TI-IUU~MPI IN  SIT-1-FIET-ING.
A DISCOLT"::UsE
i EL Li X:RE) A)''A TII,
P'{INEJUI{A]   0F   THIE   R1EV.  I.  S.  SP NC:CER,  S1)).,:tASTO()R   01-':1.;',:,.OND P"J!s BYTIl'-I'AN ".I.......... i, RI  1N
BY
GARIDINER  S;PRING,.D.  I,.IL.D.,
Df'a;or oT Bi1 S-ici l@tLrcptairian (gtSurr) in;), k-id'~ of Ntpo }i'-tFt, 
N  [;W    Y (O  <.-.. WV. D O D D, P U iB L, I S I E Rt,
ltRICKR CIHURCH CIAPEL, CITY IIATI,A SZUAkIG.
1 855.








TRIUMPH IN SUFFIEIRING.
A DISCOURSE
DELIVERED AT THE
FUNERAL OF THE REV. I. S. SPENCER, D.D.,
PASTOR OF THE
SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN BROOKLYN, L. I.
BY
GARDINER SPRING, D.D., L.L.D.,
Va~stor of tte B3richk,resbrterian CbIurcf in tet Cita of Nein Pork.
NEW YORK:
M. W. D O DD, PUB LI SHER,
BRICK CHURCH CHAPEL, CITY HALL SQUARE.
1855.








TRIUMIPH IN SUFFERING.
"FOR I RECKON THAT THE SUFFERINGS OF THIS PRESENT TIME ARE NOT WORTHY TO BE
COMPARED WITH THE GLORY WHICH SHALL BE REVEALED IN US."-ROMANS viii. 1I.
NOTWITHSTANDING the excellencies of his personal
and official character, the strong and lurid light in
which our departed brother is presented to my own
thoughts, is his triumph in sufifering. The cross and
the crown-present suffering and the future gloryare fitting themes on this mournful occasion. There
is nothing in Christianity, nor in the character of
Christians, nor in the relation they sustain to the
Church or the world, that exempts them from present
suffering. Whoever reads the Epistles addressed to
the early Christians, will be convinced that, so far
from being exempted from this allotment, their trials
were such as have rarely been surpassed.  They were
set forth as " spectacles" of suffering, in order to show
what living Christianity is, what it can endure, and
how it shines in the hottest furnace. In the strong
language of Paul, " They were always delivered unto
death for Jesus' sake, that the life, also, of Jesus might
be made manifest in their mortal flesh." But they had
consolations to which other men were strangers. Pain
and agony, chains and the dungeon, hungry lions and
fierce flames could not disturb the thinking, tranquil,
joyful, triumphant spirit; it scarcely sympathized with




4
these torturing agonies, except in its struggles to be
free. The darkest night of tribulation did not obscure
the light of God's countenance; nor did its deepest
depths shut out the comforting and vivid anticipations
of the incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading inheritance. In view of this inheritance, all that earth could
inflict was not worthy of a thought. "I reckon,"
exclaims that suffering and triumphant apostle, "that
the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to
be compared with the glory which shall be revealed
in us."
Yet many are the persons, and many is the time
when they are so compared, and when Christian men
are so absorbed in the contemplation of them, and so
studious of deliverance from them, as to lose sight of
the attractions of their high and glorious inheritance.
We may find instruction, therefore, in so arranging
our thoughts as to showHow present sufferings are thus compared with the
future glory;
And how unwise it is to  suffer them to be thus
brought into competition.
I. We are, in the first place, to show how present
sufferings are thus compared with the future glory.
If good men were not exposed to set their affections
on the things of earth and time, there would have been
no occasion for those oft-repeated and urgent admonitions against a worldly spirit, which meet us in almost
every page of the sacred writings.  The tendency
towards earth is strong, even in the regenerated mind.
Transient and unsatisfying as they are, the affections
linger about "these mortal shores."  Nor is it always
merely for the positive good which the things of earth




5
will confer; but to secure exemption from trials, to
avoid the mortification of an humble and depressed
condition, and escape the embarrassment and trials
which the absence of worldly good inflicts. When, in
seasons of spiritual degeneracy, we magnify perplexing
cares and disheartening disappointments, and contemplate the evils of the present life as the greatest object
of our aversion; and when, to alleviate them, we set
our hearts on the pursuit or possession of worldly
good, we take a very disproportionate and wrong view
of the present and the future. This undue fear of
trials, and this excessive love of earth, depreciate the
glory of the heavenly kingdom. Whoever yields to
it allows time to usurp the place of eternity, earth the
place of heaven, and the sorrows of earth the place of
boundless and eternal joys. He compares the "vapor
that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth
away," with the bliss which eternity only can measure
or comprehend.
The religion that shines brightly in prosperity is very
apt to shine in adversity. There is a buoyancy of heart
in trials, a joy in tribulation, which indicates that the
sufferer is conscious that here he has no abiding
city, and is looking for one which " hath foundations,
whose builder and maker is God." This earth presents
no nobler view than struggling poverty cheered by the
promise of durable riches; undeserved reproach comforted with the assurance of everlasting honors; and a
mind supported, peaceful and happy, in a body withered
by disease and bleeding under the pangs of unalleviated
pain. Such a sufferer confers abundant honor on the
"word on which God has caused him to hope," and on
the great realities of the coining world. But when
trials oppress the heart, and good men allow themselves




