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 A discourse commemorative of Rev. 
 Lewis S a bin.
 
 'A 'N
 
 DISCOURSE 
 
 COMMEMORATIVE OF 
 
 Rev. Lewis Sabin, D. D. 
 
 PREACHED AT HIS FUNERAL, 
 
 TEMPLETON, MASS., 
 
 JUNE 11, 1873, 
 
 KEY. W. S. TYLER. D. D.. 
 
 Williston Professor of Greek in Amherst College. 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, MASS. : 
 
 CLARK W. BRYAN AND COMPANY. 
 1873.
 
 DISCOURSE 
 
 COMMEMORATIVE OF 
 
 Rev. Lewis Sabin, D. D., 
 
 PREACHED AT HIS FUNERAL, 
 
 IN 
 
 TEMPLETON, MASS., 
 
 JUKE 11, 1873, 
 
 BY 
 
 KEY. W. S. TYLEE, D. D., 
 
 Williston Professor of Greek in Amherst College. 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, MASS. : 
 
 CLARK W. BRYAN AND COMPANY, 
 
 1873.
 
 TEMPLETON, MASS., June 16, 1873. 
 
 PROF. W. S. TYLER Dear Sir: At a regular meeting of the Church, 
 the Church voted to instruct the Clerk of the Church to request a copy of 
 the Sermon preached by you at the Funeral of Rev. Lewis Sabin, D. D., 
 for publication. In accordance with that vote, I now request a copy of 
 the Sermon preached by you at the Funeral of Rev. Lewis Sabin, D. D., 
 for publication. We feel that its publication will not only give Dr. Sabin's 
 numerous friends much satisfaction, but that it will be the means of much 
 
 good. 
 
 In behalf of the Trinitarian Church in Templeton, 
 
 A. H. MERRIAM, Clerk. 
 
 AMHERST COLLEGE, June 18, 1873. 
 
 MR. A. H. MERRIAM, CleiTc of the Trinitarian Church in Templeton 
 Dear Sir: The Sermon preached at the Funeral of Rev. Dr. Sabin, of 
 which the Church so long under his pastoral care request a copy for publi- 
 cation, was written under an unusual pressure of private and public duties, 
 and is very far from coming up to my conception of the subject and 
 the occasion. But I do not feel at liberty to disregard the wishes of the 
 Church, especially when accompanied with an expression 'of their belief 
 that it will not only give Dr. Sabin's numerous friends much satisfaction, 
 but will also be the means of much good. As soon, therefore, as I can 
 find time so far to revise the manuscript as to make it legible, I will send 
 a copy for publication, hoping that it may accomplish, in some measure, 
 the end for which it was asked. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 W. S. TYLER.
 
 DISCOURSE. 
 
 Acts xi. 24. 
 For he was a good man and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith. 
 
 THIS is the description which inspiration has given of one 
 of the earliest ministers of the Gospel, who had the honor 
 of introducing the apostle Paul into the ministry to the 
 Gentiles, and was himself honored with the name of an apos- 
 tle, and whose wise counsels and faithful labors were greatly 
 blessed in the growth, peace and prosperity of the apos- 
 tolic churches. His biography is brief, as it is recorded in 
 the Acts. He was a Levite, born in Cyprus, (that beauti- 
 ful island of the Mediterranean, whose very name by which 
 it was known to the Greeks and Romans, was associated with 
 an extraordinary devotion to the corrupt and corrupting wor- 
 ship of the goddess Venus); but according to tradition he 
 was brought up a fellow disciple of Saul of Tarsus, in the 
 school of Gamaliel, in Jerusalem. 
 
 His first appearance in sacred history is soon after the day 
 of Pentecost, when he sold his landed property, (whether in 
 Cyprus or at Jerusalem we are not informed,) and brought 
 the money and laid it at the apostles' feet. His Jewish 
 name was Joses or Joseph. But from this time he is known 
 by the name, ever since familiar and dear to the Christian
 
 6 
 
 church, of Barnabas, which signifies the son of consolation or 
 the son of exhortation, or prophecy, which was given him 
 by the Apostles as a surname of honor, and doubtless also 
 as a characteristic designation. Whether it designates his 
 power as a prophet, or inspired teacher and preacher, or that 
 tender and sympathetic nature which, guided and sanctified 
 by the Spirit, made him the chief minister of the comforts and 
 consolations of the gospel to the early Christians, it is not 
 important for the church to know ; in either case, it is a high 
 and honorable distinction. Chrysostom, the golden-mouthed 
 orator and Father of the Church says, he was a mild and 
 gentle person, and a son of consolation because he was so full 
 of sympathy and love. The next we know of Barnabas, he 
 meets Saul of Tarsus at Jerusalem after his conversion, essay- 
 ing to join himself unto the disciples. When they were all 
 afraid of him and believed not that he was a disciple, Barna- 
 bas took him and brought him to the apostles, and declared 
 unto them how he had seen the Lord in the way, and how 
 he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus. 
 According to the tradition to which we have already alluded, 
 and which perhaps receives some confirmation from the cir- 
 cumstances narrated in the Acts, Barnabas had often attempt- 
 ed to win the companion of his early studies to the Christian 
 faith, but in vain ; and meeting with him at this time in Jeru- 
 salem, and not aware of what had occurred at Damascus, he 
 renewed his efforts, when Paul threw himself at his feet and 
 informed him of the heavenly vision and the marvelous trans- 
 formation of the blasphemer and the persecutor into the bold 
 and eloquent preacher of the truth as it is in Jesus. 
 
