John Gentle

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.