6
to be weiglhed down with the burden, and sink in
uncontrollable sadness, they not only do injustice to
themselves, but to their promised inheritance. They
dwell so much, and with so much discouragement,
upon their sufferings, and look so intensely upon the
goblet that contains the wormwood and the gall, that
they tempt the tempter, and lay their owhn minds open
to that dark and morbid melancholy which unfits them
alike for duty and enjoyment. They even lose their
relish for the truths and privileges which the Gospel
imparts, and instead of finding comfort in the anticipation of what awaits them bevond this world, look
with doubt and suspicion upon the full cup of blessing
which infinite love would fain put to their lips. A
moderated and submissive grief is one of the best
proofs that the divine discipline is producing its desired
effect. But this is a very different thing from that
inexorable despondency in which the soul " refuses to
be comforted."  What is more apparent, when this is
the case, than that the sufferer has forgotten that there
is a better world, and depreciates the glories of those
sweet fields beyond the flood?"  How light would
trials appear compared with the glory to be revealed, if
that " exceeding and eternal weight of glory" could be
seen without a cloud! How would the darkest sky
drop with mercy, and the breeze of the pestilence
become fragrant, and the habitations of woe, and the
place of sighing become vocal with joy and praise, if
our hearts and hopes were always and more sensibly
lodged in heaven!  Oh! they are delighted visions,
hallowed, transforming, transporting views, when the
soul realizes them, and lingers amid such scenes, and
feels that every rough wind that blows, and every dark
wave and adverse current, is drifting it to the heavenly




shore. The heir apparent of an earthly kingdom may
meet with crosses and disappointments, conflicts and
temporary defeat; but the power, and wealth, and
honor that await him when he shall grasp the sceptre
and assume the {diadem, make him ashamed to indulge
in sadness which might be befitting those of more
humble expectations. And what shall be said of those
who are to receive the crown of righteousness, and
reign in life with Christ, when they give way to a
spirit of immoderate and uncontrolled sorrow, but that
they allow the sufferings of this present time to compare with, if not for a season to supersede, the glory to
be revealed?
When the heart is thus oppressed with trials, there
are also strong inducements to sin, in order to avoid
trials. Men sin, not only for the positive enjoyment
which sin furnishes them as creatures of sense, but for
the negative enjoyment of avoiding the ills which flesh
and sense are heirs to. Not a few of the trials which
befall men are the consequence of an inflexible adherence to duty. Paul was a sufferer because he was
a Christian. The martyrs were sufferers because they
would not throw a handful of incense on the altars of
idolatry. And thousands have trodden in their steps,
and followed their upward path to the glory from
which all the sufferings of time could not wean them.
No man knows the strength of his piety until he is
tried. Not unfrequently we may, and no doubt often
do, avoid embarrassment and difficulty, by aberrations
from moral rectitude, and indifference to the claims of
truth and righteousness. Poverty may be avoided by
the accumulation of unrighteous gains; obscurity may
be avoided by those who will hesitate at nothing in
their pursuit of dignity and place; punishment and




8
disgrace may be avoided by falsehood, and we may
screen others from them if we are willing to do it at
the expense of our integrity. Men may retain the
favor of their fellow-men, and extend the circle of their
friends and influence, if they will connive at the wickedness of the rich, and minister to the vices of the poor.
Ministers of the Gospel may attain the popularity they
seek after, by " preaching smooth things, prophesying
deceits," and saying, " Peace, peace," when God says
"there is no peace to the wicked." Various are the
ways in which temporary evil may be avoided, and
temporary good secured by the sacrifice of principle.
But in no instance can this be done without a manifest
preference of' exemption from present trial, to the
"favor which the Lord bears to his own people."
Let every man who had rather sin than suffer, faithfillly inspect the actings of his own mind, and his own
inward questionings will show him that in every such
preference lhe is not only comparing the afflictions of
time with everlasting glory, but actually deciding in
favor of the earthly and against the heavenly.
Not unfrequently, also, the gracious design of affliction
is lost sight of. The proper fruit of present suffering is
to take away sin, and fit the soul for heaven. He who
sends it "does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the
children of men;" the end is unutterably desirable, and
may well reconcile the severest sufferer to his sharpest
pangs.  "My  brethren," says the apostle James,
"count it all joy when ye fall into divers trials,
knowing this, that the trial of your faith worketh
patience; but let patience have her perfect work, that
ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." Yet
how often are the people of God most grieved when
they have the most cause to live upon the promises,