 When the gospel was first preached to the Gentiles at 
 Antioch, and a great number believed and turned unto the 
 Lord ; and when tidings of this new, and according to Jew-
 
 ish ideas, irregular proceeding having come to the church at 
 Jerusalem, they wished to send thither some one of sufficient 
 candor and discernment to report the truth, and at the same 
 time wisdom and weight of character enough to harmonize 
 
 O tj 
 
 all the conflicting views, Barnabas was the man whom they 
 chose as their delegate and representative on this important 
 occasion. And the reason why he was chosen, and why his 
 mission was so successful, is contained in the words which I 
 have selected as the theme of this discourse, " for he was a 
 good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith ;" and the 
 sacred historian subjoins, partly no doubt as the result of the 
 character and influence of Barnabas, " much people was added 
 unto the Lord." 
 
 No sooner had he accomplished this mission than he sets out 
 on what was in those days and in that part of the world a long 
 journey, to Tarsus in Cilicia ; finds Saul (preaching the gospel, 
 doubtless, in the place of his nativity), and brings him to Anti- 
 och, where they labor together a whole year with great success 
 for the edification and increase of that mother church of the 
 Gentiles. And the disciples were called Christians first in 
 Antioch. From this time Barnabas becomes the companion of 
 Paul in his journeys and missions. Twice he goes up with 
 him as a delegate from the church at Antioch to the church 
 at Jerusalem once in anticipation of a predicted famine to bear 
 the charitable contributions of the Christians in the former to 
 their poorer brethren in the latter; .and again to consult the 
 apostles and elders in what is often called the first Council at 
 Jerusalem touching the perplexing and agitating question of 
 circumcising Gentile converts, and thus to restore harmony 
 and perpetuate the peace of the two great branches of the 
 Apostolic Church. Together were they recognized as the 
 apostles of the uncircumcision by the apostles, elders and
 
 8 
 
 brethren at Jerusalem. Together were they ordained with 
 prayer and fasting and imposition of hands by the church at 
 Antioch, and sent forth to the work of missions to which they 
 had been called and furnished by the Holy Ghost. Together 
 they go forth as apostolic missionaries throughout Cyprus and 
 Asia Minor, preaching the gospel in the face of opposition and 
 persecution, making numerous converts, chiefly among the 
 Gentiles, founding churches and revisiting them to confirm 
 and establish them in the faith. 
 
 A difference of opinion and feeling in reference to a young 
 companion and helper in the work at length led to a separa- 
 tion between them. But the result was only a doubling of 
 the missionary force and enterprise ; for Barnabas took Mark 
 and sailed to Cyprus to continue and extend the work in his 
 native isle, while Paul chose Silas and went through Syria 
 and Cilicia, which was his native country, confirming the 
 churches. And the epistles of Paul show that so far from 
 any lasting alienation, Paul cherished the highest respect and 
 affection for the companion of his early labors and conflicts, 
 and ere long again associated John Mark, the nephew of 
 Barnabas, who was the occasion of their separation, most 
 intimately with himself in the trials and sufferings of his later 
 life. 
 
 The subsequent history of Barnabas is unknown. Some 
 have inferred, from incidental allusions in Paul's letters, that 
 they became again fellow-laborers, and the early Christian 
 Fathers are divided or undecided in their opinions on the ques- 
 tion whether it was Barnabas or Luke of whom the Apostle 
 speaks so honorably, as "the brother whose praise is in all 
 the churches." The probability is that he suffered martyr- 
 dom early, perhaps in his second missionary tour to his native 
 island. An epistle has come down from very early times
 
 bearing the name of Barnabas, which was highly esteemed 
 by the Fathers and the early churches, and was sometimes 
 copied and preserved on the same parchment with the epistles 
 of Paul and other writers of the New Testament. There is 
 something very beautiful in the friendship and co-working of 
 these two apostolic men who seem so unlike in their consti- 
 tution, temperament and native character ; but who for that 
 very reason, doubtless, were drawn together in a warmer 
 friendship, like that of David and Jonathan, and were only so 
 much the better fitted to be coadjutors in the introduction of 
 Christianity, as Luther and Melanchthon were in the Refor- 
 mation. German commentators and divines often speak of 
 Paul as the Luther, and Barnabas as the Melanchthon of the 
 apostolic age. 
 
 This brief scripture biography of Barnabas is interesting 
 and instructive in many ways. It is given quite incidentally 
 in the Acts, as a mere appendage or companion-piece of the 
 life of Paul. And yet it shows that such a man, though 
 occupying a comparatively subordinate position, yet if he 
 possess the right character and spirit, may be largely useful 
 and not less essential than his superior to the full accomplish- 
 ment of the divine plan. Although far inferior to Paul in 
 talents, learning and influence, and filling only a subordinate 
 place in the history of the primitive church, Barnabas recom- 
 mended Paul himself to the acceptance and confidence of the 
 apostles, inducted him as it were -into the ministry, and 
 introduced him into his work at Antioch as the apostle of 
 the Gentiles. Barnabas was an apostle to the Gentiles less 
 emphatically, but not less truly than Paul, was earlier and 
 more literally the father of the church at Antioch, and began 
 sooner if he did not contribute more, like Melanchthon four- 
 teen centuries later, to pour oil on the troubled waters, to 
 2
 
 10 
 
 mediate between contending parties and promote peace and 
 harmony in all the churches. 
 
