FLAXMAN
FLECK
FLEMING/FLEMMING
FLETCHER
FLOCK
FLAXMAN o@ca.on.muskoka_district.huntsville_forester 1898-11-25 published
FLAXMAN
{?} Mrs
Louisa page 3
indexed 1998 at
Huntsville Public Library
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FLECK o@ca.on.wellington_county.arthur.mount_forest 1897 published
d@france.metz 1897
FLECK
Father
Reverend died 1897
contact OGS Wellington County Branch for newspaper reference
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FLEMING/FLEMMING o@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.daily_free_press 1898-03-24 published
A Clergyman's Funeral
The▼
Remains▼ of Reverend Dr.
SANDERSON
Interred▼ in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery
A Public Service was held in the First Methodist Church Where
Many Clergymen and Others Assembled to Pay Their Last Tribute
of Respect -- Eminent Divines Speak of the Work of the Deceased
Many Floral Tributes -- Relatives Present from Distant Places
The▼ remains of the late Reverend George R.
SANDERSON, D.D., were
interred in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery at 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon.
At 2 o'clock a private service was held at the family residence
on Wolfe street, Reverend George
JACKSON,
Chairman▼ of the London
District▼ officiating, and Reverend Dr.
DANIEL,
Reverend▼ J.G.
SCOTT, of
Guelph; Reverend James
KENNEDY, Reverend A.G.
HARRIS and Reverend E.B.
LANCELEY,
of this city, assisting. The public service was held at the First
Methodist▼
Church▼ at 3 o'clock, Reverend Stephen
BOND, of Seaforth,
President of the London Conference in charge.
The attendance at the funeral included many old and warm Friends
of the deceased, among them being a number of clergymen from
distant points. The relatives were -- Reverend Fred. H.
SANDERSON,
Omaha Neb., son of deceased; George R.
SANDERSON, Des Moines,
Ia.,▼ son; and Mr. and Mrs. Atwell
FLEMING/FLEMMING,
Toronto,▼ son-in-law
and daughter respectively of deceased.
Mrs. HOWELL, the eldest daughter of the late clergyman, of Des
Moines, was unable to reach London in time for the funeral. There
were two sets of pall-bearers -- an active set, composed of laymen,
and an honorary set, composed of clergymen, as follows: -- Laymen
Messers. George
ROBINSON, R.J.C.
DAWSON,
John▼
GREEN, Thomas
McCORMICK,
Samuel▼
McBRIDE and Sam W.
ABBOTT. Clergymen -- Rev.
Dr. HENDERSON, Berlin; Reverend Dr.
PARKER, Toronto; Reverend Dr.
GRIFFIN,
Toronto; Chancellor
BURWASH, Victoria University, Toronto; Dr.
James HANNON, Stratford; and Reverend E.
HOLMES representing the
London Conference.
Among▼ the clergymen in attendance were Chancellor
BURWASH, of
Victoria University, Toronto; Dr.
BURNS, of Hamilton; Dr.
GRIFFIN,
Toronto, treasurer of the superannuation fund, and an acquaintance
of Dr. SANDERSON for half a century and an intimate friend for
forty years; Reverend Dean
INNES and Reverend Robert
JOHNSTON, representing
the Western Ontario Bible Society, the former in the place of
His Lordship the Bishop of Huron, who was unable to attend; Dr.
W.R. PARKER, Toronto; Mr.
WOODSWORTH, Woodstock; Dr. J.V.
SMITH,
Hamilton; Dr.
HANNON,
Stratford;▼ J.E.
HOLMES, Mount [...]; W.G.H.
McALLASTER, Watford; John
HENDERSON, Shedden; R.
REDMOND, of
Dorchester; T.W.J.
BLATCHFORD and [...] Lambeth; R.J.
GARLAND,
Birc[...]; W.W.
SHEPPARD, [...] Dr.
HENDERSON,
Berlin;▼ J.W.
HOLMES,
Mitchell; George
RICHARDSON,
Ingersoll;▼
Jasper▼
WILSON, Strathroy
John LEARDYD, St. Mary's; W.
RIPLEY, Blyth; J.W.
PEDLEY, R.
HOBBS,
A.G. HARRIS, Bill
MIDDLETON , Dr. Daniel E.B.
LANCELEY, G.B.
SAGE,
W.J. CLARK, Canon
RICHARDSON, J.H.
MOORHOUSE, A.L.
RUSSELL, W.J.
FORD,
George▼
JACKSON, Canon
SMITH, J.H.
ORME, city; and Rev.
B. CLEMENT,
Clinton.▼
The service at the church was very impressive, a large congregation
assembling to pay a last tribute of respect to one who for sixty
years had been a faithful worker in the cause of Methodism in
Canada.▼ As the casket was carried up the aisle, Mr. J.T.
WALCOTT,
played Beethoven's funeral march, and when the congregation was
seated, a quartette, composed of Messers. W.T.
STENBERG and George
HAYES, and Mrs.
HARVEY and Miss Inez
SMITH, sang Ogden's beautiful
composition, "Gathering Home." The congregation sang "Oh God,
Our Help in Ages Past," and "Almighty Maker of My Frame," and
Rev. Dr. PARKER of Toronto, read appropriate passages of Scripture
from John 14 and
I.▼
Corinthians▼ 15. Dean
INNES was the first
speaker called upon, and he read a copy of a resolution adopted
at a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Western Ontario
Bible Society, held on Tuesday afternoon. The resolution was
as follows: --
"Resolved, that the Board of the Western Ontario Bible Society
place on record their deep sense of loss in the death of the
late Reverend George R.
SANDERSON, D.D., senior vice-president of
the society. During many years the deceased had taken a most
active part in the work of the society. No object was dearer
to his heart than the circulation of the Bible throughout every
part of the inhabitable globe. While they grieve over the loss
of a beloved colleague, they rejoice in his long and useful Christian
life, and in the progress he was permitted in his more than fourscore
years to witness in the Christian development of Canada, the
conquering march of worldwide missions, and the almost universal
diffusion of the Holy Scriptures. The directors with pleasure
recall the fact that the year 1897 was taken advantage of by
the society to present their late associate with a jubilee copy
of the Bible, as an appropriate mark of their affectionate regard.
"And further resolved, that the President of the Western Ontario
Bible▼
Society,▼ the Bishop of Huron, and Reverend Robt.
JOHNSTON be
requested to represent the society at the funeral."
Dean INNES said he could add nothing as to the high estimation
in which the deceased brother was held.
Rev. Robt.
JOHNSTON, the second representative of the Bible Society,
said his acquaintance with the Reverend Dr.
SANDERSON was brief.
"I knew him as one who loved the Bible," continued the speaker,
"because he knew it, because he found it a source of comfort
and strength in all times. His sympathies were broader than any
one denomination. His heart was too great to be limited by any
one denominational line. He loved all churches, and above all
that work which he found so pleasant -- the spreading of the
Gospel throughout the world. He had the joy of seeing the almost
universal spread of the Bible and the translation of it into
nearly all tongues. When he commenced his ministry only a very
small portion of that work was accomplished, but during his many
years his sympathies were with the society, and during the last
few years in particular he proved a source of great strength.
He seemed to devote himself more earnestly than ever to the society
during the last four or five years. No member was more regular
in his attendance, and the directors feel that they have lost
one whose sympathies they were always sure of, and whose heart
was so much in the cause. Earth is the poorer by his removal,
but heaven is richer."
