A Voice from the Hartley Colliery

A Voice from the Hartley Colliery
A Sermon
(No. 432)
Delivered on Thursday Evening, January 30th, 1862, by
C. H. SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"If a man die, shall he live again?–Job 14:14.
ONCE MORE THE LORD has spoken. Once again the voice of Providence has
proclaimed "All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as
the flower of grass." O sword of the Lord, when wilt thou rest and be
quiet? Wherefore these repeated warnings? Why doth the Lord so
frequently and so terribly sound an alarm? Is it not because our drowsy
spirits will not awaken to the realities of death? We fondly persuade
ourselves that we are immortal, that though a thousand may fall at our
side, and ten thousand at our right hand, yet death shall not come nigh
unto us. We flatter ourselves that if we must die, yet the evil day is
far hence. If we be sixty, we presumptuously reckon upon another twenty
years of life; and the man of eighty, tottering upon his staff,
remembering that some few have survived to the close of a century, sees
no reason why he should not do the same. If man cannot kill death, he
tries at least to bury him alive; and since death will intrude himself
in man's pathway, we endeavor to shut our eyes to the ghastly object.
God in providence is continually filling our path with tombs. With
kings and princes there is too much forgetfulness of the world to come;
God has, therefore, spoken to them. They were but few in number; one
death might be sufficient in their case. That one death of a beloved
and illustrious prince will leave its mark on courts and palaces. As
for the workers, they also are wishful to put far from them the thought
of the coffin and the shroud: God has spoken to them also. There were
many; one death would not be sufficient; it was absolutely necessary
that there should be many victims, or we should have disregarded the
warning. Two hundred witnesses cry to us from the pit's mouth, a solemn
fellowship of preachers all using the same text, "Prepare to meet thy
God, O Israel!" If God had not thus spoken by the destruction of many,
we should have said, "Ah, it is a common occurrence; there are
frequently such accidents as these?" The rod would have failed in its
effect had it smitten less severely. The awful calamity at the Hartley
Colliery has at least had this effect, that men are talking of death in
all our streets. Oh! Father of thy people, send forth thy Holy Spirit
in richer abundance, that by this solemn chastisement higher ends may
be answered than merely attracting our thoughts to our latter end. Oh!
may hearts be broken, may eyes be made to weep for sin, may follies be
renounced, may Christ be accepted, and may spiritual life be given as
the result of temporal death to the many who now sleep in their
untimely graves in Earsdon churchyard.
This text is appropriate to the occasion, but God alone knoweth how
applicable the discourse may be to some here present; yes, to young
hearts little dreaming that there is but a step between them and death;
to aged persons, who as yet have not set their house in order, but who
must do it, for they shall die and not live. We will take the question
of the text, and answer it upon Scriptural grounds. "If a man die,
shall he live again?" NO!–YES!
I. We answer the question first with a "No." He shall not live again
here; he shall not again mingle with his fellows, and repeat the life
which death has brought to a close. This is true of him with regard to
himself, and equally true with regard to his neighbors. Shall he live
again for himself? No. Shall he live again for his household? No.
1. Dwell for a moment on the first thought. "If a man die, shall he
live again." Shall he live for himself. No; if he hath lived and died a
sinner, that sinful life of his shall never be repeated. Sinner, thou
mayest empty the cups of drunkenness in this world throughout a long
life, but thou shalt never have another season to spend in
intoxication! Thou who hast broken through all the bounds of morality,
thou mayest live in this life debauched, depraved, and devilish, but
death shall put an end to thy career of lust. Let the cup be sweet; it
is the last time thou shalt ever drink it. If there be any pleasures in
sin, thou shalt never taste them again. The sweets shall be over once
for all, and at the bottom thou shalt find the bitter dregs which shall
be gall for ever. Once thou shalt insult high heaven, but not twice.
Once shalt thou have space to blaspheme; once shalt thou have time
proudly to array thyself in self-righteousness; once shalt thou have
power to despise the Christ who is the Savior of men, but not twice.
