly reaching out after God and the glorious mystery of the unseen beyond.

And never in his proudest and most conspicuous hour, not even when as Minister resident and Plenipotentiary from the latest to the oldest existing Government on earth he stood in the imperial court, did he seem so venerable, so full of dignity, of power, sweetness and love as when in the serenity of his retirement in his own house, by his own request we bowed together in prayer before the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

Always dwelling upon the wonders of redemption, always looking forward to his own departure from this earthly stage, he sought expression of this great change in any words of others which seemed to be a vehicle of his own aspiration. Long since he had found a hymn of devotion which he adopted as his own. Often with his devoted and ever sympathetic wife he had spoken of these lines with a sacred request that if she should be near him in the final hour, she would read them in his hearing, when crossing the river that voice and those words might be the last he would ever hear on earth.

And so in the gracious providence of God it was.

To see the current of his mind in his last hours, I recite them here,

> 'To the hour when this material,
> shall have vanished as a cloud,
> when amid the wide ethereal,
> all the invisible shall crowd;

And the naked souls surrounded,
with realities unknown,

Triumph in the view unbounded,
Feel herself with God alone.

In that sudden, strange transition,
By what new and finer sense,
Shall she grasp the mighty vision,
And receive its influences;

Angels, O sei the new immortal,
Through the wonder teeming space,
To the everlasting portal,
To the spirits resting-place.

Wild she then, then no fond emotion,
Naught of human love retain,
Or absorbed in pure devotion,

Wild no earthly trace remain;
Can the grave those ties disserve?

With the very heart-strings twined,
Must she part and part forever,

With the friend, she leaves behind.

Angels, let the ransomed stranger,
in your tender care be blest,
Hoping, trusting, safe from danger,

Till the trumpet end, her rest;
Till the trump which shakes creation,

Through the circling heavens shall roll,
Till the day of consummation,

Till the bridal of the soul.

Can I. trust a fellow being,

Can I. trust and angel's care

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O thou Merciful, Ald-seeing
Beam around my spirit there,
Jesus, blessed mediator,
Thou the airy path hast trod,
Thou the Judge, the consummator,
Shepherd of the fold of God.

Blessed fold; no foe can enter,
And, no friend departeth thence,
Jesus is their sun and center,
And their shield, omnipotence;
Blessed; for the Lamb shall feed them,
Ald their tears shall wipe away,
To the living fountains lead them,
Till fruitions perfect day.

Lo; it comes that day of wonder,
Louder chorals shake the skies,
Hades' gates are burst asunder,
See, the new clothed myriads rise;
Thought repress thy weak endeavor,
Here must reason prostrate fall;
O the ineffable "Forever"
And the eternal "Ald in ald".

On Monday the day before his departure as he was lying quiet,
ly, his ever watchful wife asked him "if he could think?": His re-
ply was most truly characteristic. "Not much" he said, and, then as
if turning from his best earthly friend to his great heavenly Friend,
he added. "Only to lie passive in Thy hands-I know no wild but thin"
This was his last Christian testimony on earth, and, now as we look
on that most placid countenance, even in death more beautiful, can we
doubt for one moment that he lies asleep in Jesus?

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And, so our father and friend, departed, with her last voice
and those last words lingering in his ears. So he went out into
the great invisible, one hour in the afternoon when the winter sun
field westerling, gilding the windows of his earthly habitation with
a symbolic light. So he went away to leave us lingering and
yearning on these earthly shores for such a space as may seem best
to God. Soon though to foldow him, as we trust, into the glad
reunion. And as he went at last, so swiftly ascending as in a
moment to the glorious upper realms, may we not have shouted, in the
cry of one of old, as the great prophet ascended into heaven,

"My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horses
thereof."

On whom shall his mantle fall. As the servants of God
shall finish their work on earth and are summoned home at last, there
must be among the children and youth of our times and of our country
a vocation of God, from which they may not turn away. Though the
workmen die the work of Christ can never perish. The places of
the mighty men who have borne up the standard of the cross so grand.
ly must be filled from the coming generations till all is consummated.
Elisha must succeed Eldjah in the stupendous labor of the world's
Redemption; and if to-day standing by the grave of this revered man
of God, this father in Israel, this patriarch of the tribe of Judah,
this eminent doctor of the law, this noble missionary of the cross,
some flame springing from his ashes might kindle the breast of a
young man or of many of the two sexes, with that ald consuming passion
for mankind's delverance, how gladly would he recognize from yonder
exaltation the truth of the divine testimony concerning the saints
of God. "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, yea saith the
Spirit from henceforth, for they rest from their labors and their
works to foldow them."

It will be to you and to all of us who knew him a startling
change that we can see him no more. But will not his memory be

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ever before us, wild not his life, his toil, his triumph ever remain
with us to realize in our own experience more and more the stability
of the Redeemer's kingdom among men, the strength of our faith and
the hope of eternal glory.

He has taught us lessons never to be forgotten. Henceforth we shall think of him as crowned and robed, for an everlasting ministry, a peer of apostles and martyrs, brother of the mightyfraternity of the Saints of whom,

"Part of the host have crossed the flood,
And part are crossing now."

And, now what remains but the final rites of sepulture-not to be
swaldowed, up of our own much sorrow, though indeed, it be a grief that
we shall see him among us here no more, but, rather with thanksgiving
to God, that we have known him so long, and so well, that he has been
so fondly dear to us on earth, that he has wrought out such miracles
of faith, that he has by God's help bestowed such benefits on the hu-
man race, that now as in a chariot of prophetic fire he has gone up
to the eternal reward, to the society of all the redeemed, and to the
ineffable presence of our Christ and God.

Fareweld father and friend, hero, chieftain, noble soul. With
hearts full of memories, with inspirations from thyself which put to
shame the gloomy and despairing, the cold and bitter scepticisms of
our times, looking forward to that wondrous day for which all other
days are made, once more, and again, we say a final fareweld. Wait for
us and watch for us. God help us at length to meet again all safe
on the other side. Amen.