Chancellor
BURWASH, of Victoria University, paid an eloquent
tribute to the departed. "There is something very impressive,"
he said, "in the thought of a long life such as that which has
just closed, stretching over fourscore years and being a personal
witness of so many wonderful things in the world's history, in
the history of the country, and in the history of our church.
Sixty-two years ago, when our college was opened at Coburg, George
R. SANDERSON,
Stephen▼
MILES and James
SPENCER were among the
first students whom Dr.
RITCHIE met as Principal of the college.
In beginning his work there, Dr.
SANDERSON was a lad of twenty
years, just in the beginning of his religious life, and he took
to preparing himself for the life of usefulness to which God
had called him, and which stretched out so far into the coming
years -- much further than he could know. The necessities of
work then were so pressing and there were so few young men to
occupy the fields opening up on every hand, that after the brief
year of college life, Dr.
SANDERSON was taken, according to the
custom of the day, and sent out in connection with the other
two men I have just mentioned to commence his work as an itinerant
in the ministry. That was two years before I was born. My first
acquaintance with him was in 1851, when after service as editor
of the Christian Guardian for four years, he was appointed to
the college station at Coburg. In the following year under that
pastorate the blessed light of divine love and mercy came to
my own soul, and in the next year his labors in Coburg were crowned
with the greatest and most wonderful success. In company with
Rev. Dr. CARMAN, the general superintendent, Reverend Dr.
RYCKMAN,
well-known in this as well as other conferences, who has filled
out so long and honored a ministry, and nearly 100 other college
students I was received into the Methodist Church and then I
received my first ticket signed with the name of George R.
SANDERSON.
That ticket I preserve to this day, as a memento of one of those
points in human life which the man who has felt the power of
divine love cannot think of without emotion. For forty years
the doctor was a member of the Board of Regents of our college,
and I think no other man was as long and intimately an occupant
of that position as he. For many years he was the secretary,
and took an active part in the efforts and struggles connected
with the college's progress in those years. But perhaps the most
characteristic thing I can remember was that wonderful success
in [...] during his ministry -- not only at Coburg and amongst
the young [...] were far from being amenable, but in Port Hope,
in Belleville, in Picton, and other places I have very distinct
recollections of the great number gathered into the church and
saved as a result of his proclamation of the gospel. A long life
of this kind witnesses: wonderful changes. Dr.
SANDERSON entered
the world when Methodism was small, when the numbers in church
membership were counted by the few thousands, and when the entire
following did not amount to more than fifty thousand in this
country. Now when he passes away, the membership is numbered
by the hundreds of thousands, by more than a quarter of a million.
He passes away from a people whose churches stand every-[...]
and the Pacific; he passes away, having witnesses: a growth of
and extension of the Church of God that was beyond the hope of
any person when he commenced. Nearly all upon whose faces I look
were boys when he was grown and busy in the work, and upon us
rests a responsibility such as we may well remember and pray
for grace that we may discharge it as well as he who has gone."
Rev. Dr. BURNS of Hamilton; spoke as one of the boys referred
to by Chancellor
BURWASH, although his head was whiter. His earliest
recollections of the Methodist Church were associated with Dr.
SANDERSON. "He was one of the first preachers I knew," said Dr.
BURNS, "and I am glad he was, for I do not think any young man
could get a false impression of Christianity from him. He always
had a pleasant smile and a grip of the hand for the boys in the
fifties. I will never forget him." Dr.
BURNS could bring up nothing
of an unpleasant character in his long recollections of Dr.
SANDERSON,
who was a child of God and as broad as the Church of Christ.
It was a blessed thing to have an intimate acquaintance with
such a man as Dr.
SANDERSON.
The▼ whole family of God suffered
a loss by his departure.
Rev. Dr. GRIFFIN, of Toronto, whose acquaintance with Dr.
SANDERSON
extended over a larger number of years and was more intimate
than that of any other clergyman present, was the last speaker,
and when he was called upon he said he thought in coming to the
funeral he would be dealt with as relative, almost as one of
the family; that he would sit silently and listen to whatever
might be said relative to the character and the history of his
dear old friend. Dr,
GRIFFIN thought he was about the last of
that great army -- not great in numbers -- that regiment of grand
old men which did so much for the country and so much for the
church. He was associated with Dr.
RYERSON,
Wm.▼
RYERSON, Edgar
RYERSON, James
ELLIOT/ELLIOTT, Dr.
RICE, Dr.
NELLES, Richard
JONES, and
he was a man as worthy to carry any titles the church might give
as any of those who received them. It was a great number of these
excellent men -- Henry Wilkinson, Lewis Warner and others whose
names would occur to the elder members of the congregation --
with whom Dr.
SANDERSON was associated, who laid the foundations
of the church so deep and broad through the length and breath
of the Dominion. These were an extraordinary class of men, and
those who succeeded them could only try to be as good, for they
would make a mistake if they tried to be as great. Those men,
Dr. GRIFFIN felt assured, were endowed with extraordinary gifts
for the extraordinary times in which they labored and lived.
He believed that a man's heart and soul should be larger than
his creed, and he believed that Dr.
SANDERSON's was. He thought
nevertheless, that Dr.
SANDERSON's was thoroughly and intensely,
and always Methodist. He did not lose sight at all of events
in his own denomination, nor have any less regard for his own
church. Ne was a Methodist. He believed in Methodist doctrines
he believed in the Methodist discipline, and he did as much as
any other man to make them. The church was indebted first to
John Ryerson more than to any other man, perhaps, for framing
the book of discipline, but in its remodelling in many particulars
could be seen the impress of the hand of Dr.
SANDERSON. He
(Dr.▼
SANDERSON) loved the itineracy, as he believed it was essential,
and that it was a system with which the church would not part.
The church had grown to be the strongest in the Dominion, and
it was owing to the itineracy as much as to any other part of
the government of the church. Dr.
SANDERSON was a preacher whose
voice never failed, but up to the last was full, round and strong.
He hated the modern methods called "sensational preaching," for
he had a conservative nature, and was careful and anxious to
preserve the church in its purity and integrity, and he believed
that if the story of the Cross and the doctrine of Redemption
were preached there would be no need to resort to methods adopted
in modern times to fill the churches. His work was prosperous.
The membership of the church was increased in every particular
wherever he was appointed to labor. This was the case wherever
he was found. The Christian Guardian was never a more powerful
witness for the truth than when it was edited by Dr.
SANDERSON.
In the management of the book establishment in Toronto he was
successful. "And during all these long years that I had the unspeakable
privilege, the invaluable privilege of associating with the late
Geo. R. SANDERSON, I never heard a censorious word from his lips,"
concluded Dr.
GRIFFIN, "never heard unkind criticisms of his
brethren, never heard anything but respect, good will to all.
Now my brother has gone. He has gone to his reward, and lives
in the presence of God."
The remains were then conveyed to the Mt. Pleasant, where a brief
service was conducted by Reverend Dr.
DANIEL.
Many▼ floral tributes
were placed on the casket. Mr. and Mrs. George
ROBINSON sent
a pillow; Dr. and Mrs.
ECCLES, ferns and spray; John W.
POCOCK,
cross; Sir John and Lady
CARLING, cross; Mrs.
WILSON,
New▼
York,▼
pillow and cross; Mrs. J.C.
HAZARD, spray; Mr. and Mrs. Geo.
T. MANN, spray; Miss
SANDERSON's
Sunday▼ school class, scythe
and sheaf; Mrs. J.H.
FLOCK, spray, and a pillow from the family.
Mr.▼
John▼
T.▼
STEPHENSON, the well-known funeral director of Dundas
St., had charge of the obsequies.