The longsuffering of God shall wait for thee through thy life of
provocations; but thou shalt not be born again into this world; thou
shalt not a second time defile its air with blasphemies, nor blot its
beauties with impiety. Thou shalt not live again to forget the God who
hath daily loaded thee with mercies. Thou hast thy daily bread now; the
clothes that are on thy back shelter thee from the cold; thou goest to
thy house, and thou hast comforts and mercies there, but like the swine
which feed beneath the oak forgetful of the green bough which yields
the acorn, or like the brute which is content to eat the grass, but
never thanks the sun or the cloud which nourished the pasture, so thou
livest in this world, forgetful of the God who made thee, in whom thou
livest, and movest, and hast thy being. In this life thou art
unthankful but thou shalt have no further opportunity for this
ingratitude. All thy candles shall go out in eternal darkness. There
shall be no more dainty meals for thee; no more joyous holidays, no
more quiet slumbers. Every mercy shall be taken from thee. That which
makes life desirable shall be removed if thou diest impenitent, till
thou shalt hate thine existence and count it thy highest blessing if
thou couldst cease to be. Thou shalt not live again, I say, to treat
thy God worse than the ox treateth its owner. The ass knoweth his
master's crib, but thou knowest not, though thou shalt know, for this
is the last season in which thou shalt play the brute. My dear hearers,
many of you have something more than the common mercies of God, you
have his Word, Sabbath after Sabbath, preached in your ears. I may say
truthfully concerning you who attend this house of prayer, that you
hear one who, when he fails for want of power, fails not for want of
will to do you good; one who has not shunned to warn you, and to preach
in all simplicity the whole counsel of God, so far as he has been
taught it by the Holy Spirit. If you die you shall not live again to
stifle the voice of your conscience, and to quench the Spirit of God.
You shall have no more Sabbaths to mis-spend when this life is over.
There shall be no church bells for you, after your knell is tolled. No
affectionate voice shall beseech you in Christ's stead to be reconciled
to God. No warning hand shall point you to the cross; no loving lip
shall cry, "This is the way; walk ye in it." Ye have your last warnings
now sinners; if ye reject them ye shall have no more. Ye hear in this
life your last invitations; despise them, and the door shall be shut in
your face for ever. Christ is lifted up before your eyes, look to him
now and live; refuse him, and there remaineth no more sacrifice for
sin, and no other life in which you may lay hold of him.
Fix'd is their everlasting state,
Could man repent, 'tis then too late;
Justice has closed mercy's door,
And God's longsuffering is no more.
Here you may have a mother to weep for you; a wife to pray for you,
friends who will counsel you; the blessings of a Christian country, an
open Bible, and a house of prayer, but it is your last time. Now or
never; now or never. Lost in time; lost in eternity; saved now, saved
for ever. Sinner, it is thy last turn. Will thou choose to be damned?
Then damned thou art without hope! May God save thee now, and saved
thou art beyond fear of perishing. But it is thy last, thine only
opportunity. Where the tree falleth there it must lie for ever.
"Return, O wanderer to thy home,
'Tis madness to delay;
There are no pardons in the tomb,
And brief is mercy's day.
Return! Return!"
Solemnly let us say it, awful as it appears, it is well that the sinner
should not live again in this world. "Oh!" you will say, when you are
dying, "if I could but live again, I would not sin as I once did." When
you are in the pit of hell, perhaps your pride will lead you to imagine
that if you could come back to earth again you would be another man.
Ah! but you would not be so! Unless you had a new heart and a right
spirit, if you could live again, you would live as you did before. Keep
the fountain unchanged, and the same streams will flow. Let the cause
remain, and the same effects will follow. If the lost spirits could
escape from hell, they would sin as they did before; if they could
again listen to the gospel they would again reject it, for he that is
filthy will be filthy still; the flames of hell shall work no change in
character; for they have no sanctifying influence; they punish, but
they do not cleanse. Sinners, it is well that you will not live again,
for if you did you would but increase your condemnation. There would be
two lives of sin, of rejection of Christ, of unbelief, and, if it were
possible, hell would then be less tolerable for you than it shall be
now. Oh! my poor dying hearers, by the corpses in the dark smothering
gas of Hartley Pit, I pray you be awakened, for your death-hour is
hastening on, and you have but to-day in which to find a Savior.