 The character of Barnabas is sketched in our text with 
 even more brevity and conciseness than his life. It is drawn 
 quite incidentally and assigned as a reason for the part he 
 bore bore so wisely and happily in the establishment of 
 the church at Antioch. " For he was a good man, and full 
 of the Holy Ghost and of faith." Such is the sacred writer's 
 description of one of the earliest and most useful ministers of 
 the primitive church. Not much like the recommendations 
 of ministerial candidates to the churches now-a-dayg. Not a 
 word about his person or voice, his talents or eloquence, his 
 learning, his manners or his accomplishments. Not an allu- 
 sion to any physical or intellectual qualifications. There is 
 reason to believe that he possessed superior mental and per- 
 sonal accomplishments. When the superstitious people of 
 Lycaonia were carried away with the impression that the 
 gods had come down to them in the likeness of men, and 
 were ready to offer sacrifices to them, they called Paul Mer- 
 curius, because he was the chief speaker, and Barnabas Jupi- 
 ter, doubtless because his presence and personal appearance 
 corresponded more or less with their ideas of their supreme 
 divinity. At the same time one interpretation put upon his 
 name, and that perhaps the most commonly accepted by mod- 
 ern scholars, implies that he excelled in religious exhorta- 
 tion, and possessed the gift of persuasive, not to say inspired 
 eloquence. But the graces and virtues which are specified 
 in this description, are all moral and spiritual. 
 
 The first specification is that he was a good man. The last 
 question to be asked or answered in regard to a candidate 
 now ! Overlooked, forgotten, or taken for granted, or asked 
 and answered only for form's sake at the very close of the
 
 11 
 
 letter, perhaps in a postscript. It matters little which. Per- 
 chance, if the goodness of the candidate is too much insisted 
 on, it will operate as an argument against him, just as 
 when we say he is a good man, it is inferred and sometimes 
 meant that he is nothing else, and therefore of very little 
 account just as when Macaulay calls Xenophon a good 
 young man, he means, what he says elsewhere, that he was 
 rather a weak man. Mankind are always inclined to admire 
 greatness more than goodness, to prize gifts more highly than 
 graces, to exalt genius and talents above virtue and piety. 
 This natural tendency was never probably more exagger- 
 ated than it now is. And we are reaping the bitter fruits 
 of this perverseness in business and in politics, not less than 
 in morals and religion. 
 
 But the Bible completely reverses all this. It sets very 
 little value upon personal attractions or intellectual powers, 
 but makes everything of character. It says, Covet earnestly 
 the best gifrs ; but there is a more excellent way, and that is 
 charity, in other words, love, goodness. 
 
 The first qualification for a minister, or a member of Con- 
 gress, or for any other officer, civil or religious, is that he 
 should be a good man and true, a man of integrity and up- 
 rightness, a kind, charitable, benevolent man, a true Chris- 
 tian, loving his neighbor as himself, and doing to others as 
 he would have others do to him. Then if he is a great man 
 too, that is very well. Nay, real, substantial, unchanging, 
 and unswerving goodness is a chief element of greatness. 
 Indeed, it is the only true greatness. The good man is the 
 only great man in the sight of God ; and just in proportion 
 as mankind grow better, and come to be more like God, he 
 only will be great in the eyes of men also. 
 
 Besides being a good man, Barnabas was full of the Holy
 
 12 
 
 Ghost. This is a favorite expression in the book of Acts. 
 Some of the early Fathers called that book the Gospel of the 
 Holy Ghost and very justly very happily, since that book 
 narrates the work of the Holy Ghost, or rather the work of 
 the risen and ascended Christ through the Holy Ghost, and 
 by men who were full of the Holy Ghost, in the first promul- 
 gation of the gospel, and the establishment of the first Chris- 
 tian churches, as the gospels commonly so-called narrated 
 the work of Christ on earth previous to his resurrection and 
 ascension. This oft repeated expression denoted an abun- 
 dant communication of all those gifts and graces, of which 
 the Holy Spirit was the author and giver power to 
 work miracles, power to live a Christian life, power to 
 preach the gospel and win men to Christ. In this sense 
 the apostles and some others in the apostolic age were 
 so full of the Holy Ghost, that, agreeably to the promise of 
 their Lord, it was not they that spoke, but the Holy Ghost 
 gave them what they should speak in every emergency it 
 was not they that lived or worked, but Christ by his Spirit 
 that lived in them and worked through them. It was this 
 that gave the feeble, frightened and scattered fishermen of 
 Galilee, courage to preach Jesus to his murderers as the only 
 name whereby men can be saved wisdom to stand before 
 magistrates and kings and speak what none could gainsay 
 or resist power to win men to the new religion by hundreds 
 and thousands, in a day, and in a single generation to estab- 
 lish prosperous churches in all the chief cities of the Roman 
 empire. The apostles were forbidden to enter upon this im- 
 mense work, to which in themselves, they were utterly inade- 
 quate, till they received power the power of the Holy Ghost 
 sent down from heaven. And no man is really qualified, 
 empowered or commissioned to preach the gospel anywhere,
 
 13 
 
 in any age, till he has received this power in large measure 
 from the same crucified, risen and ascended Lord, who shed 
 it forth so copiously upon the apostles and other preachers 
 of the gospel in the apostolic age. 
 