Page 5
F... Names FL... Names Welcome Home
FLEMING/FLEMMING o@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.daily_free_press 1898-03-24 published
A Clergyman's Funeral
The▲▼
Remains▲▼ of Reverend Dr.
SANDERSON
Interred▲▼ in Mount Pleasant Cemetery
A Public Service was held in the First Methodist Church Where
Many Clergymen and Others Assembled to Pay Their Last Tribute
of Respect -- Eminent Divines Speak of the Work of the Deceased
Many Floral Tributes -- Relatives Present from Distant Places
The▲▼ remains of the late Reverend George R.
SANDERSON,
D.▼
D.,▼ were
interred in Mount Pleasant Cemetery at 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon.
At 2 o'clock a private service was held at the family residence
on Wolfe street, Reverend George
JACKSON,
Chairman▲▼ of the London
District▲▼ officiating, and Reverend Dr.
DANIEL,
Reverend▲▼ J.G.
SCOTT, of
Guelph, Reverend James
KENNEDY, Reverend A.G.
HARRIS and Reverend E.B.
LANCELEY,
of this city, assisting. The public service was held at the First
Methodist▲▼
Church▲▼ at 3 o'clock, Reverend Stephen
BOND, of Seaforth,
President of the London Conference in charge.
The attendance at the funeral included many old and warm Friends
of the deceased, among them being a number of clergymen from
distant points. The relatives were -- Reverend Fred. H.
SANDERSON,
Omaha Neb., son of deceased, George R.
SANDERSON, Des Moines,
Ia.,▲▼ son, and Mr. and Mrs. Atwell
FLEMING/FLEMMING,
Toronto,▲▼ son-in-law
and daughter respectively of deceased.
Mrs. HOWELL, the eldest daughter of the late clergyman, of Des
Moines, was unable to reach London in time for the funeral. There
were two sets of pall-bearers -- an active set, composed of laymen,
and an honorary set, composed of clergymen, as follows: -- Laymen
Messers. George
ROBINSON, R.J.C.
DAWSON,
John▲▼
GREEN, Thomas
McCORMICK,
Samuel▲▼
McBRIDE and Sam W.
ABBOTT. Clergymen -- Rev.
Dr. HENDERSON, Berlin, Reverend Dr.
PARKER, Toronto, Reverend Dr.
GRIFFIN,
Toronto, Chancellor
BURWASH, Victoria University, Toronto, Dr.
James HANNON, Stratford, and Reverend E.
HOLMES representing the
London Conference.
Among▲▼ the clergymen in attendance were Chancellor
BURWASH, of
Victoria University, Toronto, Dr.
BURNS, of Hamilton, Dr.
GRIFFIN,
Toronto, treasurer of the superannuation fund, and an acquaintance
of Dr. SANDERSON for half a century and an intimate friend for
forty years, Reverend Dean
INNES and Reverend Robert
JOHNSTON, representing
the Western Ontario Bible Society, the former in the place of
His Lordship the Bishop of Huron, who was unable to attend, Dr.
W.R. PARKER, Toronto, Mr.
WOODSWORTH, Woodstock, Dr. J.V.
SMITH,
Hamilton, Dr.
HANNON,
Stratford,▲▼ J.E.
HOLMES, Mount [...], W.G.H.
McALLASTER, Watford, John
HENDERSON, Shedden, R.
REDMOND, of
Dorchester, T.W.J.
BLATCHFORD and [...] Lambeth, R.J.
GARLAND,
Birc[...], W.W.
SHEPPARD, [...] Dr.
HENDERSON,
Berlin,▲▼ J.W.
HOLMES,
Mitchell, George
RICHARDSON,
Ingersoll,▲▼
Jasper▲▼
WILSON, Strathroy,
John LEARDYD, St. Mary's, W.
RIPLEY, Blyth, J.W.
PEDLEY, R.
HOBBS,
A.G. HARRIS, Bill
MIDDLETON , Dr. Daniel E.B.
LANCELEY, G.B.
SAGE,
W.J. CLARK, Canon
RICHARDSON, J.H.
MOORHOUSE, A.L.
RUSSELL, W.J.
FORD,
George▲▼
JACKSON, Canon
SMITH, J.H.
ORME, city, and Rev.
B. CLEMENT,
Clinton.▲▼
The service at the church was very impressive, a large congregation
assembling to pay a last tribute of respect to one who for sixty
years had been a faithful worker in the cause of Methodism in
Canada.▲▼ As the casket was carried up the aisle, Mr. J.T.
WALCOTT,
played Beethoven's funeral march, and when the congregation was
seated, a quartette, composed of Messers. W.T.
STENBERG and George
HAYES, and Mrs.
HARVEY and Miss Inez
SMITH, sang Ogden's beautiful
composition, "Gathering Home." The congregation sang "Oh God,
Our Help in Ages Past," and "Almighty Maker of My Frame," and
Rev. Dr. PARKER of Toronto, read appropriate passages of Scripture
from John 14 and
I.▲▼
Corinthians▲▼ 15. Dean
INNES was the first
speaker called upon, and he read a copy of a resolution adopted
at a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Western Ontario
Bible Society, held on Tuesday afternoon. The resolution was
as follows: --
"Resolved, that the Board of the Western Ontario Bible Society
place on record their deep sense of loss in the death of the
late Reverend George R.
SANDERSON, D.D., senior vice-president of
the society. During many years the deceased had taken a most
active part in the work of the society. No object was dearer
to his heart than the circulation of the Bible throughout every
part of the inhabitable globe. While they grieve over the loss
of a beloved colleague, they rejoice in his long and useful Christian
life, and in the progress he was permitted in his more than fourscore
years to witness in the Christian development of Canada, the
conquering march of worldwide missions, and the almost universal
diffusion of the Holy Scriptures. The directors with pleasure
recall the fact that the year 1897 was taken advantage of by
the society to present their late associate with a jubilee copy
of the Bible, as an appropriate mark of their affectionate regard.
"And further resolved, that the President of the Western Ontario
Bible▲▼
Society,▲▼ the Bishop of Huron, and Reverend Robt.
JOHNSTON be
requested to represent the society at the funeral."
Dean INNES said he could add nothing as to the high estimation
in which the deceased brother was held.
Rev. Robt.
JOHNSTON, the second representative of the Bible Society,
said his acquaintance with the Reverend Dr.
SANDERSON was brief.
"I knew him as one who loved the Bible," continued the speaker,
"because he knew it, because he found it a source of comfort
and strength in all times. His sympathies were broader than any
one denomination. His heart was too great to be limited by any
one denominational line. He loved all churches, and above all
that work which he found so pleasant -- the spreading of the
Gospel throughout the world. He had the joy of seeing the almost
universal spread of the Bible and the translation of it into
nearly all tongues. When he commenced his ministry only a very
small portion of that work was accomplished, but during his many
years his sympathies were with the society, and during the last
few years in particular he proved a source of great strength.
He seemed to devote himself more earnestly than ever to the society
during the last four or five years. No member was more regular
in his attendance, and the directors feel that they have lost
one whose sympathies they were always sure of, and whose heart
was so much in the cause. Earth is the poorer by his removal,
but heaven is richer."
Chancellor
BURWASH, of Victoria University, paid an eloquent
tribute to the departed. "There is something very impressive,"
he said, "in the thought of a long life such as that which has
just closed, stretching over fourscore years and being a personal
witness of so many wonderful things in the world's history, in
the history of the country, and in the history of our church.