"Sinner beware.–the axe of death,
Is raised and aimed at thee:
Awhile thy Maker spares thy breath,
Beware, O barren tree."
Every time you hear your clock tick, let it say to you, "Now or never,
NOW OR NEVER, NOW OR NEVER."
In the case of the child of God, it is the same, so far as he himself
is concerned, when he dies he shall not live again. No more shall he
bitterly repent of sin; no more lament the plague of his own heart, and
tremble under a sense of deserved wrath. No more shall the godly pitman
suffer for righteousness' sake, despising the sneer of his comrades.
The battle is once fought: it is not to be repeated. If God hath safely
guided the ship across the sea and brought it to its desired haven, it
casteth anchor for ever, and goeth not out a second time into the
storm. Like those earnest Methodist miners, we have one life of
usefulness, of service, of affliction, of temptation; one life in which
to glorify God on earth in blessing our fellow-men; one life in which
faith may be tried and love made perfect; one life in which we may
prove the faithfulness of God in providence; and one life in which we
may see Christ triumphant over sin in our mortal bodies, but we shall
not return to the scene of conflict.
Brethren is it not a mercy for you and for me if we be in Christ, that
our furnace is not to be re-lit? Oh, brethren, it were unkind for us to
wish back the dead! Ah, when we think of those brethren, those men of
God, who in the pit held prayer meeting when they knew that the fatal
gas would soon take away their lives; though we look at their weeping
widows and their sorrowing children, it were wrong to wish them back
again. What would any of us who fear God think, if we were once in
heaven? Would not the very suggestion of return, though it were to the
most faithful spouse and best-beloved children, be a cruelty? What,
bring back again to battle the victor who wears the crown! Drag back to
the storm and the tempest, the mariner who has gained the strand! What,
bring me back again to pain and sorrow, to temptation, and to sin? No.
Blessed be thou, O God, that all the wishes of friends shall not
accomplish this, for we shall be
"Far from this world of grief and sin,
With God, eternally shut in."
This world is not so lovely as to tempt us away from heaven. Here we
are strangers and foreigners; here we have no abiding city; but we seek
one to come. There is one wilderness, but we bless God there are not
two. There is one Jordan to be crossed, but there is not another. There
is one season when we must walk by faith and not by sight, and be fed
with manna from heaven; but blessed be God there is not another, for
after that comes the Canaan–the rest which remaineth for the people of
God. What man among ye, immersed in the cares of business, would desire
two lives? Who, that is tired to-day with the world's noise, and vexed
with its temptations; who that has come from a bed of sickness; who
that is conscious of sin, would wish to leave the haven when once it is
reached? As well might galley-slave long to return to his oar, or
captive to his dungeon? No, blessed be God, the souls which have
ascended from the colliery to glow are not to leave their starry
spheres, but rest in Christ for ever.
2. But now we pass to the other thought under this first head. If a man
die, shall he live again?" Shall he live for others? No. The sinner
shall not live to do damage to others. If there were any fathers who
perished in the pit who had neglected the training of their children,
they cannot live again to educate them for Christ. If there were any
there (we hope there were not, and there is a hopeful sign, for I am
told that there was not a single public-house within a mile of the
village), but if there were there any who by their ill example taught
others to sin, they shall never do it again. If there were any there
who led others astray, by bold speeches against God, they have done
once for all their life's-mischiefs. And so with each of us to-night.
Do I speak to one here who is living a useless life; a tree planted in
rich soil but bearing no fruit; a creature made by God but rendering
him no service? Do I not speak to some such to-night? I know I do. You
cannot be charged with outward vice, or with positive irregularity of
conduct, but still it may be said of you, "I was an hungred and ye gave
me no meat; I was thirsty and ye gave me no drink; naked and ye clothed
me not; sick and in prison and ye visited me not." Ye have not done it
unto one of the least of these his brethren, and ye have not done it
unto Christ. It is not necessary to do anything in order to be lost.
The way to perdition is very simple; it is only a little matter of
neglect. "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation." Well,
sinner, this is the last life of negligence that you shall ever spend;
the very last season when you shall turn upon your heel and say, "Ha!
ha! there is nothing in it!" The last time in which you shall put off
the messenger by saying, "When I have a more convenient season I will
send for thee." The neglect of our own souls is a most solemn mischief
to others. When others see that we neglect, they take courage and
neglect too.