9
and to count upon their spiritual and eternal joys!
With thoughts more employed about their present
troubles than the end towards which they are conducting them, they forget that "God has chosen them in
the furnace of affliction," and that whom the Lord
" loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom
he receiveth." Instead of appreciating the truth that
"it is through much tribulation they must enter the
kingdom," they not only repine at their trials, but
overlook their certain and blessed issue. This seems
very much like comparing heaven with present exemption from sorrow, and balancing them as rival claims.
There are also instances, not a few, in which the soul
is lost by its solicitude to avoid present suffering. Good
men may sin in order to avoid suffering, and because
they have seen'their folly, repented of their wickedness,
and apprehended the mercy of God in Christ, will be
saved from the penal consequences of the guilty choice,
and find pardon and life. But it is far otherwise with
those who persevere in their sinful courses, and, rather
than be sufferers, throw away their immortality. Unlike him who " chose rather to suffer affliction with the
people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a
season," they will not part with the pleasures of sin,
even for the glory which is to be revealed. It is not
the purity of heaven that attracts them, but the pollutions of earth. They will not "break loose from this
enchanted ground," though it were for the splendor
and blessedness of the Celestial City. They choose
rather " to have their sins and go to hell, than to leave
their sins and go to heaven." Consult their desires for
the present world, and they forego every other hope
and rush upon destruction. This is the spirit that
governs them. It is the death of seriousness, and
drowns them in destruction and perdition.




10
No Christian does this. In his view there is no
room for the comparison between the present and the
future. All the pleasures he can enjoy in the present
world, and all the sufferings he can endure, are not
worthy of a second thought, if suffered to detract from
the purity or elevation of his character, or obscure the
glory of his final inheritance. Paul so reckoned; and
there are good reasons for this conclusion. Let us,
then,II. In the second place, suggest some of the reasons
which indicate the folly of allowing present suffering
and future glory to be thus brought into competition.
We must here limit ourselves to the three following
thoughts:
1. In the first place, present sufferings may be endured.
We speak not lightly of present sufferings; "we
remember the wormwood an'd the gall, and our flesh
trembleth at God's judgments."  Yet in all their multitude and varied degrees of severity, they have been
endured, and can be endured still. Poverty may be
endured, though it reduce a man to the bread and
water of affliction, and clothe him with rags, and
fierce winds whistle through his shattered dwelling.
Shame and reproach may be endured, and though they
drive the sufferer into solitude, they must prey long
upon him before his unbending spirit is crushed. Persecution may inflict its terrors, and chase its victims
into dens and caves of the earth, and they may yet live,
and be contented and happy. Sickness may debilitate,
and the bed of languishing may be the bed of peace.
Pain may agonize this curiously-framed machinery, and
if it do not dart its pangs through some vital organ, the
machinery will last, and be sustained under weeks, and
months, and years of suffering. The great Creator has
s8oz formed these bodies, and so fenced round the seat




11
of life with bones and sinews, that the citadel is able to
withstand many a severe and stormy siege before it
yields to the King of Terrors. The waste of human life
is a gradual process; and its resuscitating power for a
long time stands abreast with its decay. The history
of human suffering would be a most touching history,
but it would be the narrative of almost incredible endurance. It is not wonderful that men should exclaim
with Job, "I would not live always;" while, at the
same time, they live under untold complications of
suffering and calamity. Instances are not wanting in
which the mind, absorbed in other and more important
and higher themes, forgets the sufferings of the body,
and leaves its inferior companion to suffer forgotten
and alone. There are noble examples of suffering on
record, which seem to have been permitted in order to
show  that there are laws of God's providence, and
higher laws of His truth and grace in Jesus Christ, by
which the mind can triumph over the sufferings of the
body, and demonstrate to what extent the immaterial
possesses the mastery over the material.
We should probably be surprised  to know  to
what extent these frail tenements of clay can be
filled with pain and anguish, before " the silver
cord" that binds themn together is loosed. Not unfrequently has the conflict been prolonged for years,
which, at the first onset, did not seen able to be
endured for a day. Few, even of the men of the
world, have ever been so overwhelmed with calamity
as to be impatient for the relief which death only
can give. And when the rare instance occurs, that the
child of suffering and despair "chooses strangling and
death, rather than life," how does the general surprise
testify to the folly of the sentiment, that the sufferings




12
of earth are too heavy to be borne.  And where
human endurance, and philosophy, lending her aid to
native strength of mind, refuses an adequate support
under sufferings, there are higher powers to support
the sufferer than the powers of earth. Because the eternal God is his refuge and underneath him are the everlasting firms, his sufferings can be endured. Scenes of
suffering there are where the Comforter never comes, no
angel-forms hover, and where His voice is never heard
who brought life and immortality to light. There is no
vigor of intellect in that world of darkness, no strength
of resolution, and no cold philosophy that can endure
the loss of heaven and the soul. The man who has
become a castaway may sit down and weep, and suffer
his heart to break. He has no strong tower into which
he may run and be safe, and no chamber of mercy
where he may hide until the calamity be overpast.
There is no revealed glory in those dark domains of
perfect and absolute despair. Who, then, that knows
the Christian's spirit and the Christian's hopes, will
not judge with Paul, that present sufferings are not
worthy to be compared with the fuiture glory?
2. In the second place, the sufferings of this present
time may be mitigated.
Few earthly trials are so great as to be incapable of
alleviation. Be they what they may, the cup is never
so full but many a drop of bitterness may be added to
it before it overflows. There is much remaining to the
most abject sufferer the sun looks upon, of which no
suffering has yet deprived him. The great mass of
sufferers, when they compare their own privations and
sorrows with others, can always find those whose condition is more pitiable than their own. There are
comforts, too, in the allotment of the afflicted, even