Sixty-two years ago, when our college was opened at Coburg, George
R. SANDERSON,
Stephen▲▼
MILES and James
SPENCER were among the
first students whom Dr.
RITCHIE met as Principal of the college.
In beginning his work there, Dr.
SANDERSON was a lad of twenty
years, just in the beginning of his religious life, and he took
to preparing himself for the life of usefulness to which God
had called him, and which stretched out so far into the coming
years -- much further than he could know. The necessities of
work then were so pressing and there were so few young men to
occupy the fields opening up on every hand, that after the brief
year of college life, Dr.
SANDERSON was taken, according to the
custom of the day, and sent out in connection with the other
two men I have just mentioned to commence his work as an itinerant
in the ministry. That was two years before I was born. My first
acquaintance with him was in 1851, when after service as editor
of the Christian Guardian for four years, he was appointed to
the college station at Coburg. In the following year under that
pastorate the blessed light of divine love and mercy came to
my own soul, and in the next year his labors in Coburg were crowned
with the greatest and most wonderful success. In company with
Rev. Dr. CARMAN, the general superintendent, Reverend Dr.
RYCKMAN,
well-known in this as well as other conferences, who has filled
out so long and honored a ministry, and nearly 100 other college
students I was received into the Methodist Church and then I
received my first ticket signed with the name of George R.
SANDERSON.
That ticket I preserve to this day, as a memento of one of those
points in human life which the man who has felt the power of
divine love cannot think of without emotion. For forty years
the doctor was a member of the Board of Regents of our college,
and I think no other man was as long and intimately an occupant
of that position as he. For many years he was the secretary,
and took an active part in the efforts and struggles connected
with the college's progress in those years. But perhaps the most
characteristic thing I can remember was that wonderful success
in [...] during his ministry -- not only at Coburg and amongst
the young [...] were far from being amenable, but in Port Hope,
in Belleville, in Picton, and other places I have very distinct
recollections of the great number gathered into the church and
saved as a result of his proclamation of the gospel. A long life
of this kind witnesses: wonderful changes. Dr.
SANDERSON entered
the world when Methodism was small, when the numbers in church
membership were counted by the few thousands, and when the entire
following did not amount to more than fifty thousand in this
country. Now when he passes away, the membership is numbered
by the hundreds of thousands, by more than a quarter of a million.
He passes away from a people whose churches stand every-[...]
and the Pacific, he passes away, having witnesses: a growth of
and extension of the Church of God that was beyond the hope of
any person when he commenced. Nearly all upon whose faces I look
were boys when he was grown and busy in the work, and upon us
rests a responsibility such as we may well remember and pray
for grace that we may discharge it as well as he who has gone."
Rev. Dr. BURNS of Hamilton, spoke as one of the boys referred
to by Chancellor
BURWASH, although his head was whiter. His earliest
recollections of the Methodist Church were associated with Dr.
SANDERSON. "He was one of the first preachers I knew," said Dr.
BURNS, "and I am glad he was, for I do not think any young man
could get a false impression of Christianity from him. He always
had a pleasant smile and a grip of the hand for the boys in the
fifties. I will never forget him." Dr.
BURNS could bring up nothing
of an unpleasant character in his long recollections of Dr.
SANDERSON,
who was a child of God and as broad as the Church of Christ.
It was a blessed thing to have an intimate acquaintance with
such a man as Dr.
SANDERSON.
The▲▼ whole family of God suffered
a loss by his departure.
Rev. Dr. GRIFFIN, of Toronto, whose acquaintance with Dr.
SANDERSON
extended over a larger number of years and was more intimate
than that of any other clergyman present, was the last speaker,
and when he was called upon he said he thought in coming to the
funeral he would be dealt with as relative, almost as one of
the family, that he would sit silently and listen to whatever
might be said relative to the character and the history of his
dear old friend. Dr,
GRIFFIN thought he was about the last of
that great army -- not great in numbers -- that regiment of grand
old men which did so much for the country and so much for the
church. He was associated with Dr.
RYERSON,
Wm.▲▼
RYERSON, Edgar
RYERSON, James
ELLIOT/ELLIOTT, Dr.
RICE, Dr.
NELLES, Richard
JONES, and
he was a man as worthy to carry any titles the church might give
as any of those who received them. It was a great number of these
excellent men -- Henry Wilkinson, Lewis Warner and others whose
names would occur to the elder members of the congregation --
with whom Dr.
SANDERSON was associated, who laid the foundations
of the church so deep and broad through the length and breath
of the Dominion. These were an extraordinary class of men, and
those who succeeded them could only try to be as good, for they
would make a mistake if they tried to be as great. Those men,
Dr. GRIFFIN felt assured, were endowed with extraordinary gifts
for the extraordinary times in which they labored and lived.
He believed that a man's heart and soul should be larger than
his creed, and he believed that Dr.
SANDERSON's was. He thought
nevertheless, that Dr.
SANDERSON's was thoroughly and intensely,
and always Methodist. He did not lose sight at all of events
in his own denomination, nor have any less regard for his own
church. Ne was a Methodist. He believed in Methodist doctrines,
he believed in the Methodist discipline, and he did as much as
any other man to make them. The church was indebted first to
John Ryerson more than to any other man, perhaps, for framing
the book of discipline, but in its remodelling in many particulars
could be seen the impress of the hand of Dr.
SANDERSON. He
(Dr.▲▼
SANDERSON) loved the itineracy, as he believed it was essential,
and that it was a system with which the church would not part.
The church had grown to be the strongest in the Dominion, and
it was owing to the itineracy as much as to any other part of
the government of the church. Dr.
SANDERSON was a preacher whose
voice never failed, but up to the last was full, round and strong.
He hated the modern methods called "sensational preaching," for
he had a conservative nature, and was careful and anxious to
preserve the church in its purity and integrity, and he believed
that if the story of the Cross and the doctrine of Redemption
were preached there would be no need to resort to methods adopted
in modern times to fill the churches. His work was prosperous.
The membership of the church was increased in every particular
wherever he was appointed to labor. This was the case wherever
he was found. The Christian Guardian was never a more powerful
witness for the truth than when it was edited by Dr.
SANDERSON.
In the management of the book establishment in Toronto he was
successful. "And during all these long years that I had the unspeakable
privilege, the invaluable privilege of associating with the late
Geo. R. SANDERSON, I never heard a censorious word from his lips,"
concluded Dr.
GRIFFIN, "never heard unkind criticisms of his
brethren, never heard anything but respect, good will to all.
Now my brother has gone. He has gone to his reward, and lives
in the presence of God."
The remains were then conveyed to the Mt. Pleasant, where a brief
service was conducted by Reverend Dr.
DANIEL.
Many▲▼ floral tributes
were placed on the casket. Mr. and Mrs. George
ROBINSON sent
a pillow, Dr. and Mrs.
ECCLES, ferns and spray, John W.
POCOCK,
cross, Sir John and Lady
CARLING, cross, Mrs.
WILSON,
New▲▼
York,▲▼
pillow and cross, Mrs. J.C.
HAZARD, spray, Mr. and Mrs. Geo.
T. MANN, spray, Miss
SANDERSON's
Sunday▲▼ school class, scythe
and sheaf, Mrs. J. H.
FLOCK, spray, and a pillow from the family.
Mr.▲▼
John▲▼
T.▲▼
STEPHENSON, the well-known funeral director of Dundas
Street had charge of the obsequies.