"One sickly sheep infests the flock,
And poisons all the rest."
But there are others whose example is bad. What sorrow it is to notice
men who carry the infection of sin wherever they go about them. In some
of our villages, and especially in our towns, we have men who are
reeking dung-hills of corruption. To put them by the side of a youth
for an hour would be almost as dangerous as to make that youth walk
through Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace. Men who, as Saul breathed out
threatenings, breathe out lasciviousness. Ah! do I speak to such a
wretch? It is thy last rebellion–thy last revolt. Thou shalt never do
this again. Never again shalt thou lead others down to hell, and drag
them to the pit with thee. Remember that. And some there be who not
only by example, but by overt teaching drive others astray. We have
still, in this enlightened Christian land, wretches who boast the name
of "infidel lecturer;" whose business it is to pervert men's minds by
hard speeches against the majesty of heaven. Let them labor hard if
they mean to subvert Jehovah's throne, for they have little time to do
it in. Well may the enemies of the Lord of Hosts be desperately in
earnest, for they have an awful work to do, and if they consider the
puny strength with which they go forth to battle against the Judge of
all the earth, and the brevity of the time that can be given to the
struggle, well may they work and toil. This is their only time their
sure damnation draweth nigh. Hushed shall be their high words; cold
shall be their hot and furious hearts. God shall crush them in his
anger, and destroy them in his hot displeasure. If a man die, he shall
not live again to scatter hemlock seed, and sow sin in furrows. I do
not know what your life is my friend. You have stepped in here
to-night; it is not often you are in a place of worship, but listen
now. You know that to your family you are sometimes a terror, and
always an ill example. Ah, you are a co-worker with Satan now, but God
shall put you where you shall do no more hurt to that fair child of
yours; where you shall not teach your boy to drink; where you shall not
instil into your daughter's mind unholy thoughts. The time shall come,
masters, when you shall be taken away from those men who imitate you in
your evil ways. The time shall be over with you working-man yonder, you
shall not much longer jeer at the righteous, and sneer at the godly.
You will find it hard work to laugh at the saints when you get into
hell. You will find when God comes to deal with you, and your life is
over, that it will be utterly impossible for you then to call them
fools, for you will be thinking yourself the greatest fool that ever
was, that you did not, like them, seek first the kingdom of God and his
righteousness. Well, jeer and joke, and point the finger, and slander,
and persecute as you may; it is the last time, and you shall never have
another opportunity to mock the saints. O remember, it were better for
you that a mill-stone were about your neck, and that you were cast into
the depths of the sea than that you should thus offend Christ's little
ones. Well, I think we may say it is a great mercy that the sinner
shall not live again in this sense. What, bring him back again–that
old drunkard of the village tap-room, restore him to life? No, no; good
men breathed more freely when he was gone. What, bring back that vile
old blasphemer who used to curse God? No, no; he vexed the righteous
long enough; let him abide in his place. What, bring back that lewd,
lascivious wretch to seduce others and lead them astray? What, bring
back that thief to train others to his evil deeds? Bring back that
self-righteous man who was always speaking against the gospel, and
striving to prejudice other men's minds against gospel light? No, no.
With all our love of one man, the love of many is stronger still, and
we could not wish for the temporary and seeming good of one, to permit
him to go raging, among others. Natural benevolence might suggest even
the loosing of a lion as a creature, but a greater benevolence says,
"No, let him be chained, or he will rend others." We might not wish to
crush even a serpent. Let it live, it has its own sphere and its own
enjoyment. But if the serpent creep among men, where it can bite and
infuse its poison into human veins, let it die. Without compunction we
say it,–"It were better that one man should die for the nation, that
the whole nation perish not." If a man die then, as far as others are
concerned, he shall not live again to curse his kind.
And now, me remind you that it is the same with the saint, "If a man
die, shall he live again?" No. This is our season to pray for our
fellow-men, and it is a season which shall never return. Mother, you
shall never come back to pray for your daughters and your sons again!