 The last characteristic which our text ascribes to Barnabas 
 is that he was full of faith. He could hardly be otherwise, 
 if he was full of the Holy Ghost, for faith is the first fruit of 
 the Spirit. And the only way in which the Holy Ghost could 
 impart to him courage, strength, power of any kind for his 
 work, was through faith, for faith is not only the necessary 
 condition of salvation, but the vital element and living essence 
 of all moral and spiritual POWER. We believe, therefore we 
 speak, therefore we act, thus we live, thus we conquer this 
 is the philosophy of all great achievements in business even, 
 in society, in politics, in morals, and above all in religion. 
 Whenever the church or the ministry has been strono- in 
 
 9 O 
 
 the apostolic age, in the reformation, in the times of revivals 
 and missions it has been strong only in and by faith. And 
 ifthe church or the ministry has been weak in any age if it 
 is weak now anywhere it is weak only because it has lost 
 this primitive, simple, childlike, undoubting faith in the truth 
 and power of the gospel, or rather in the truth and power of 
 God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost to reconcile and 
 save a lost world. 
 
 Such is the character which the historian of the primitive 
 church has recorded of one of jhe earliest and one of the 
 best ministers of the gospel in the apostolic age. It is well for 
 us often to refresh our memory of such characters, for, like 
 all scripture, given by inspiration of God, it is profitable for 
 doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in right- 
 eousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly 
 furnished unto all good works, and that the people of God
 
 14 
 
 may know and remember what kind of ministers the Head of 
 the church chooses and will own and bless. And this les- 
 son is made peculiarly instructive and impressive to us at 
 this time by the circumstances under which, in the providence 
 of God, we are now assembled. For if I mistake not, the 
 brother whom He has taken from us, was, in the main, and 
 making allowance for all human infirmities, a minister of this 
 description. Was he not a Barnabas, a son of consolation to 
 this people, among whom he lived and died ? And was he 
 not in the estimation of all who knew him, a good man, and 
 full of the Holy Ghost and of faith ? 
 
 Lewis Sabin was born in Wilbraham, Mass., April 9, 
 1807. Plis father, Thomas Sabin, an industrious, intelligent 
 and respectable farmer, is still living and in comfortable 
 health, and in the full possession of all his powers and facul- 
 ties, at the age of ninety is here to-day, to follow to the grave, 
 a son who had himself almost reached the age of three score 
 
 o 
 
 years and ten. His mother, Abigail Sabin, died in 1857. 
 She was a woman of more than ordinary intellect and excel- 
 lence, uniting in herself the mental capacity, the amiable dis- 
 position and the consistent piety, which were so happily 
 blended in the character of her son. Both his parents were 
 exemplary members of the Congregational church. They 
 had five children, three sons, one of whom was a minister, 
 and the other two deacons of Congregational churches, and 
 two daughters, both church members. Of these children, 
 Lewis was the oldest. 
 
 At six years of age he removed with his father to Belcher- 
 town. Although living nearly three miles from the center 
 of the town and the meeting-house, and often, if not generally, 
 obliged to walk to singing schools, lectures and religious 
 meetings, he availed himself of every opportunity for mental,
 
 15 
 
 moral and religious improvement which the town afforded. 
 He became a member of the church at the age of thirteen. 
 Having mastered the three R's and all the other branches 
 which were then taught in the public schools, and gradua- 
 ted with honor at the district school in his neighborhood, he 
 commenced studies preparatory to college, with Hon. Myron 
 Lawrence, of Belchertown, and completed his preparation 
 under Rev. John A. Nash, in Hopkins Academy, Hadley. 
 
 Entering Amherst College at the inauguration of the 
 " Parallel Course," so called, (which allowed of the substitu- 
 tion of the modern languages and the physical sciences for the 
 mathematics and ancient classics,) he was not carried away 
 by the novelty or the popularity of the new curriculum, but 
 with the wisdom and conservatism by which he was always 
 distinguished, he chose the old time-honored course, and pros- 
 ecuting it entire with indefatigable industry, graduated with 
 the highest honors of one of the largest and best of its 
 more than fifty classes the class of 1831, and delivered the 
 Valedictory Oration at Commencement. I doubt if he was 
 ever absent from a College exercise. I know he never 
 " flunked," nor " ponied," nor slighted a lesson. And his 
 Christian life in college was no less exemplary than his life 
 as a student. After his graduation he was the standing sec- 
 retary of his class, and in 1866 he published a second edition 
 of the history of this class, in which good sense and good 
 taste, affection for his classmates- and loyalty to his Alma 
 Mater are alike conspicuous. 
 