Page 5
F... Names FL... Names Welcome Home
FLEMING/FLEMMING o@ca.on.muskoka_district.huntsville_forester 1897-03-19 published
FLEMING/FLEMMING Mr
Samuel
Jun page 2
indexed 1998 at
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F... Names FL... Names Welcome Home
FLEMING/FLEMMING o@ca.on.muskoka_district.huntsville_forester 1899-09-01 published
FLEMING/FLEMMING
{?} Mrs page 2
indexed 1998 at
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F... Names FL... Names Welcome Home
FLEMING/FLEMMING - All Categories in OGSPI
FLETCHER o@ca.on.muskoka_district.huntsville_forester 1899-04-14 published
FLETCHER
{?} Mrs page 2
indexed 1998 at
Huntsville Public Library
F... Names FL... Names Welcome Home
FLETCHER - All Categories in OGSPI
FLOCK o@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.daily_free_press 1898-03-24 published
A Clergyman's Funeral
The▲▼
Remains▲▼ of Reverend Dr.
SANDERSON
Interred▲▼ in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery
A Public Service was held in the First Methodist Church Where
Many Clergymen and Others Assembled to Pay Their Last Tribute
of Respect -- Eminent Divines Speak of the Work of the Deceased
Many Floral Tributes -- Relatives Present from Distant Places
The▲▼ remains of the late Reverend George R.
SANDERSON, D.D., were
interred in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery at 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon.
At 2 o'clock a private service was held at the family residence
on Wolfe street, Reverend George
JACKSON,
Chairman▲▼ of the London
District▲▼ officiating, and Reverend Dr.
DANIEL,
Reverend▲▼ J.G.
SCOTT, of
Guelph; Reverend James
KENNEDY, Reverend A.G.
HARRIS and Reverend E.B.
LANCELEY,
of this city, assisting. The public service was held at the First
Methodist▲▼
Church▲▼ at 3 o'clock, Reverend Stephen
BOND, of Seaforth,
President of the London Conference in charge.
The attendance at the funeral included many old and warm Friends
of the deceased, among them being a number of clergymen from
distant points. The relatives were -- Reverend Fred. H.
SANDERSON,
Omaha Neb., son of deceased; George R.
SANDERSON, Des Moines,
Ia.,▲▼ son; and Mr. and Mrs. Atwell
FLEMING/FLEMMING,
Toronto,▲▼ son-in-law
and daughter respectively of deceased.
Mrs. HOWELL, the eldest daughter of the late clergyman, of Des
Moines, was unable to reach London in time for the funeral. There
were two sets of pall-bearers -- an active set, composed of laymen,
and an honorary set, composed of clergymen, as follows: -- Laymen
Messers. George
ROBINSON, R.J.C.
DAWSON,
John▲▼
GREEN, Thomas
McCORMICK,
Samuel▲▼
McBRIDE and Sam W.
ABBOTT. Clergymen -- Rev.
Dr. HENDERSON, Berlin; Reverend Dr.
PARKER, Toronto; Reverend Dr.
GRIFFIN,
Toronto; Chancellor
BURWASH, Victoria University, Toronto; Dr.
James HANNON, Stratford; and Reverend E.
HOLMES representing the
London Conference.
Among▲▼ the clergymen in attendance were Chancellor
BURWASH, of
Victoria University, Toronto; Dr.
BURNS, of Hamilton; Dr.
GRIFFIN,
Toronto, treasurer of the superannuation fund, and an acquaintance
of Dr. SANDERSON for half a century and an intimate friend for
forty years; Reverend Dean
INNES and Reverend Robert
JOHNSTON, representing
the Western Ontario Bible Society, the former in the place of
His Lordship the Bishop of Huron, who was unable to attend; Dr.
W.R. PARKER, Toronto; Mr.
WOODSWORTH, Woodstock; Dr. J.V.
SMITH,
Hamilton; Dr.
HANNON,
Stratford;▲▼ J.E.
HOLMES, Mount [...]; W.G.H.
McALLASTER, Watford; John
HENDERSON, Shedden; R.
REDMOND, of
Dorchester; T.W.J.
BLATCHFORD and [...] Lambeth; R.J.
GARLAND,
Birc[...]; W.W.
SHEPPARD, [...] Dr.
HENDERSON,
Berlin;▲▼ J.W.
HOLMES,
Mitchell; George
RICHARDSON,
Ingersoll;▲▼
Jasper▲▼
WILSON, Strathroy
John LEARDYD, St. Mary's; W.
RIPLEY, Blyth; J.W.
PEDLEY, R.
HOBBS,
A.G. HARRIS, Bill
MIDDLETON , Dr. Daniel E.B.
LANCELEY, G.B.
SAGE,
W.J. CLARK, Canon
RICHARDSON, J.H.
MOORHOUSE, A.L.
RUSSELL, W.J.
FORD,
George▲▼
JACKSON, Canon
SMITH, J.H.
ORME, city; and Rev.
B. CLEMENT,
Clinton.▲▼
The service at the church was very impressive, a large congregation
assembling to pay a last tribute of respect to one who for sixty
years had been a faithful worker in the cause of Methodism in
Canada.▲▼ As the casket was carried up the aisle, Mr. J.T.
WALCOTT,
played Beethoven's funeral march, and when the congregation was
seated, a quartette, composed of Messers. W.T.
STENBERG and George
HAYES, and Mrs.
HARVEY and Miss Inez
SMITH, sang Ogden's beautiful
composition, "Gathering Home." The congregation sang "Oh God,
Our Help in Ages Past," and "Almighty Maker of My Frame," and
Rev. Dr. PARKER of Toronto, read appropriate passages of Scripture
from John 14 and
I.▲▼
Corinthians▲▼ 15. Dean
INNES was the first
speaker called upon, and he read a copy of a resolution adopted
at a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Western Ontario
Bible Society, held on Tuesday afternoon. The resolution was
as follows: --
"Resolved, that the Board of the Western Ontario Bible Society
place on record their deep sense of loss in the death of the
late Reverend George R.
SANDERSON, D.D., senior vice-president of
the society. During many years the deceased had taken a most
active part in the work of the society. No object was dearer
to his heart than the circulation of the Bible throughout every
part of the inhabitable globe. While they grieve over the loss
of a beloved colleague, they rejoice in his long and useful Christian
life, and in the progress he was permitted in his more than fourscore
years to witness in the Christian development of Canada, the
conquering march of worldwide missions, and the almost universal
diffusion of the Holy Scriptures. The directors with pleasure
recall the fact that the year 1897 was taken advantage of by
the society to present their late associate with a jubilee copy
of the Bible, as an appropriate mark of their affectionate regard.
"And further resolved, that the President of the Western Ontario
Bible▲▼
Society,▲▼ the Bishop of Huron, and Reverend Robt.
JOHNSTON be
requested to represent the society at the funeral."
Dean INNES said he could add nothing as to the high estimation
in which the deceased brother was held.
Rev. Robt.
JOHNSTON, the second representative of the Bible Society,
said his acquaintance with the Reverend Dr.
SANDERSON was brief.
"I knew him as one who loved the Bible," continued the speaker,
"because he knew it, because he found it a source of comfort
and strength in all times. His sympathies were broader than any
one denomination. His heart was too great to be limited by any
one denominational line. He loved all churches, and above all
that work which he found so pleasant -- the spreading of the
Gospel throughout the world. He had the joy of seeing the almost
universal spread of the Bible and the translation of it into
nearly all tongues. When he commenced his ministry only a very
small portion of that work was accomplished, but during his many
years his sympathies were with the society, and during the last
few years in particular he proved a source of great strength.