Ministers, this is your time to preach. We shall never have an
opportunity of being God's ambassadors anymore. Oh! when I sometimes
think of this, I am ashamed that I can preach with dry eyes, and that
sobs do not choke my utterance. Methinks if I were lying upon my dying
bed, I might often say, "O Lord, would that I could preach again, and
once more warn poor souls." I think Baxter says he never came out of
his pulpit without sighing, because he had played his part so ill, and
yet who ever preached more earnestly than he? And so, at times when we
have felt the weight of souls, yet in looking back, we have thought we
did not feel it as we should; and when we have stood by the corpse of
one of our own hearers, we have had the reflection, "Would that I could
have talked more personally, and spoken more earnestly, to this man!" I
often feel that if God should ever permit me to say I am clear of the
blood of you all, it is about as much as I can ever hope to have, for
that must be heaven to a man, to feel that God has delivered him out of
his ministry, it is such an awful thing to be responsible before God
for the souls of men. "If the watchman warn them not, they shall
perish, but their blood will I require at the watchman's hands." And
so, remember, it is with each one of you. Now is your time to rescue
the fallen, to teach the ignorant, to carry the lambs in your bosom, or
to restore the wandering; now is your season for liberality to the
Church, for care of the poor, for consecration to Christ's service, and
for devotion to his cause. If there could be sorrow among the spirits
that are crowding around the throne of Christ, methinks it would be
this, that they had not labored more abundantly, and were not more
instant in season and out of season in doing good. If those godly
pitmen over whom we mourn tonight, had not done their utmost while they
were here, the deficiency could never be made up. Let me commend to you
the example of some of those who were in the pit, praying and exhorting
their fellow men just as they were all in the last article of death.
They were Primitive Methodists. Let their names clothe Primitive
Methodism with eternal honor! I conceive that in employing poor
unlettered men to preach, the plan of the Primitive Methodists is New
Testament and Scriptural policy. Such methods of usefulness we have
endeavored to pursue, and hope to do so yet more fully. The Primitive
Methodists think that a man may preach who never went to college; that
a man may preach to his fellow-miners even though he cannot speak
grammatically; and hence they do not excite their ministers to labor
after literary attainments, but after the souls of men; and the local
preachers are chosen solely and wholly for their power to speak from
the heart, and to make their fellow-men feel. We should have done more
for London if we had not been so squeamish. Real Primitive Methodism we
have seen in London, in the person of Mr. Richard Weaver; and if you
would put a score of the ministers who have preached in the theatres
altogether, they would not have made one such a man as Richard Weaver,
for real effect upon the masses. And yet what teaching had he, and what
wisdom? None, but that he feels the power of God in his own soul, and
speaks out of his heart, roughly and rudely, but still mightily to
others. We want all our Churches to feel that they must not say, "Who
is John So-and-so? He is only a cobbler; he must not preach. What is
Tom So-and-so? He is only a carpenter; why should he preach?" Ah, these
are the men who shook the world; these are the men whom God used to
destroy old Rome. With all our gettings, while we seek to get education
in the ministry, we must take care that we do not despise those things
that are not, which God shall make mightier than the things that are:
and those base things which God hath chosen to stain the pride of human
glorying, and to bring into contempt all the excellent of the earth. I
know that I address some working men here. Working men, oh, that you
knew Christ in your own hearts as they did in the Hartley pit! You see
they had no preacher down there. Do not get the notion that you want a
minister in order to come to Christ. Priestcraft is a thing we hate,
and as you hate it too, we are quite one in that opinion. I preach the
Word, but what am I more than you? If you can preach to edification, I
pray you do so. Your poor brethren in the pit, though not set apart to
that work, were yet as true priests unto the living God, and ministers
for Christ, as any of us. So be you. Hasten to work while it is called
to-day; gird up your loins and run the heavenly race for the sun is
setting never to rise again upon this land.