13
when dwelling upon their darkest prospects; God
"hath set one over against the other," so that no condition is one of unmingled evil. The sympathy of
friends, the remembrance of the past, and the hope of
the future-blessings unthought of in more prosperous
days-the comparison of our sufferings with our ill
desert, and the reflection that any thing short of being
banished from heaven and shut up in hell, is more than
we can claim at the hands of justice-all these come
over the sufferer's mind like cooling showers upon the
scorched and burning desert.  To a Christian mind
there is also the alleviating thought, that there is infinite
wisdom and goodness in all his sufferings; that in covenanted mercy and faithfulness, all things work together
for his good; and that this dark night is to be succeeded by a sun that never goes down. Nor is this all
that alleviates his woes. There is one Comforter whose
presence he enjoys, whom the men of the world know
not. And He was a sufferer-the great, the Omnipotent
Sufferer. We may not speak of our light and alleviated
sufferings, when we think of His. Fearful wrath broke
upon that guiltless head, when He hung on Calvary, and
terrors gleamed there, compared with which the lightning that flashed on Sinai grows pale. That crossthat crown of thorns-that hammer and those nailsthat uncovered body-that bitter cup —that furious and
mocking soldiery-that hour and those powers of darkness, waging their last and most terrific warfare, where
no earthly friend may comfort Him-no angel of all
those legions come for His rescue, but He must sink and
die alone, because Heaven is angry, and because He
who is dearest to Him on earth and in heaven, hides His
face — these were sufferings at which the heavens
grew dark, and the vale of the temple was rent in twain,




14
from the top to the bottom. No, we may not speak of
our light and alleviated sufferings, when compared with
His. Say, Christian sufferer, is there nothing in that
cross that binds up thy broken and sustains thy sinking heart. Does that bleeding One never wipe the
sorrows from thy cheek? We have seen the subjects
of sorrow, and have been conversant with chambers
where none could refrain from weeping but the sufferer,
and where he, of all the others, was the most comforted,
because "' the Man of Sorrows" was his Comforter. Has
that great and triumphant Sufferer. given no promises
to his suffering people, that " His grace shall be sufficient
for them," and that they shall be the happier for every
tear they shed? Have burning martyrs never sung and
shouted amid the ascending flames, because there was
One in the furnace with them like " unto the Son of
Man?" Oh! could we go to yonder hospital, or stand
by the ten thousand beds of suffering with which tilis
poor world is filled, how many thousands should we see,
who, from the lowest depths of suffering, climb the
highest altitude of hope and joy and heavenly anticipation to which faith can soar! Every Christian grace
brought into exercise, and burnished by sufferings, does
itself soothe and staunch the bleeding heart.  That
widow's heart which is buried in her husband's grave,
has a sacred calmness, because she has learned to say,
" It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good."
That suffering man of God has mitigations of his sufferings, which we might well consent to endure, if we
could but enjoy them. His weather-beaten bark labors
and plunges in the tempest, but all around him are the
circling hills of the New Jerusalem. Shame on the
Christian who, amid such teachings and such assurances of the Saviour's love, stoops to put present sufferings in competition with the coming glory!




15
But what can soothe under eternal losses?  Or who
shall suggest an availing consolation to him who is an
outcast from the kingdom of God? The loss is complete; the woe is finished, entire, and unmitigated.
No voice of compassion, no remembrance of the past,
no hope of the future, no bland graces of the Spirit
buoy up the burdened heart. No ray of light comes
into the dark dungeon. In all the wide universe there
is no being, nor object, nor thought, nor emotion, that
brings sympathy or succor. Evil, merited, intolerable,
unmitigated, and unrelieved, must be the portion of
such a sufferer. And who, much more what Christian,
can for a moment put in competition present sufferings,
not with the future glory merely, but with these irreparable evils? I add,3. In the third'place, and it is a delightful thought,
that the sufferings of this life have an end.'To indicate their brevity, they are called " the sufferings of this present time," and "light afflictions which
endure but for a moment."  More usually, if not always,
they admit of variations; the man whose sky has been
overcast, and whose courage has drooped in the storm,
has often, unexpectedly, found the clouds clear away,
and the smile of Heaven resting upon his head. But
even where trials can no longer be mitigated nor
endured, they last but a little while. It is a terrible
struggle; but, blessed be God who made man's life
what it is, flesh and sense at length give way, and then
all his troubles are " as a dream when one awaketh."
When they "have killed the body," they have done
their worst; after that, they have no more that they
can do. "The wind passeth over them, and they are
gone, and the place thereof knoweth them no more."
When the Christian lies down in the grave, want
ceases to assail him; suspicion and obloquy and neglect