He seemed to devote himself more earnestly than ever to the society
during the last four or five years. No member was more regular
in his attendance, and the directors feel that they have lost
one whose sympathies they were always sure of, and whose heart
was so much in the cause. Earth is the poorer by his removal,
but heaven is richer."
Chancellor
BURWASH, of Victoria University, paid an eloquent
tribute to the departed. "There is something very impressive,"
he said, "in the thought of a long life such as that which has
just closed, stretching over fourscore years and being a personal
witness of so many wonderful things in the world's history, in
the history of the country, and in the history of our church.
Sixty-two years ago, when our college was opened at Coburg, George
R. SANDERSON,
Stephen▲▼
MILES and James
SPENCER were among the
first students whom Dr.
RITCHIE met as Principal of the college.
In beginning his work there, Dr.
SANDERSON was a lad of twenty
years, just in the beginning of his religious life, and he took
to preparing himself for the life of usefulness to which God
had called him, and which stretched out so far into the coming
years -- much further than he could know. The necessities of
work then were so pressing and there were so few young men to
occupy the fields opening up on every hand, that after the brief
year of college life, Dr.
SANDERSON was taken, according to the
custom of the day, and sent out in connection with the other
two men I have just mentioned to commence his work as an itinerant
in the ministry. That was two years before I was born. My first
acquaintance with him was in 1851, when after service as editor
of the Christian Guardian for four years, he was appointed to
the college station at Coburg. In the following year under that
pastorate the blessed light of divine love and mercy came to
my own soul, and in the next year his labors in Coburg were crowned
with the greatest and most wonderful success. In company with
Rev. Dr. CARMAN, the general superintendent, Reverend Dr.
RYCKMAN,
well-known in this as well as other conferences, who has filled
out so long and honored a ministry, and nearly 100 other college
students I was received into the Methodist Church and then I
received my first ticket signed with the name of George R.
SANDERSON.
That ticket I preserve to this day, as a memento of one of those
points in human life which the man who has felt the power of
divine love cannot think of without emotion. For forty years
the doctor was a member of the Board of Regents of our college,
and I think no other man was as long and intimately an occupant
of that position as he. For many years he was the secretary,
and took an active part in the efforts and struggles connected
with the college's progress in those years. But perhaps the most
characteristic thing I can remember was that wonderful success
in [...] during his ministry -- not only at Coburg and amongst
the young [...] were far from being amenable, but in Port Hope,
in Belleville, in Picton, and other places I have very distinct
recollections of the great number gathered into the church and
saved as a result of his proclamation of the gospel. A long life
of this kind witnesses: wonderful changes. Dr.
SANDERSON entered
the world when Methodism was small, when the numbers in church
membership were counted by the few thousands, and when the entire
following did not amount to more than fifty thousand in this
country. Now when he passes away, the membership is numbered
by the hundreds of thousands, by more than a quarter of a million.
He passes away from a people whose churches stand every-[...]
and the Pacific; he passes away, having witnesses: a growth of
and extension of the Church of God that was beyond the hope of
any person when he commenced. Nearly all upon whose faces I look
were boys when he was grown and busy in the work, and upon us
rests a responsibility such as we may well remember and pray
for grace that we may discharge it as well as he who has gone."
Rev. Dr. BURNS of Hamilton; spoke as one of the boys referred
to by Chancellor
BURWASH, although his head was whiter. His earliest
recollections of the Methodist Church were associated with Dr.
SANDERSON. "He was one of the first preachers I knew," said Dr.
BURNS, "and I am glad he was, for I do not think any young man
could get a false impression of Christianity from him. He always
had a pleasant smile and a grip of the hand for the boys in the
fifties. I will never forget him." Dr.
BURNS could bring up nothing
of an unpleasant character in his long recollections of Dr.
SANDERSON,
who was a child of God and as broad as the Church of Christ.
It was a blessed thing to have an intimate acquaintance with
such a man as Dr.
SANDERSON.
The▲▼ whole family of God suffered
a loss by his departure.
Rev. Dr. GRIFFIN, of Toronto, whose acquaintance with Dr.
SANDERSON
extended over a larger number of years and was more intimate
than that of any other clergyman present, was the last speaker,
and when he was called upon he said he thought in coming to the
funeral he would be dealt with as relative, almost as one of
the family; that he would sit silently and listen to whatever
might be said relative to the character and the history of his
dear old friend. Dr,
GRIFFIN thought he was about the last of
that great army -- not great in numbers -- that regiment of grand
old men which did so much for the country and so much for the
church. He was associated with Dr.
RYERSON,
Wm.▲▼
RYERSON, Edgar
RYERSON, James
ELLIOT/ELLIOTT, Dr.
RICE, Dr.
NELLES, Richard
JONES, and
he was a man as worthy to carry any titles the church might give
as any of those who received them. It was a great number of these
excellent men -- Henry Wilkinson, Lewis Warner and others whose
names would occur to the elder members of the congregation --
with whom Dr.
SANDERSON was associated, who laid the foundations
of the church so deep and broad through the length and breath
of the Dominion. These were an extraordinary class of men, and
those who succeeded them could only try to be as good, for they
would make a mistake if they tried to be as great. Those men,
Dr. GRIFFIN felt assured, were endowed with extraordinary gifts
for the extraordinary times in which they labored and lived.
He believed that a man's heart and soul should be larger than
his creed, and he believed that Dr.
SANDERSON's was. He thought
nevertheless, that Dr.
SANDERSON's was thoroughly and intensely,
and always Methodist. He did not lose sight at all of events
in his own denomination, nor have any less regard for his own
church. Ne was a Methodist. He believed in Methodist doctrines
he believed in the Methodist discipline, and he did as much as
any other man to make them. The church was indebted first to
John Ryerson more than to any other man, perhaps, for framing
the book of discipline, but in its remodelling in many particulars
could be seen the impress of the hand of Dr.
SANDERSON. He
(Dr.▲▼
SANDERSON) loved the itineracy, as he believed it was essential,
and that it was a system with which the church would not part.
The church had grown to be the strongest in the Dominion, and
it was owing to the itineracy as much as to any other part of
the government of the church. Dr.
SANDERSON was a preacher whose
voice never failed, but up to the last was full, round and strong.
He hated the modern methods called "sensational preaching," for
he had a conservative nature, and was careful and anxious to
preserve the church in its purity and integrity, and he believed
that if the story of the Cross and the doctrine of Redemption
were preached there would be no need to resort to methods adopted
in modern times to fill the churches. His work was prosperous.
The membership of the church was increased in every particular
wherever he was appointed to labor. This was the case wherever
he was found. The Christian Guardian was never a more powerful
witness for the truth than when it was edited by Dr.
SANDERSON.
In the management of the book establishment in Toronto he was
successful. "And during all these long years that I had the unspeakable
privilege, the invaluable privilege of associating with the late
Geo. R. SANDERSON, I never heard a censorious word from his lips,"
concluded Dr.
GRIFFIN, "never heard unkind criticisms of his
brethren, never heard anything but respect, good will to all.
Now my brother has gone. He has gone to his reward, and lives
in the presence of God."
The remains were then conveyed to the Mt. Pleasant, where a brief
service was conducted by Reverend Dr.
DANIEL.
Many▲▼ floral tributes
were placed on the casket. Mr. and Mrs. George
ROBINSON sent
a pillow; Dr. and Mrs.
ECCLES, ferns and spray; John W.
POCOCK,
cross; Sir John and Lady
CARLING, cross; Mrs.
WILSON,
New▲▼
York,▲▼
pillow and cross; Mrs. J.C.
