In Memory of John
Gentle
John Gentle was born
in Washington County, Indiana, May 11, 1816, and died at his own residence in
Jefferson County, Illinois, November 30, 1874, in the triumphs of a living
faith, aged 58 years, 6 months and 19 days.
It was not until the
spring of 1871 that he was deeply convicted of sin and saw that he was without
God and without hope in the world; but he soon found the Pearl of Great Price,
and was happily converted to God, in his own house, about the first of March
1871. He soon afterwards attached
himself to the Methodist Episcopal Church at Black Oak Ridge, Middleton
Circuit, Mt. Vernon District, Southern Illinois Conference. From thence he moved his membership to the
Mt. Olivet Society, on the same circuit.
He was then licensed to exhort, by the Rev. W.R. Taylor, who was at that
time Preacher in Charge.
Father Gentle was an
acceptable member and zealous worker in the cause of our Holy Christianity,
until God called him to his reward. His
death was occasioned by his team running away and throwing him from his wagon,
so severely injuring him that after intense pain and suffering for the space of
two weeks, death relieved him, and his weary soul passed peacefully and
triumphantly from the confines of earth to joys immortal. All that medical skill could do was done to
restore him, but in vain.
During his last days
he was cheerful and often very happy while meditating upon the goodness and
mercies of God. He greatly delighted in
singing and nothing soothed him more than one of the songs he loved, and would
often repeat the following lines, which are a portion of one of his favorite
songs:
“Oh, I long to be
with Jesus,
In the mansions of
the blest,
Where the wicked
cease from troubling,
And the weary are at
rest.”
After the space of about four years of active labor in the Master’s vineyard,
he obtained his discharge and went to his glorious reward on high. He leaves behind a deeply afflicted wife and
children to mourn the loss of a kind husband and loving father; but God is a
Father to the fatherless and a husband to the widow.
Father Gentle was
held in high estimation in the community in which he lived and the society to
which he belonged. To know him was to
love him. May we meet him “on the other
side.”
Peace to his memory.
See also John Gentle.
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