16
no longer mortify him; separations no longer break his
heart; crosses and disappointments no longer interrupt
his peace; pain, and groans, and "dying strife" no
longer agonize his poor, suffering body.  This final
catastrophe ends the history of his trials. You heard
it, you saw it, but it was the last groan, the last throb
of anguish, the last tear he will ever shed. The conflict is over. There will be no more exhausting days
and wearisome nights. The aching head, the throbbing
heart, are at rest. Adversity has spent the last arrow
in his quiver, and the child of sorrow has found his final
and perfect repose.
But the glory that "is to be revealed" is but just
begun. Just as "the wrath to come" remains "the
wrath to come," and still " to come;" so the "glory
that is to be revealed" remains the glory to be yet
revealed, and in progressive and augmented revelations
for interminable ages. As " he that is filthy shall be
filthy still," so "he that is holy shall be holy still."
These chilling winds and changing seasons are there
unknown. The soul that once enters that happy world
is for ever out of their reach. Throughout all the
bright regions of that New Creation, there are songs
and everlasting joy upon their heads, and the splendors
of everlasting day. Crowns such as angels wear are
there, and a throne of glory where they shall live and
reign with Christ for ever. Oh! do not the sufferings of
this present time actually vanish before this unspeakable glory?  May they be brought into comparison?
Shall the shadow of time obscure the lustre of eternity?
What strange blindness, what madness even, is in
the human heart? Who but a creature fallen by his
iniquity, would ever have thought of thus putting in
competition such things as these?  What moral arithmetic is this, and where is it taught and learned?




17
Who is the teacher of this great delusion but the
"father of lies?" Yet our poor, infatuated earth is
full of it. Sometimes, as we survey it, it looks to us as
a great madhouse, where " the god of this world hath
blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the
light of the glorious Gospel should shine unto them."
We see for ourselves that " even the mind and conscience" are defiled by sin. If men reasoned in other
matters as they do on the subject of religion, and
formed their estimate by the same obscured vision by
which they allow the present to come in competition
with the future, we might justly consider them maniacs.
My bereaved hearers who have no hope, and are
without God in the world, you may not look for
exemption from trials. Your dwellings, and your own
bosoms, will yet give forth the echo to many a sad tale
of woe. And what if you have nothing beyond the
present to hope for? Oh! the stupidity, the amazing
temerity of encountering the ills of human life, with no
refuge from the storm! "Madness is in their heart
while they live, and after that they go to the dead."
All are not thus reckless. Multitudes there are now
in heaven, and even in this age of worldliness some
there are yet remaining on the earth, who lay their
account with trial and suffering; who are satisfied that
"it is through much tribulation they must enter into
the kingdom;" and who are happy in the thought that
"it worketh out for them a far more exceeding and
eternal weight of glory." They are comforted in their
sufferings, and are often cheerful and happy under the
heaviest frowns. All of joy and woe which this world
contains is to them but dust in the balance to the
glorious realities that remain.
The beloved man whose untimely death we all so
2




18
deeply deplore, was a sufferer; but he was not guilty of
the folly of " comparing the sufferings of this present
time with the glory that shall be revealed." His affections were not set on the things of earth and time; nor
did he allow them to come in competition with the
favors of his Divine Master. The Church of God has
not many such ministers of the Gospel to lose as
Dr. Spencer. His brethren in the ministry have rarely,
if ever, been called to mourn a heavier loss. This is
an affecting scene, my hearers, to him who now addresses you, as well as to yourselves. There lies the
man who I fondly hoped would live to preach my
funeral sermon. Yet, though endowed with a more
vigorous frame, though in the high day of unwearied
toil and usefulness, and though more than half a score
of years behind me, he is the first to reach the goal,
and gain the prize. I have never felt more deeply than
I now do, that with all its distinguished blessings, one
of the penalties of long life is, that we live to see
so many others die.
The early history of our departed brother was not
unlike that of many of his brethren in the sacred
calling, and not a few of eminence in other professions
in our youthful land.  Under God's guidance and
blessing, he was a self-made man.  Ichabod Smith
Spencer was born of Christian parents, in the town of
Rupert, Bennington County, in the State of Vermont,
February 3, 1797. His father, one of two brothers,
was a respected agriculturist, that could do little
more for his children than furnish them with those
rudiments of education which are so well supplied by
the common schools of New-England. This son was
the child of many prayers, faithful and kind discipline,
and assiduous religious culture. He became hopefully