HAZARD, spray; Mr. and Mrs. Geo.
T. MANN, spray; Miss
SANDERSON's
Sunday▲▼ school class, scythe
and sheaf; Mrs. J.H.
FLOCK, spray, and a pillow from the family.
Mr.▲▼
John▲▼
T.▲▼
STEPHENSON, the well-known funeral director of Dundas
St., had charge of the obsequies.
Page 5
F... Names FL... Names Welcome Home
FLOCK o@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.daily_free_press 1898-03-24 published
A Clergyman's Funeral
The▲
Remains▲ of Reverend Dr.
SANDERSON
Interred▲ in Mount Pleasant Cemetery
A Public Service was held in the First Methodist Church Where
Many Clergymen and Others Assembled to Pay Their Last Tribute
of Respect -- Eminent Divines Speak of the Work of the Deceased
Many Floral Tributes -- Relatives Present from Distant Places
The▲ remains of the late Reverend George R.
SANDERSON,
D.▲
D.,▲ were
interred in Mount Pleasant Cemetery at 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon.
At 2 o'clock a private service was held at the family residence
on Wolfe street, Reverend George
JACKSON,
Chairman▲ of the London
District▲ officiating, and Reverend Dr.
DANIEL,
Reverend▲ J.G.
SCOTT, of
Guelph, Reverend James
KENNEDY, Reverend A.G.
HARRIS and Reverend E.B.
LANCELEY,
of this city, assisting. The public service was held at the First
Methodist▲
Church▲ at 3 o'clock, Reverend Stephen
BOND, of Seaforth,
President of the London Conference in charge.
The attendance at the funeral included many old and warm Friends
of the deceased, among them being a number of clergymen from
distant points. The relatives were -- Reverend Fred. H.
SANDERSON,
Omaha Neb., son of deceased, George R.
SANDERSON, Des Moines,
Ia.,▲ son, and Mr. and Mrs. Atwell
FLEMING/FLEMMING,
Toronto,▲ son-in-law
and daughter respectively of deceased.
Mrs. HOWELL, the eldest daughter of the late clergyman, of Des
Moines, was unable to reach London in time for the funeral. There
were two sets of pall-bearers -- an active set, composed of laymen,
and an honorary set, composed of clergymen, as follows: -- Laymen
Messers. George
ROBINSON, R.J.C.
DAWSON,
John▲
GREEN, Thomas
McCORMICK,
Samuel▲
McBRIDE and Sam W.
ABBOTT. Clergymen -- Rev.
Dr. HENDERSON, Berlin, Reverend Dr.
PARKER, Toronto, Reverend Dr.
GRIFFIN,
Toronto, Chancellor
BURWASH, Victoria University, Toronto, Dr.
James HANNON, Stratford, and Reverend E.
HOLMES representing the
London Conference.
Among▲ the clergymen in attendance were Chancellor
BURWASH, of
Victoria University, Toronto, Dr.
BURNS, of Hamilton, Dr.
GRIFFIN,
Toronto, treasurer of the superannuation fund, and an acquaintance
of Dr. SANDERSON for half a century and an intimate friend for
forty years, Reverend Dean
INNES and Reverend Robert
JOHNSTON, representing
the Western Ontario Bible Society, the former in the place of
His Lordship the Bishop of Huron, who was unable to attend, Dr.
W.R. PARKER, Toronto, Mr.
WOODSWORTH, Woodstock, Dr. J.V.
SMITH,
Hamilton, Dr.
HANNON,
Stratford,▲ J.E.
HOLMES, Mount [...], W.G.H.
McALLASTER, Watford, John
HENDERSON, Shedden, R.
REDMOND, of
Dorchester, T.W.J.
BLATCHFORD and [...] Lambeth, R.J.
GARLAND,
Birc[...], W.W.
SHEPPARD, [...] Dr.
HENDERSON,
Berlin,▲ J.W.
HOLMES,
Mitchell, George
RICHARDSON,
Ingersoll,▲
Jasper▲
WILSON, Strathroy,
John LEARDYD, St. Mary's, W.
RIPLEY, Blyth, J.W.
PEDLEY, R.
HOBBS,
A.G. HARRIS, Bill
MIDDLETON , Dr. Daniel E.B.
LANCELEY, G.B.
SAGE,
W.J. CLARK, Canon
RICHARDSON, J.H.
MOORHOUSE, A.L.
RUSSELL, W.J.
FORD,
George▲
JACKSON, Canon
SMITH, J.H.
ORME, city, and Rev.
B. CLEMENT,
Clinton.▲
The service at the church was very impressive, a large congregation
assembling to pay a last tribute of respect to one who for sixty
years had been a faithful worker in the cause of Methodism in
Canada.▲ As the casket was carried up the aisle, Mr. J.T.
WALCOTT,
played Beethoven's funeral march, and when the congregation was
seated, a quartette, composed of Messers. W.T.
STENBERG and George
HAYES, and Mrs.
HARVEY and Miss Inez
SMITH, sang Ogden's beautiful
composition, "Gathering Home." The congregation sang "Oh God,
Our Help in Ages Past," and "Almighty Maker of My Frame," and
Rev. Dr. PARKER of Toronto, read appropriate passages of Scripture
from John 14 and
I.▲
Corinthians▲ 15. Dean
INNES was the first
speaker called upon, and he read a copy of a resolution adopted
at a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Western Ontario
Bible Society, held on Tuesday afternoon. The resolution was
as follows: --
"Resolved, that the Board of the Western Ontario Bible Society
place on record their deep sense of loss in the death of the
late Reverend George R.
SANDERSON, D.D., senior vice-president of
the society. During many years the deceased had taken a most
active part in the work of the society. No object was dearer
to his heart than the circulation of the Bible throughout every
part of the inhabitable globe. While they grieve over the loss
of a beloved colleague, they rejoice in his long and useful Christian
life, and in the progress he was permitted in his more than fourscore
years to witness in the Christian development of Canada, the
conquering march of worldwide missions, and the almost universal
diffusion of the Holy Scriptures. The directors with pleasure
recall the fact that the year 1897 was taken advantage of by
the society to present their late associate with a jubilee copy
of the Bible, as an appropriate mark of their affectionate regard.
"And further resolved, that the President of the Western Ontario
Bible▲
Society,▲ the Bishop of Huron, and Reverend Robt.
JOHNSTON be
requested to represent the society at the funeral."
Dean INNES said he could add nothing as to the high estimation
in which the deceased brother was held.
Rev. Robt.
JOHNSTON, the second representative of the Bible Society,
said his acquaintance with the Reverend Dr.
SANDERSON was brief.
"I knew him as one who loved the Bible," continued the speaker,
"because he knew it, because he found it a source of comfort
and strength in all times. His sympathies were broader than any
one denomination. His heart was too great to be limited by any
one denominational line. He loved all churches, and above all
that work which he found so pleasant -- the spreading of the
Gospel throughout the world. He had the joy of seeing the almost
universal spread of the Bible and the translation of it into
nearly all tongues. When he commenced his ministry only a very
small portion of that work was accomplished, but during his many
years his sympathies were with the society, and during the last
few years in particular he proved a source of great strength.
He seemed to devote himself more earnestly than ever to the society
during the last four or five years. No member was more regular
in his attendance, and the directors feel that they have lost
one whose sympathies they were always sure of, and whose heart
was so much in the cause. Earth is the poorer by his removal,
but heaven is richer."