 On leaving college, he engaged in teaching, as principal of 
 Hopkins Academy then a popular and flourishing institu- 
 tion where he continued four years, excepting a part of 
 1882 and 1833, which he spent in the theological seminary 
 at Andover. While teaching he continued his theological
 
 16 
 studies under the direction of that sound theologian and 
 
 ~ 
 
 excellent pastor, Rev. Dr. Brown, of Hadley. In August, 
 1835, he was licensed to preach by the Hampshire Associa- 
 tion, and in June, 1836, he was ordained and went as a mis- 
 sionary to the eastern townships of Canada where, sustained 
 by the Association that licensed him, he labored chiefly at 
 Stanstead, with much satisfaction and success during his first 
 year in the Christian ministry. . " The church had previ- 
 ously been nearly broken up by divisions " I quote from a 
 history of Stanstead published in 1861 " but those divisions 
 had been in a measure healed, and the time of his stay forms 
 one of the brightest pages of its history." 
 
 On the twenty-first day of September, 1837 at the age 
 of thirty, in the full maturity of his powers, and with no 
 ordinary treasures of wisdom and experience, he entered 
 here in this town and in this church, upon his first and only 
 pastorate, which, continuing for thirty-five years, was termi- 
 nated Sept. 24, 1872, at his own request, and with the reluc- 
 tant consent of the church and congregation. The history of 
 that ministry, its scenes and events, its labors and results, its 
 sermons and lectures and meetings for prayer and conference, 
 its baptisms and marriages and funerals, its revivals of relig- 
 ion and stated additions to the church and seasons of special 
 in-gathering, its public services and private interviews, per- 
 sonal conversations and visits from house to house, these 
 are all better known to you than they are to me. Doubt- 
 less, they all come back thronging your memories and 
 almost rising up again before your eyes as you stand around 
 his coffin and follow his body to the tomb. He has left on 
 record his own recollections and impressions of them in his 
 Quarter Century Sermon and his Farewell Discourse. What 
 a record! Four thousand sermons, five hundred funerals!
 
 17 
 
 What a work ! Two hundred and fifty-seven additions 
 to the church ! What a harvest ! Baptisms, marriages, 
 prayer meetings and pastoral visits he does not enumer- 
 ate. They were almost too numerous to mention. And 
 he was not anxious to magnify the number or perpetuate 
 the memory of his good works. The labors of a faith- 
 ful pastor who remains twenty-five, thirty-five, forty or 
 fifty years with the same people, exceed even the far- 
 famed labors of Hercules. Those were but twelve in all, 
 with long intervals of ease and pleasure. The labors of a 
 long pastorate run on from a quarter to half a century, 
 day and night without cessation, and with no end till the 
 end of life. If we were to seek a parallel for the life-work of 
 such a pastor in the mythology of the imaginative Greeks, it 
 would be Atlas who was fabled to support the heavens day 
 and night, year after year, without a day or an hour's rest for 
 his weary and heavy laden shoulders. Well did an eloquent 
 preacher turn and emphasize the language of the Apostle, 
 making him to say : " He that desireth the office of a bishop 
 desireth a work." But it is a good work. The rewards and 
 results are commensurate with the labors. So Dr. Sabin con- 
 sidered them. So he found them to be in his own experience. 
 You remember his testimony both in his Quarter Century 
 Sermon and in his Farewell Discourse. " I have been happy 
 in my work," he says, " and happy for having work to do, 
 and such work as involves the highest aims, the best qualifi- 
 cations, the most pleasing and delightful duties, and brings 
 richer rewards than any other calling, rewards not in wages 
 and pecuniary profit beyond other professions or employ- 
 ments, but in the endearing ties of affection and confidence, 
 in the joy of winning souls to Christ, and in the approving 
 smile of the Master." There have been at least four seasons
 
 18 
 
 of special revival during his ministry, which were emphati- 
 cally harvest seasons, feasts of in-gathering, times of refresh- 
 ing and rejoicing, when he who went forth weeping, bearing 
 precious seed, came again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves 
 with him. Each of these revivals brought an addition of 
 twenty, thirty, thirty-five, forty members to a church which 
 was in its infancy, when he came here, and had only eighty- 
 eight members at the time of his settlement. Besides these 
 special in-gatherings, there were additions of one or more at 
 almost every communion, thus making up a sum total of two 
 hundred and fifty-seven additions and a membership of three 
 hundred and forty-five in the course of his entire pastorate, 
 and leaving a small net gain after all the deaths, dismissions 
 and fluctuations incidental to churches, especially churches 
 in our small town?, which are losing rather than gaining in 
 population. This is a good record, and owing doubtless very 
 much to the fact that, while everything else has been chang- 
 ing, and the people, the young especially, have been passing 
 away, the pastor has held on and the pastorate has been per- 
 manent. ' I believe in long pastorates. Dr. Sabin believed in 
 them and gave good reasons for so believing reasons which 
 have been fully justified and demonstrated by experience in 
 his own ministry, and the history of this church. If this 
 long pastorate should be followed by a succession of short 
 ones, with perhaps long intervals without a pastor, (which 
 may God forbid,) it will not take thirty-five years for you to 
 learn by sad experience how much you have been indebted 
 to his wise, constant, persevering labors for keeping you 
 together, a united, prosperous and happy people. I bow low 
 before any man it is a remark which I have often made, 
 and this is a fit occasion for repeating it I bow low before 
 any man who, in these fast and changing times when every-
 