19
pious in his youth, and at an early age united himself
with the church of God. At seventeen years of age he
was thrown upon his own resources; and with no pecuniary assistance except that which he derived from his
emoluments as a teacher, was fitted for college at the
Academy in Salem, in the State of New York. Here it
was his privilege to enjoy the friendship and paternal
counsels of that venerable and beloved man, whose
praise is in all the churches, the Rev. Alexander Proudfit, whom he never ceased to regard with filial affection.
At Union College he maintained a high standing in his
class, and was graduated with honor in the year
1822. He was immediately employed as a teacher in
the grammar-school in Schenectady, and with his eye
and heart on the pulpit, at the same time pursued his
theological studies under the direction of the Rev. Dr.
Yates, the Professor of Moral Philosophy in the College. He subsequently became the Preceptor of the
Academy in Canandaigua, where he so far completed
his theological studies, as to receive his licensure to
preach the Gospel.
Though, as he himself has often remarked, his
preparations for the ministry were far from being
ample; unwearied diligence, a well-disciplined mind,
and a character of great decision and loveliness, soon
convinced the churches that he was no common man,
and prepared the way for his occupying one of the
most important pulpits in New England. He was the
worthy successor of Stoddard, Edwards, and Williams,
and an able defender of the truths of the Gospel,
at a time when so many of the churches of New
England had departed from the faith of their Puritan
ancestors. Long will he be remembered in Northampton; where, though his ministry was continued but




20
three and a-half years, it was attended with great success.
His occasional visits to that people, after the dissolution
of his pastoral charge, were hailed with every token of
Christian affection on the part of the people, and
greatly enjoyed by himself. He left Northampton for
Brooklyn in 1832, to take the charge of this then infant
and newly-organized church, where he continued in
the pastoral office until his death, the 23d of November,
1854, at the age of nearly 57 years.
I need not inform this church and congregation what
he was as a man, a minister of the Gospel, and a
pastor. lie has left his impress upon this people, nor will
it be easy to erase it. He sought not yours, but you.
There are seals of his ministry here, which show what
manner of man he was in the midst of you. The signs
of a faithful minister have been wrought among you in
all patience and mighty deeds. Ye are his epistles,
known and read of all men.  Ye are his witnesses
that " by the word of truth, by the power of God, by
the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on
the left, by pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering,
by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned," lhe
" approved himself as the minister of God."
It is characteristic of the best ministers that they are
best at home, and most distinguished in their own
pulpits. There was no " flourish of trumpets" with Dr.
Spencer, when he went abroad. He was not demonstrative in his nature, nor eager for the praise of men.
He was emulous, but it was mainly to magnify the
truths of God, and do good to the souls of men. No
man was less desirous than he to " create a sensation,"
and set the world aghast by his preaching. Yet was he
exclusively devoted  to his work.  His heart, his
thoughts, his studies and attainments, his time, his




21
interests, his influence, and his life, were given to
the ministry. Few ministers of the everlasting Gospel,
if any, are more industrious; and few have less
occasion to lament misspent and wasted hours. The
result was, that he became one of the best and
most effective preachers of the age. Few habitually
spake like him in discourses of such instructiveness,
such attractive persuasion, such withering rebuke of
wickedness, or such happy effects upon the minds
of men. He "spake the things which become sound
doctrine," and declared " the whole counsel of God."
He was cautious and wise, but he was urgent and
in earnest.  He was often tender to weeping, yet
was he a most fearless preacher. There was a large
commingling of the " Son of consolation" with the " Son
of thunder" in his character. I have heard him say
that he did not know what it was to be ensnared or
embarrassed in preaching God's truth, and that the
thought of being afraid to utter it because it was
unpopular, never once entered his mind. There was
something of nature in this, and more of grace; he was
fearless of men, because he feared God. There was
great variety in his preaching; he was not confined to
a few threadbare topics; his mind and heart took
a wide range, and brought out of his treasure "things
both new and old." Nor was he given to crude and
imperfect preparations for the pulpit; a volume of
sermons might be selected from his manuscripts, which
would be a beautiful model for the youthful ministry,
and a great comfort to the Church of God. His Sabbath evening lectures on the Shorter Catechism, as well
as portions of his lectures on the Epistle to the Romans,
will not easily be forgotten by those who heard them.
In his style of writing, and in his style and manner of




22
preaching, he was manly, strong, and energetic, rather
than rhetorical. His thoughts were weighty, his imagination rich; but they were sweet thoughts, and hallowed imaginations. He had no verbiage. I know no
man whose piety and taste more instinctively revolted
from the ostentation of words; his words were simple
and " fitly spoken," and his style remarkably terse and
sententious. There was now and then an iron nerve
about his discourses and manner, and a flash of
thought that were startling, and that broke upon his
hearers like a voice of thunder. Yet with all this startling boldness, there was sweetness, humility, and meekness, and those deep and realizing views of divine truth
which indicated that he was taught of God. It was not
difficult to perceive that he was no stranger to the
duties of the'closet. In his own pulpit, his prayers
were distinguished, not only for their devotional spirit,
but for their appropriateness and variety. Those who
have heard him most, and longest, and most attentively, have remarked that they never knew any thing
like repetition in his prayers, and never enjoyed such
variety of sacred thought and emotion as they enjoyed
from his devotional exercises.
He excelled also as a pastor. His parochial duties
were his labor and delight. There was great faithfulness, great painstaking, and even great tact in his pastoral services. The life of a pastor consists, in no
small degree, in the study of personal character, and in
the study and exhibition of those divine truths that are
adapted to the character and experience of those
committed to his charge.  Dr. Spencer's "Pastoral
Sketches," a work of great interest in itself, and great
value to ministers, and to all inquiring minds, illustrates
his great excellence in this department of ministerial