Chancellor
BURWASH, of Victoria University, paid an eloquent
tribute to the departed. "There is something very impressive,"
he said, "in the thought of a long life such as that which has
just closed, stretching over fourscore years and being a personal
witness of so many wonderful things in the world's history, in
the history of the country, and in the history of our church.
Sixty-two years ago, when our college was opened at Coburg, George
R. SANDERSON,
Stephen▲
MILES and James
SPENCER were among the
first students whom Dr.
RITCHIE met as Principal of the college.
In beginning his work there, Dr.
SANDERSON was a lad of twenty
years, just in the beginning of his religious life, and he took
to preparing himself for the life of usefulness to which God
had called him, and which stretched out so far into the coming
years -- much further than he could know. The necessities of
work then were so pressing and there were so few young men to
occupy the fields opening up on every hand, that after the brief
year of college life, Dr.
SANDERSON was taken, according to the
custom of the day, and sent out in connection with the other
two men I have just mentioned to commence his work as an itinerant
in the ministry. That was two years before I was born. My first
acquaintance with him was in 1851, when after service as editor
of the Christian Guardian for four years, he was appointed to
the college station at Coburg. In the following year under that
pastorate the blessed light of divine love and mercy came to
my own soul, and in the next year his labors in Coburg were crowned
with the greatest and most wonderful success. In company with
Rev. Dr. CARMAN, the general superintendent, Reverend Dr.
RYCKMAN,
well-known in this as well as other conferences, who has filled
out so long and honored a ministry, and nearly 100 other college
students I was received into the Methodist Church and then I
received my first ticket signed with the name of George R.
SANDERSON.
That ticket I preserve to this day, as a memento of one of those
points in human life which the man who has felt the power of
divine love cannot think of without emotion. For forty years
the doctor was a member of the Board of Regents of our college,
and I think no other man was as long and intimately an occupant
of that position as he. For many years he was the secretary,
and took an active part in the efforts and struggles connected
with the college's progress in those years. But perhaps the most
characteristic thing I can remember was that wonderful success
in [...] during his ministry -- not only at Coburg and amongst
the young [...] were far from being amenable, but in Port Hope,
in Belleville, in Picton, and other places I have very distinct
recollections of the great number gathered into the church and
saved as a result of his proclamation of the gospel. A long life
of this kind witnesses: wonderful changes. Dr.
SANDERSON entered
the world when Methodism was small, when the numbers in church
membership were counted by the few thousands, and when the entire
following did not amount to more than fifty thousand in this
country. Now when he passes away, the membership is numbered
by the hundreds of thousands, by more than a quarter of a million.
He passes away from a people whose churches stand every-[...]
and the Pacific, he passes away, having witnesses: a growth of
and extension of the Church of God that was beyond the hope of
any person when he commenced. Nearly all upon whose faces I look
were boys when he was grown and busy in the work, and upon us
rests a responsibility such as we may well remember and pray
for grace that we may discharge it as well as he who has gone."
Rev. Dr. BURNS of Hamilton, spoke as one of the boys referred
to by Chancellor
BURWASH, although his head was whiter. His earliest
recollections of the Methodist Church were associated with Dr.
SANDERSON. "He was one of the first preachers I knew," said Dr.
BURNS, "and I am glad he was, for I do not think any young man
could get a false impression of Christianity from him. He always
had a pleasant smile and a grip of the hand for the boys in the
fifties. I will never forget him." Dr.
BURNS could bring up nothing
of an unpleasant character in his long recollections of Dr.
SANDERSON,
who was a child of God and as broad as the Church of Christ.
It was a blessed thing to have an intimate acquaintance with
such a man as Dr.
SANDERSON.
The▲ whole family of God suffered
a loss by his departure.
Rev. Dr. GRIFFIN, of Toronto, whose acquaintance with Dr.
SANDERSON
extended over a larger number of years and was more intimate
than that of any other clergyman present, was the last speaker,
and when he was called upon he said he thought in coming to the
funeral he would be dealt with as relative, almost as one of
the family, that he would sit silently and listen to whatever
might be said relative to the character and the history of his
dear old friend. Dr,
GRIFFIN thought he was about the last of
that great army -- not great in numbers -- that regiment of grand
old men which did so much for the country and so much for the
church. He was associated with Dr.
RYERSON,
Wm.▲
RYERSON, Edgar
RYERSON, James
ELLIOT/ELLIOTT, Dr.
RICE, Dr.
NELLES, Richard
JONES, and
he was a man as worthy to carry any titles the church might give
as any of those who received them. It was a great number of these
excellent men -- Henry Wilkinson, Lewis Warner and others whose
names would occur to the elder members of the congregation --
with whom Dr.
SANDERSON was associated, who laid the foundations
of the church so deep and broad through the length and breath
of the Dominion. These were an extraordinary class of men, and
those who succeeded them could only try to be as good, for they
would make a mistake if they tried to be as great. Those men,
Dr. GRIFFIN felt assured, were endowed with extraordinary gifts
for the extraordinary times in which they labored and lived.
He believed that a man's heart and soul should be larger than
his creed, and he believed that Dr.
SANDERSON's was. He thought
nevertheless, that Dr.
SANDERSON's was thoroughly and intensely,
and always Methodist. He did not lose sight at all of events
in his own denomination, nor have any less regard for his own
church. Ne was a Methodist. He believed in Methodist doctrines,
he believed in the Methodist discipline, and he did as much as
any other man to make them. The church was indebted first to
John Ryerson more than to any other man, perhaps, for framing
the book of discipline, but in its remodelling in many particulars
could be seen the impress of the hand of Dr.
SANDERSON. He
(Dr.▲
SANDERSON) loved the itineracy, as he believed it was essential,
and that it was a system with which the church would not part.
The church had grown to be the strongest in the Dominion, and
it was owing to the itineracy as much as to any other part of
the government of the church. Dr.
SANDERSON was a preacher whose
voice never failed, but up to the last was full, round and strong.
He hated the modern methods called "sensational preaching," for
he had a conservative nature, and was careful and anxious to
preserve the church in its purity and integrity, and he believed
that if the story of the Cross and the doctrine of Redemption
were preached there would be no need to resort to methods adopted
in modern times to fill the churches. His work was prosperous.
The membership of the church was increased in every particular
wherever he was appointed to labor. This was the case wherever
he was found. The Christian Guardian was never a more powerful
witness for the truth than when it was edited by Dr.
SANDERSON.
In the management of the book establishment in Toronto he was
successful. "And during all these long years that I had the unspeakable
privilege, the invaluable privilege of associating with the late
Geo. R. SANDERSON, I never heard a censorious word from his lips,"
concluded Dr.
GRIFFIN, "never heard unkind criticisms of his
brethren, never heard anything but respect, good will to all.
Now my brother has gone. He has gone to his reward, and lives
in the presence of God."
The remains were then conveyed to the Mt. Pleasant, where a brief
service was conducted by Reverend Dr.
DANIEL.
Many▲ floral tributes
were placed on the casket. Mr. and Mrs. George
ROBINSON sent
a pillow, Dr. and Mrs.
ECCLES, ferns and spray, John W.
POCOCK,
cross, Sir John and Lady
CARLING, cross, Mrs.
WILSON,
New▲
York,▲
pillow and cross, Mrs. J.C.
HAZARD, spray, Mr. and Mrs. Geo.
T. MANN, spray, Miss
SANDERSON's
Sunday▲ school class, scythe
and sheaf, Mrs. J. H.
FLOCK, spray, and a pillow from the family.
Mr.▲
John▲
T.▲
STEPHENSON, the well-known funeral director of Dundas
Street had charge of the obsequies.
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