A HAPPY MEETING.
A
ATLower Blue Lick, in Robertson County, Kentucky, in the month of September, 1875, Elder Franklin met his beloved father in the gospel and veteran in the cause of reformation, Eld. Samuel Rogers. He thus describes the happy meeting, and expresses his high regard for a true man of God:
One morning when we were in the stand, waiting a few minutes for the audience to assemble and become composed, we saw once more the venerable form of Samuel Rogers, making his way up the aisle. We could scarcely restrain our emotions when we saw the old saint, bringing before our mind in visible form what has been our lifetime idea of one of the old prophets. We met him in the aisle, when he spoke out with the tears tracing down his noble face: “Bro. Ben, I am in the land of thedeadanddying, but shall soon be in the land of theliving.” We could give utterance to no words. Peter said, in the mountain oftransfiguration: “It is good for us to be here.” So it was to us on this occasion. More than forty years had elapsed since we first saw him, and he appeared to usoldthen. He is now in his eighty-sixth year. He sees to read without glasses by holding the print close to his eyes, and hears better than when we saw him last. He converses with readiness and ease, and his voice is remarkably good. His plain and striking comparisons are as ready as ever. He styles a dry and prosing exhortation, after a good sermon, “snow in August.” He tells a preacher, trying to be learned and profound in his preaching, that he “puts the fodder toohigh upin the rack—the sheep can’t reach it.” The main trouble is that there is no “fodder” there. He says: “We used to havemenandwomen, but now we haveladiesandgentlemen.” He says he stilleats his dinnerandsupperand lets the rest of themdineandtake tea.
When at home he spends many hours alone, and some of the friends inquired whether he did not get lonesome. “No,” said he, “I never get lonesome. I talk to the Lord and he talks to me. I talk to him in my prayers, and he talks to me in the Bible.” This is keeping good company, and a glorious way to keep from getting lonesome. He reads up and keeps fully posted in all that is transpiring among us, and is fully alive to all the dangers now threatening the cause—the insidious steps now tending to undermine and overthrow all we have done. Still, like Paul, none of these things move him. He is firm as the everlasting hills. He has settled convictions and purposes, and can not be turned away from them. He can see, as Solomon says, that “one sinner destroyeth much good,” but adheres to another saying of much importancefrom the same source: “Fret not thyself because of evil-doers.” The Lord is with him and he is as happy as he can be, full of love and good-will to God and man. Thanks be to God for the faith of Christ that has the power to bear up the spirit, to console and comfort him in extreme old age, and opens to his view, now that he is about to let go this world, “a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens;” and now that he is about to surrender up this life, that opens to his view a life that never ends. Blessed be the Lord who is pleased thus to deal tenderly and kindly with him in his near approach to another world.