23
labor. Would that we were all more like him, in
marking and in treasuring up the actings of the human
heart, in watching the progress of serious thought, in
following the leadings of the Divine Spirit upon the
minds of our people, and in addressing to them the
right truth, in the right way, and at the right time!
His acquaintance with the spiritual history of his
people gave him prodigious advantage over their minds
in his discourses from the pulpit. His portraits of
character were to the life, and though they were delicately drawn, and without personal allusion, there was
no escape from the grasp of truth when he put the
screws upon the conscience, and made the law and the
Gospel alike utter the words of Nathan to David, " Thou
art the man." And the beauty of the process was,
that he did it with a tenderness and sympathy that so
linked the speaker with the hearers, that the stouthearted could not complain, and the broken-hearted
were made whole. He had no theory of "revivals,"
yet was he often in the midst of them. God's truth,
God's Spirit, and the prayers of his people, were
the only agencies he relied on, and he found them
abundantly adequate to their end. God gave him souls
for his hire. This is the reward he sought after, and
he enjoys it now.
I need not speak of his life. He is the only man who
ever doubted that he was a man of genuine piety.
"Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are
honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things
are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever
things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and
if there be any praise," these things belonged to Dr.
Spencer. Not a blot rests upon his fair name. The
perplexed will miss his counsels, the afflicted will miss




24
his sympathy, and the poor of Brooklyn will miss his
laborious charities.
I have said more than once that he was a s.fferer.
Nor may I close without asking you to go with me to
his chamber of suffering and triumph. " It is better to
go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting." Beyond the banqueting-halls of the rich and the
palaces of princes, is the "chamber where the good
man meets his fate." His voice will not be soon forgotten as uttered from the pulpit; " but being dead he
yet speaketh" from that sad and triumphant chamber.
Hle was a sufferer for years, and his sufferings sometimes oppressed his heart, because they unfitted him for
active labor; yet I have seen him more depressed
when the sunlight of prosperity shone upon him, than
in the dark ilight of his affliction. His graces grew
under the sharpest trials; and amid all the outward
darkness with which he was so long enveloped, his path
shone brighter and brighter unto the perfect day.
During the last three or four weeks of his life,
so severe were his sufferings, that he was not inclined
to much conversation. But on the Monday preceding
his death, being comparatively free from pain, and perceiving that his time was short, he called his family
about his bed, requested them to be so arranged that he
could see them all, and separately address each one of
them. He told them  that he expected to die, and
expected to go to heaven, and expressed the hope that
he should meet them all there. In his own simple
manner, and with all the tenderness of a dying man, he
opened to them the way of life by Jesus Christ, spoke
to them of his own confidence in the Saviour, and urged
them to " cling to Christ and the Bible" as their only hope.
It was just after this affecting scene, that I knocked at




25
his door. And never was I more kindly directed than in
making this fraternal visit. I had some fears, from what
I knew of his self-scrutinizing spirit, that I might
find him in a depressed state of mind. But as he
drew near the close of his struggles, God was kind,
and gave him sweet indications of his paternal love.
There he tossed, day after day, and night after night,
upon that couch of racking pain, with a mind as clear as
Newton's, and a heart as peaceful as a child in its
mother's bosom. The great peculiarity of his Christian
character was his shrinking humility and self-diffidence.
More than once, in the days of his unbroken vigor, I
have heard him say, "I have mistaken my calling; I
never was fit for a minister of the Gospel." No one
else thought so; yet he retained this self-diffidence
to the last. I' said to him, "Brother Spencer, I am
afraid you are about to leave us." He replied, "I
think so." I took his hand, and he said, " You see I am
strong; I may rally, but it is more than probable that
I shall leave you by to-morrow  mnorning."' Is it
peace with you, brother?" His body was in agony; he
tossed his head on the pillow, and replied, " It is all
peace!" He paused, and, fixing his piercing eye upon
me, said, "I am afraid it is too much peace. I cannot
discover in myself those evidences of personal godliness
which justify me in enjoying such abundant peace." I
could not repress a smile at these sweet words, and then
reminded him of those words of the Lord Jesus, when
He said, " I am come that they might have life, and
that they might have it more abundantly."  He simply
replied, "Pray with me;" and then called his family
around his bed, where we knelt and prayed together for
the last time. His sufferings continued without any
abatement, with the exception of a few tranquil hours,