II. "If a man die shall he live again?" Yes, yes, that he shall. He
does not die like a dog; he shall live again; not here, but in another
and a better or a more terrible land. The soul, we know, never dies,
but when it leaves the clay it mounts to sing with angels or descends
to howl with fiends. The body itself shall live again. The corpses in
the pit were some of them swollen with foul air; some of them could
scarcely be recognized, but as the seed corn has not lost its vitality,
shrivelled though it be, neither have those bodies. They are now sown,
and they shall spring up either to bear the image of condemnation, or
of immortality and life. Scattered to the winds of heaven, devoured of
beasts, mixed with other substances and other bodies, yet every atom of
the human body has been tracked by the eye of omniscience, and shall be
gathered to its proper place by the hand of omnipotence. The Lord
knoweth every particle of the bodies of them that are his. All men,
whether they be righteous or wicked, shall certainly live again in the
body, "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
This much cometh to all men through Christ, that all men have a
resurrection. But more than that. They shall all live again in the
eternal state; either for ever glorified with God in Christ, blessed
with the holy angels, for ever shut in from all danger and alarm; or in
that place appointed for banished spirits who have shut themselves out
from God, and now find that God has shut them out from him. They shall
live again, in weal or woe, in bliss or bane, in heaven or in hell. Now
ye that are unconverted, think of this I pray you for a moment. Ye
shall live again; let no one tempt you to believe the contrary.
Whatever they shall say, and however speciously they may put it, mark
this word–you shall not rot in the tomb for ever; there shall not be
an end of you when they shall say "Earth to earth, dust to dust, and
ashes to ashes." Ye shall live again. And hark thee, sinner; let me
hold thee by the hand a moment; thy sins shall live again. They are not
dead. Thou hast forgotten them, but God has not. Thou hast covered them
over with the thick darkness of forgetfulness, but they are in his
book, and the day shall come when all the sins that thou hast done
shall be read before the universe and published in the light of day.
What sayest thou to this, sinner? The sins of thy youth, thy secret
sins–oh! man, let that thought pierce through thee like a point of
steel, and cut thee to the very quick–thy sins shall live again. And
thy conscience shall live. It is not often alive now. It is quiet,
almost as quiet as the dead in the grave. But it shall soon awaken, the
trumpet of the archangel shall break its long sleep; depend on that;
the terrors of hell shall make thee lift up thine eyes which have so
long been heavy with slumber. You have had an awakened conscience, but
then you are still in the land of hope, you will find however that an
awakened conscience when there is no Christ to flee to is an awful
thing. Remorse of conscience has brought many a man to the knife and to
the halter. Ah, careless sinner, you dare not to-night sit up an hour
alone and think over the past and the future; you know you dare not.
But there will be no avoiding conscience hereafter, it speaks now, but
it will thunder then; it whispers now, and you may shut your ears, but
its thunder-claps then shall so startle you that you cannot refuse to
listen. Oh! transgressor, thy conscience shall live again, and shall be
thy perpetual tormentor. Remember that your victims shall live again.
Am I addressing any who have enticed companions into sin, and conducted
friends to destruction? Your dupes shall meet you in another world and
charge their ruin upon you. That young lad whom you led astray from the
path of virtue shall point to you in hell and say, "He was my tempter."
That woman–let us cover up that deed,–bright eyes shall sparkle upon
you through the black darkness like the eyes of serpents, and you shall
hear the hissing voice, "Thou didst bring me here," and you shall feel
another hell in the hell of that other soul. Oh! God, save us, let the
sins of our youth be covered. Oh, save us! Let the blood of Jesus be
sprinkled on our conscience, for, there are none of us that dare meet
our conscience alone! Shelter us, thou Rock of Ages. Deliver us from
blood-guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation. Sinner, remember thy
God shall live. Thou thinkest him nothing now; thou shalt see him then.
Thy business now stops the way; the smoke of time dims thy vision; the
rough blasts of death shall blow all this away, and thou shalt see
clearly revealed to thyself the frowning visage of an angry God. A God
in arms, sinner, a God in arms, and no scabbard for his sword; a God in
arms, and no shelter for thy soul; a God in arms, and even rocks
refusing to cover thee; a God in arms, and the hollow depths of earth
denying thee a refuge! Fly, soul! while it is yet time: fly, the cleft
in the rock is open now. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou
shalt be saved." "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he
that believeth not shall be damned." Fly, sinner, to the open arms of
Jesus! Fly! for he casteth out none that come to him.