 body is running to and fro, has remained a half or a quarter 
 of a century the pastor of any church, especially a country 
 church, and above all a small church in a small town which 
 is all the while stationary, perhaps losing in wealth and pop- 
 ulation. That is a wise man, a wiser man, and a greater man 
 too, than many who receive such loud calls from the gold 
 and silver trumpets of our great and wealthy congregations. 
 And it is a wise people that have the good sense to appreciate 
 such a pastor, and the steadfastness and the Christian princi- 
 ple to keep him as long as he is willing to remain with them. 
 There are few more beautiful and touching passages in all our 
 Christian literature than that in Dr. Sabin's Quarter Century 
 Sermon, in which he speaks of his contentment with his place 
 and work in this pleasant country town, his peaceful life and 
 abundant labors in this intelligent and attentive congregation, 
 his heartfelt satisfaction with his generous and confiding peo- 
 ple. "To young ministers," he says, "there is a fascination 
 about a magnificent church edifice and a very large congre- 
 gation which sometimes kindles their ambition and makes 
 them uneasy in their humble sphere. I can think of college 
 companions and competitors filling distinguished places in 
 life, and of this and that friend in the ministry who preaches 
 to as many people on one Sabbath as I do in five. They are 
 worthy men, and I am sure they are faithful, laborious, able 
 and devoted ministers. May God bless them all. I do not 
 envy them, nor covet their stations. I do not shrink from 
 work and responsibility. But I say with the Shunamite 
 when the prophet asked her, ' Would'st thou be spoken for 
 to the king, or to the captain of the host ? ' And she an- 
 swered, ' I dwell among mine own people.'" 
 
 "But Dr. Sabin's work and influence were by no means 
 confined within the limits of his own parish. As a leading
 
 20 
 
 member of the School Committee he has rendered invaluable 
 service to the public schools. The town of Templeton has 
 had no better adviser than he was, in town affairs and pub- 
 lic interests. As he was never afraid to exercise his right of 
 suffrage as a citizen, so he never hesitated to express his 
 opinion in any matter that concerned the general good, and 
 his opinion was not only heard with attention, but always had 
 great weight in the decision of the question. All the inhabit- 
 ants of the town, without distinction of sect or party, have 
 found in him a true friend and wise counselor, a good neigh- 
 bor and a peace-maker. Neighboring churches sought his 
 advice in all their difficulties, while their young ministers 
 have looked up to him as a father. He was never absent 
 from meetings of the Association, and never failed to perform 
 his part in the exercises. For many years he was almost the 
 standing moderator of the numerous councils to which he was 
 so often invited. The college where he was educated, and 
 which in 1857 conferred upon him the honorary degree of 
 Doctor of Divinity, in 1862 elected him a member of the 
 Board of Trustees ; and no member of that Board has been 
 more reliable than he for constant attendance, wise counsel 
 and devoted service. " I shall miss him greatly at our annual 
 and our special meetings, where I expected always to see 
 him, and always leaned on his good sense and practical wisdom 
 for counsel and support." So said President Stearns, when he 
 heard of the death of Dr. Sabin. And the prayer which he 
 offered at morning prayers in the chapel this morning, when 
 we were about leaving to attend the funeral, showed how 
 much he felt his own loss and the loss of the college, and how 
 earnestly he desired that it might be sanctified to officers and 
 students. 
 
 Deeply interested in whatever concerns the welfare and
 
 21 
 
 progress of mankind, and keeping himself acquainted with 
 passing as well as past events in human history, he labored 
 to inspire his people with an intelligent interest in the cause 
 of universal liberty and philanthropy as well as Christianity. 
 By precept and by example, he inculcated a missionary spirit 
 with such success that his church, though neither large nor 
 rich, has contributed during his pastorate not less than twenty 
 thousand dollars directly to the several forms of missionary 
 work, while it has had also living representatives in the mis- 
 sionary fields of our own country and of other lands. At the 
 same time with equal courage and prudence he went before 
 his people as their spiritual leader in the moral conflicts of 
 our age and country against intemperance, slavery and the 
 great rebellion, and to his influence the town is largely 
 indebted for its noble record of heroes and martyrs in the 
 late war. 
 
 Nor is the catalogue of his labors and services complete 
 without adverting to some of a more personal and partly secu- 
 lar kind. Mr. Sabin was an indefatigable worker and a dis- 
 tinguished scholar, and like the leading pastors of the last 
 generation he turned his untiring industry and his high 
 scholarship to good account by sometimes taking private 
 pupils. One of the best services which he rendered to his 
 beloved college was by consenting to take into his family and 
 under his instruction students whom, for bad conduct or poor 
 scholarship, or because they did not know what else to do 
 with them, the Faculty were obliged to send for a few weeks 
 or months into the country. Hence the parish and parsonage 
 of Dr. Sabin became familiarly known in college by the face- 
 tious but classical name of " the Sabine Farms." Nor did the 
 young men themselves feel under less obligations to the good 
 Doctor and his excellent wife than the college. They always
 
 22 
 
 came back saying, they had not only had good instruction 
 and good care and keeping, but they had had a good time. 
 It is only a few days since that one of them who now occu- 
 pies a high position under the very eaves of the college said 
 to me : " It was about the best thing Amherst College ever 
 did for me, when she sent me to spend six months under the 
 roof of Dr. and Mrs. Sabin." 
 
