Our Mr. Valiant
for Truth has crossed the river, and with all the trumpets sounding on the
other side, the thoughts of our hearts and their vocal expression are but an
echo of that approval that he has earned from our Lord, “Well done, good and
faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”
I am honored to
speak a word at his funeral, especially as relates to his service to the Church
at large through his ministry in our own Presbytery. Many who knew him before I
did, report the same feeling one sensed immediately in Dr. Stephens, the talent
and the spiritual quality that was the man. Long before I met him face-to-face,
I had heard from his friends and colleagues concerning the “stuff” that was in
him. He never failed; anything that he undertook he carried through to
conclusion. With the high quality of mental and spiritual achievement that were
his, he knew how to coin in proper phrase or resolution or friendly word, and
pass on, his own spirit. He was the embodiment of the law and the gospel; a
rare combination. Always, at the expense of himself, he served his Lord and the
Church.
He was the
leading personality in a relatively small denomination. In the beginning of the
century, all his efforts were bent in the direction of union of his Church (The
Cumberland Presbyterian) with the mother Church. He stood to lose everything,
and like those commended by our Lord, he threw away his life to find it in the
joy of a larger service. Having served as the State Clerk of his own
denomination he became a clerk in the larger group, and merged his own person
ad his own work enthusiastically in perfecting the Digest of our General
Assembly (having finished that of his own). To this he devoted days and months
of tedious and painstaking and (always with him) joyous labor, a service of
love.
We owe to him in
this Presbytery and to his colleague, Dr. Parr, a great debt for the spiritual
quality that they brought to us from the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. With
James H. Miller and James Clark, they brought into the U.S.A. church a great
heritage of spiritual and intellectual quality that had repudiated one hundred
years before some of the ultra strictness of the “second generation doctrines”
that were never inherited from John Calvin. They brought back not “something
new,” but something older than that which had become accepted tradition in
certain sections of the U.S.A. church.
His work as a
Stated Clerk in our Presbytery was a reflection of that larger and longer
service that he rendered to his denomination in earlier years. When he felt
himself slipping, on his own initiative he resigned (and possibly we were not
too wise in accepting that resignation.)
He never lost
the “spiritual glow” that comes from lasting and deep friendships. He carried
on (beyond his physical abilities at times) a correspondence which is unusual
as one grows older. You may remember your friends, but to include the younger
generations—that is genius; the genius of real friendship!
There are few
living today of his contemporaries and his “fellow soldiers” in other years. We
have heard him tell on occasion of how, as a boy, he carried the brunt of
family responsibility for his father who espoused the Union cause and went at
Lincoln’s first call, and who, years afterwards, came back, not recognized by
his own son when he met him at the gate.
It seems as one
reviews this wonderful life, that from the first to the last, in every
appointment, he has accepted it at the Hand of an always Beneficent Providence,
trusting and unafraid. John Stephens was the faithful servant of his Lord Jesus
Christ, who said, “It is better to minister than to be ministered unto.” Like
his Master, “first he wrought and afterwards he taught.” In all things he adorned
the doctrine of God, our Saviour.
This is not the
time to recount, except in our own hearts, the debt of gratitude that we feel
toward hi and toward God, in the gift of this life. Its blessing, its example,
his contagious spirit, his thoroughness in his work that shamed us in our
shabbiness; his deep purpose, his unfailing zeal, his enthusiasm, his words of
good will and encouragement, and his meticulous care in the performance of
every duty—for these we thank God.
We here echo,
“Well done, good and faithful servant,”—with all the trumpets sounding for him
on the other side!
Let us pray.
Almighty God our
Father, in whose hand our breath is and whose are all our ways, we acknowledge
Thy great goodness in this finished life. We desire to thank Thee for the
friend whom Thou has now called from our earthly fellowship and we rejoice in
the hope of immortality.
For this good
man who, like his Master, went about doing good, the law of kindness on his
tongue, we thank Thee. For his good counsel and brave testimony, for what he
was and what he did; the things that he said; the texture of his mind and
heart; the touch of his sympathy, his wise and ready help—for all we render our
thanksgiving.
O Thou Whose
best gifts come to us in human form, Whose love came to us incarnate in Christ,
we thank Thee for Thy servant, John Stephens, and we ask that we, in our day
and generation, may in some measure, in his spirit, adorn that same doctrine
and follow the same Christ.
To God’s gracious
mercy and protection we commit ourselves yet again, with the whole family of
God in Heaven and on earth: The Lord preserve our going out and our coming in from
this time forth and even forevermore. Amen.
Courtesy of The Jesse Halsey Manuscript
Collection, Princeton Theological Seminary
Libraries, Special Collections.