And then, lastly, as this is true of the sinner, so it is true of the
saint. He shall live again. If in this life only we had hope, we were
of all men the most miserable. If we knew that we must die and not live
for ever, our brightest joys would be quenched; and in proportion to
the joy we lost would be the sorrow which followed. We shall live
again. Godly wife, thy Christian husband, though he perished by the
fatal "damp," shall live again, and thou shalt sit with him before the
eternal throne. He finished his life with prayer amid his comrades, he
shall begin anew with praise amid the cherubim. Widow, bereaven of thy
many children, thou hast lost them all; not lost we hope, but gone
before. Oh! there shall be joy when every link that was snapped shall
be re-fitted; when again the circle shall be completed, and all losses
restored.
"Far, far removed from fear and pain,
Dear brethren we shall meet again."
That sweet hymn of the children is a blessed one after all–
"We shall meet to part no more."
Death, thou canst not rob us, thou canst not tear away a limb from
Jesu's body! Thou canst not take away a single stone from the spiritual
temple. Thou dost but transplant the flower, O death! thou dost not
kill it. Thou dost but uproot it from the land of frost to flourish in
the summer's clime; thou dost but take it from the place where it can
only bud, to the place where it shall be full blown. Blessed be God for
death, sweet friend of regenerated man! Blessed be God for the grave,
safe wardrobe for these poor dusty garments till we put them on afresh
glowing with angelic glory. Thrice blessed be God for resurrection, for
immortality, and for the joy that shall be revealed in us. Brethren, my
soul anticipates that day; let yours do the same. One gentle sigh and
we fall asleep; perhaps we die as easily as those did in the colliery;
we sleep into heaven, and wake up in Christ's likeness. When we have
slept our last on earth, and open our eyes in heaven, oh! what a
surprise! No aching arm, no darkness of the mine, no chokedarnp, no
labor and no sweat, no sin, no stain there! Brethren, is not that verse
near the fact which says,
"We'll sing with rapture and surprise,
His loving kindness in the skies?
Shall we not be surprised to find ourselves in heaven? What a new place
for the poor sinner. From the coal mine to celestial spheres. From
black and dusty toil to bright and heavenly bliss. Above ground once
for all, ay and above the skies too. Oh! long-expected day begin! When
shall it come? Hasten it, Lord.
Come death and some celestial hand,
To bear our souls away!"
I have thus tried to bring forward the text. Oh that the Lord, in whose
name I desire to speak, may bless it to some among you. I have now to
ask you kindly to think of those who are suffering through this
terrible calamity. More than four hundred widows and orphans are left
bereaved and penniless, for the working-man has little spare cash to
provide for such contingencies. As a congregation we can do but little
to alleviate so great a sorrow, let us, however, bear our part with
others. I have no doubt the wealthier ones among you have already
contributed in your different connexions, either through the Lord
Mayor, or Mark Lane, or the Coal Market, or the Stock Exchange, or in
some other way, but there are many of you who have not done so, and
those who have may like an opportunity of doing so again. Let us do
what we can to-night, that we may show our gratitude to God for having
spared our lives; and as we drop our money into the box, let us offer a
prayer that this solemn affliction may be blessed to all in the land,
and that so Christ may be glorified.
The preacher desires to bear testimony to the hearty sympathy which led
his audience, on a cold wet evening to assemble in considerable
numbers, and which opened up their hearts to subscribe £120 for the
bereaved. May the Lord bind up the bleeding hearts!
* This sermon was preached to commemorate the Hartley Mining Disaster
of 16 January 1862–exactly two weeks prior to the preaching of this
message. In one of the most horrific mining disasters ever, 204 men and
boys lost their lives when part of a giant cast iron beam (more than 20
tons of it) broke off the massive pumping engine and launched itself
down the shaft, blocking the only exit and trapping more than 200 men
in the vast underground coal pit. Although the remaining men of the
town and hundreds from nearby communities laboured for days to try to
open up a means of rescue, most of the men trapped in the pit probably
succumbed to noxious gasses within 36 hours. At the time Spurgeon
preached this message, bodies of the victims were still being
recovered, and England was just coming to grips with the magnitude of
the disaster. Pictures of a memorial erected near the disaster site may
be viewed on the Web.