 There was one thing in which Dr. Sabin went beyond 
 even the old-fashioned country minister of former genera- 
 tions. He wrote wills, settled estates, took care of widows 
 and orphans, and if he could not be considered as the lawyer 
 and justice of the- town, he at least in no small measure super- 
 seded the necessity of any lawyer or justice of the peace in 
 this community. Perhaps he might be said to have been the 
 physician also of the place, since by precept and example he 
 contributed so largely to the health of the neighborhood, and 
 while he almost never had occasion to call the doctor to his 
 own house, did all he could to help his neighbors dispense 
 with the doctor's services. He deemed it his duty to take 
 care of his health. He thought it his duty to take care also of 
 his property. And he did take as good care of his property 
 as of that which was entrusted to him by others. It is often 
 charged upon ministers that they know nothing about busi- 
 ness and are destitute of worldly wisdom. They are some- 
 times as ignorant but not as innocent as children in such mat- 
 ters. But no man who knew Dr. Sabin would lay this to 
 his charge any more than on the other hand they would 
 reproach him with being an unspiritual and worldly minded 
 minister, who took better care of the salary and the parson- 
 age than of the pulpit or the parish. By his practice as well 
 as his preaching he taught his people that economy is a virtue, 
 the handmaid of charity and the helper of piety a lesson
 
 23 
 
 than which there is scarcely another which we so much need 
 to learn in our age and country. And by economy and good 
 management, although his salary was only six hundred dol- 
 lars and never exceeded a thousand, he had a comfortable 
 livelihood, and gradually accumulated a property which made 
 him and his family independent of his salary. In short, Dr. 
 Sabin might have sat for every line and almost every stroke 
 of that charming picture of the country pastor in Goldsmith's 
 Deserted Village. 
 
 A man he was to all the country dear, 
 
 And passing rich with forty pounds a year. 
 
 Remote from towns he ran his godly race, 
 
 Nor e'er had changed nor wished to change his place ; 
 
 Unskillful he to fawn, or seek for power, 
 
 By doctrines fashion'd to the varying hour ; 
 
 For other aims his heart had learnt to prize, 
 
 More bent to raise the wretched than to pise. 
 
 Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, 
 
 And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side ; 
 
 But in his duty prompt at every call, 
 
 He watch'd and wept, he prayed and felt for all ; 
 
 And as a bird each fond endearment tries, 
 
 To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, 
 
 He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, 
 
 Allured to brighter worlds and led the way. 
 
 I have no time to analyze his character. Nor is there 
 any need of it. There was no mystery about it, no sham and 
 no disguise in it. He appeared to others just what he ap- 
 peared to you, and he appeared to you just as he was. 
 Always and everywhere he was the same living impersona- 
 tion of good common sense, sound judgment, solid learning, 
 orthodox faith, unwavering Christian principle and unerring 
 practical wisdom. Without any of those brilliant qualities 
 which dazzle the eyes of the multitude, he had that perfect
 
 24 
 
 balance of faculties which commands the unchanging respect 
 and confidence of all classes. He had too little imagination 
 and emotion and too little action in the comprehensive sense 
 in which Demosthenes used the word, to shine in the pul- 
 pit, or even be a popular preacher, in these days of novels, 
 romances, magazines and sensational sermons. At the same 
 time in all the earlier part of his ministry, no man was more 
 acceptable in his own or more welcome in all the neighboring 
 pulpits than Dr. Sabin. And he was always a model pastor. 
 He was, as one of his ministerial neighbors lately expressed 
 it, a born leader born, educated and trained to organize 
 forces, to plan and execute measures, to manage private and 
 public affairs. With the love of Christ and the love of souls 
 uppermost in his heart, such a man could not but be a 
 model pastor. And such a pastor, who at the same time 
 preaches sensible and instructive sermons, although without 
 any very high order of pulpit eloquence, cannot but be a 
 power in the parish, and impress himself in the course of a 
 long pastorate upon every person and every thing in the 
 community. Dr. Sabin would have made a good home sec- 
 retary of one of our great national benevolent societies. He 
 had many prime qualifications for a Secretary of the Treasury 
 in the National Government. And I have sometimes thought 
 it required more talent and tact, more wisdom and prudence 
 to manage a small, poor, feeble country church, than it does 
 to govern a State or rule over a great nation. 
 
 In the just judgment and for the most part in the fitly 
 chosen words of another, who was his nearest ministerial 
 brother for eleven years : " He was not brilliant as a preacher, 
 his range of literary reading was not extensive, but his 
 acquaintance was thorough with such subjects as he consid- 
 ered pertinent to his ministerial work. His treatment of
 
 25 
 
 subjects assigned to him in the meetings of the Association 
 was always satisfactory, often able. He had a logical mind" 
 and rarely took a position that he could not sustain. He 
 rarely made mistakes of any kind, and so was always felt to 
 be a safe adviser in matters of difficulty. If he erred at all 
 in such matters, it was by excess of caution rather than in the 
 opposite direction. He had in very large measure the confi- 
 dence of the whole community in which he lived, a majority 
 of whom were opposed to him in his religious views. Few 
 minds were more evenly balanced than his, as was shown not 
 only in his treatment of themes but as well in his whole 
 work. He neglected none of the interests of his people but 
 cared for them had his eye everywhere, and thought noth- 
 ing of too little importance for his notice that affected the 
 welfare of his parish or of its individual members. Patient, 
 careful, judicious, far-seeing, would that the leading traits 
 of his character were more common and better appreciated 
 than they are wont to be." 
 