26
which he employed in giving to those around him his
last counsels and charge, commending them to God,
and testifying his own precious hopes, and the prospects that cheered him as he bade them farewell. He
subsequently conversed but little.  His manly frame
was exhausted. Three days after this the strong man
bowed himself to the impotence and dust of death. An
inscrutable Providence made him a partaker in his
Master's sufferings; abundant grace made him partaker
in His glory.
" God's way is in the sea, and His path in the mighty
waters, and His footsteps are not known." It is a dark
day in which we live. There is a fearful dying of God's
faithful ministers and people, as though He would take
them away from the evil that is coming on the land, on
the Church, and on the world, and hide them in His own
pavilion. It is a dark day to a loving and bereaved
family and congregation, when such a husband, such a
father, such a pastor, is summoned from earth to
heaven. It is a dark day to Brooklyn, when, amid
bold and unchecked errors, a man of such firm principles, and conservative, equable spirit, is removed from
so commanding a pulpit. It is a dark day to us, his
brethren in the ministry, when a light that burned so
brightly, and which we had hoped would burn so long,
is put out. He who addresses you has been permitted
to live while two generations of ministers have dropped
around him into the grave. We adore God's goodness, while we still feel that His ways are dark, and that
He is speaking to us in His voice of storms. We are
dumb with silence, and can only look round for some
refuge in this day of trouble.
My brethren in the ministry, and my friends of this
mourning congregation, "GOD is a refuge for us."




27
O ye, the most beloved and most bereaved! if ye would
see brother Spencer, ye must not look to that dissolving tabernacle. It is taken down, and he is not there.
I would not have him return to it, and again pass through
those scenes of agony! No, the conflict is over. Brother!
brother! all hail! The conflict is over, and the victory
is won! What does he think of his sufferings now, and
of the storms that have blown him into such a harbor?
Oh! we would fain climb these cliffs of time, and with
him take a view of the world of joy. There the children of adversity are made free from sorrow. There
are those "who came out of great tribulation, having
washed their robes and made them white in the blood
of the Lamb."  There the exiled is an heir of God, and
a joint-heir with Jesus Christ. There the captive gains
the prize and wears the crown. There there is nothing that defileth.  There every devout emotion is
gratified, every thought glows with rapture, every joy
is unspeakable and fill of glory. There the "Lamb
which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and
lead them to living fountains of water. They shall
hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall
the sun light on them, nor any heat."  There "God
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: there shall
be no more death, neither sorrow, neither crying, neither
shall there be any more pain; for the former things are
passed away." As certainly as " the Son of Man came
to seek and to save that which is lost," so certainly our
beloved and departed brother is there. The Gospel'is
triumphant in the life and death of such a man, and it
is triumph in suffering. What a triumphant chamber
was that! and what an hour of triumph when that creature of suffering, poor in spirit, but rich in faith and
heavenly hopes, was released from  the bondage in




28
which he had so long struggled, dismissed from this
sinning and weeping world, and winged his way to his
appointed and prepared place near the eternal throne!
"I am going," he exclaimed, " to a world where there
is no sickness, no pain, no temptation, and no sin!"
Language fails, thought is feeble, in the contemplation
of such a scene. Angels stoop to look upon it, and
wait to bear the liberated spirit away. Oh! what
inexpressible glory bursts upon that ransomed spirit
when, having dropped the burden of sin and woe,
passed these confines of darkness and fear, and gained
those realms of light, he is welcomed home!
Could he look to-day from those holy, happy scenes,
upon whom would he look, and what would he say? He
would look upon you who most deeply mourn, and
say, "Dry up those tears.  Thy 3Maker is thy husband, and
let thy fatherless children trust in Him."  This will give
you security and comfort, even in this vale of tears.  The
widow's God and the Father of the fatherless will not
disappoint the hopes that rest upon His promises!  He
would look upon the church he has gathered, upon the
old he has encouraged and comforted, and upon the
young he has watched over, upon the poor he has
ministered to, and the wandering he has gathered
into the fold, and say, "Be ye followers of them who
through lfaith and patience have inherited the promises.
We shall meet again, and let it be before that throne where
your pastor would fain say,' Behold I and the children
which God hath given me!'"  He would cast his eye of
Paternal love upon those who, with him, have served
at God's altars, and say, " Beloved brethren, walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time.
The glory to be revealed alone can estimate the immeasurable importance of your work.  Take heed lest, after




29
having preached to others, you yourselves be cast away.
Your own salvation, and that of thousands, depends on
your faithfulness.  The day of retribution is near; keep
the faith, and finish your course with joy." He would
look also with more than his wonted tenderness upon
you who have long heard and long refused the salvation
he proclaimed, and say, " My beloved friends, I am
no more in the midst of you. Many are the Sabbaths we
have spent together in the world where I no longer dwell.
Your consciences bear witness that I have employed those
days of mercy in beseeching you to be reconciled to God.'Remember the words that I spake to you, while I was yet
with you,' and no longer despise this heavenly glory."