 One word more than any other contains the main secret 
 of Dr. Sabin's character and life. He was faithful faithful 
 in every duty faithful to every trust. He was complying 
 and obliging just as far as he could be consistently with his 
 sense of duty, but no further. There he stood firm and un- 
 shaken. And he was able to be so faithful and steadfast 
 because he vf as full of faith. His firmness was the result of 
 his Christian prineiple,.his fidelity was the fruit of his strong 
 faith. He believed the great doctrines of evangelical Chris- 
 tianity as the truth, the whole truth arid nothing but the 
 truth. He believed with all his heart what he preached, 
 and what he preached he practiced more perfectly than is 
 often done by our imperfect human nature. As there was a 
 rare equilibrium in the balance of his faculties, so there was
 
 26 
 
 a remarkable consistency and a beautiful symmetry in his 
 " character, and the priceless value of such a character is the 
 great lesson of his life. 
 
 As his life had been tranquil, so was his end peace. About 
 four weeks previous to his death his physician informed him 
 that his disease was of the heart. " Then," said he, " my 
 hold upon life is uncertain at the best, and it may be very 
 short." Thereupon with characteristic calmness and prompt- 
 ness, he began at once " to set his house in order." He had 
 a long conversation with his wife, and though she was at first 
 overcome, his calm strength helped her to look undaunted, 
 as he did, at the event which even then overshadowed them. 
 He made the arrangements for the funeral service, alluded to 
 the lot a generous gift some years before of a loved parish- 
 ioner where they would lay his body, and gave directions in 
 regard to all that would make the path easier for her who 
 was henceforth to walk alone in her earthly pilgrimage. A 
 day or two after this his breathing became so difficult that he 
 could say but little. To a brother in the ministry he remarked : 
 " I have no ecstatic views, but I know that my Redeemer 
 liveth. I have a firm trust in the gospel I have preached to 
 others, and there I am willing to leave it." 
 
 A friend said to him : " As you draw near to the valley 
 of the shadow of death and feel that you are passing into it, 
 how does it look to you ? " " Oh," said he, " no shadows, 
 no shadows." The last few days he was unconscious, except 
 at short intervals, but during the days and weeks of suffer- 
 ing from labored 'breathing, not a murmur of impatience 
 escaped him. At six o'clock, on Sunday morning, June 8th, 
 he passed peacefully and sweetly from the dawn of the earthly 
 Sabbath to that of a Sabbath which will know no evening. 
 Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, yea, saith
 
 27 
 
 the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, AND THEIR 
 
 WOEKS DO FOLLOW THEM. 
 
 Dr. Sabin belonged to that old school of country pastors 
 who abounded in former generations, and whom they delight- 
 ed to honor, but there are few of them in our day. Who is 
 there left to fill his place ? How can his loss be repaired ? 
 In one sense his loss is quite irreparable. No one can fill the 
 chasm which his death has created in the memory and the 
 affections of his bereaved wife, his sorrowing father and 
 friends, and his scarcely less afflicted people. No one else 
 can be to them what he has been so inwrought into the 
 whole history of their private and public life for almost half 
 a century. God only can make up the loss. We can sym- 
 pathize with them. We can and will pray for them. But 
 God only can comfort them under their afflictions. May 
 she who sits alone and a widow, and yet not alone, find the 
 blessed and holy Comforter very near her, constantly with 
 her, and hear the same Lord and Master whom her husband 
 loved and trusted, and who stood by him in his last hours, 
 saying to her, Let not your heart be troubled ; believe in God, 
 believe also in me. In my father's house are many mansions : 
 if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a 
 place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will 
 come again and take you to myself, that where I am and 
 where he is, there you may be also. 
 
 May his aged father lean upon the Lord as he goes down 
 the brief decline of so long a life, and pass through the dark 
 valley finding no shadows, and assured that his son waits to 
 welcome him on the other side. And may all the relatives see 
 heaven nearer than ever before, because one so near and dear 
 has gone thither before them. May the God of all grace and 
 consolation also comfort the hearts of 'this people, impress the
 
 28 
 
 truth which he has preached indelibly on their memories, 
 cause the seed which he ha,s sown to spring up even more 
 abundantly after his death than during his life, and fulfill his 
 strongest desires as well as your best hopes by giving you 
 another pastor, who will serve you and the Master as faith- 
 fully, as usefully and as long as he has done. And may 
 neighboring churches and their ministers, all of whom feel 
 that they have lost a father, not only cry after him, like 
 Elisha, over the translated Elijah, Our father, our father, the 
 chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof, but may they 
 take up his mantle, and receiving a double portion of his 
 spirit, enter with renewed zeal and courage on the further 
 accomplishment of the same work, thus each in their meas- 
 ure filling up what is behind of the labors and sufferings 
 of Christ. And when our work is done, may it be said of 
 each one of us, He was a good man^and full of the Holy 
 Ghost and of faith.
 
 60 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
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