James Gregg
April 7, 1887
Manning Monitor

Father Gregg is Dead.
By request we publish the sermon delivered by Rev. I.H. Elliot at the funeral of Mr. James Gregg at the M.E. Church in Manning last Thursday. The Reverend gentlemen chose for his text the 19th and 20th verses of the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians. "If in this life only we have hope we are of all men most miserable." Before following up the text Mr. Elliot read the following obituary;

James Gregg was born in the State of Kentucky on the 9th day of February 1813, making him 73 years 2 months and 21 days old. He moved to the State of Iowa about 1846, where he has lived ever since. He has always been an upright and moral man and was beloved by all who knew him. November last he gave his heart to God. Soon after was taken to his bed with a paralytic stroke of his right side. It has been my privilege a number of times to visit him in his affliction and talk with him on the subject of dying and he always expressed himself as being ready for the Master's call. We had many sweet seasons of prayer together and he has left no doubt in our minds that he has gone to be with Christ: The word miserable in the text means to be pitied. 1st The Christian hope of all men Christians entertained the highest hope, and if deceived they would be doomed to the bitterest disappointment, the hope of Christians is the meeting with their leader, their Captain, at the close of life. The life of St. Paul is an illustration. He was called to the ministry of the Christian church, and had renounced everything to fill it. He had renounced Wealth, fame and home to serve his Master; had endured poverty, scorn, scourging, stoning and persecution for the hope of seeing his Savior at the end of the Christian race. You all know the life of St. Paul, his perils among false brethren and among countryman. His was not only a life of peril but a life of success. We may ask, Oh Paul, how could you leave such a life as was before you to take up such a life as you did? and he answers the love of Christ constrained me in the time of shipwreck, in traversing islands, seas and continents; that love sustained him and in spite of perils of all kinds made him able to defend a kingdom more enduring than Alexander's and one that lives long after the might of Greece and Rome has crumbled into nothing. The resurrection of Christ is the supreme fact on which the Christian hope is based. It proved the claims of Christ to be the redeemer of men. There, St. Paul's statement is true: If Christ be not risen your faith is vain you are yet in your sins. Our hope is based on a risen Savior. Without that it has no meaning. For if in this life only we have hope in Christ then we are to be pitied. For if Christ be not risen he was an impostor and his power was all spent while he was here on earth and does not sit upon his throne to make intercession for us. So our preaching is all in vain we are all of us yet in our sins and without any hope of meeting him; without any hope of meeting any one of our friends that have gone before us if so be Christ be not risen. If Christ be not risen this one that now lies so helpless before us, when we or his friends take their last look upon the form as it now lies cold and helpless, that is all and the last we may ever expect to see of the one that has loved you and cherished you and thus truly you that mourn are to be pitied. But no; it is not all of death to die; it is only a change; only an exchange of an old garment for a new one. If so be that our hope is in Christ and we take him as our example.

The resurrection of Christ fills out and presents in a concrete, practical form all the arguments for immortality drawn from the instincts of the race; the hopes of men in their best moods; the analogies of nature in its spring time; and makes the future life not simply a possibility, not a theory, but a glorious and inspiring certainty. Which of us can tell on whose forehead in this assembly the messenger of death has already set his mark as the next on whom he will call? Who knows how near death may be, and who would not desire to be ready let it be near at hand or many years hence. Let us then friends, learn the secret of it the sooner we learn it the better for we have no lease of our lives.

We may learn it from the many that have left their testimony the grace of God sustained them even in their dying hour. We may learn it from the dying thief who passed out into eternity listening to the consoling words, "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." What does it profit a man if he learns everything save this one secret of a happy death or what will it profit a man if he learns how-he might gain the whole world and lose his own soul? This a question that we should all carefully consider and not allow ourselves to be led astray by the things that pertain to this life but should seek for that will sustain us in the trying hour of death. Think of the scenes of glory that passed before the enraptured gaze of John the Revelator. See that gorgeous city, with its gates of pearl, its twelve foundations, its streets of gold, its river and its trees of life. Do you see that joyful company in white robes? See those crowns of life adorning every brow. Mark how with harp and voice they pour forth their songs of everlasting joy unto God and the Lamb. Your departed kindred are there. Your loved one is one of that joyful and immortal number. The poet speaks of them thus:
Oh their Crowns how bright they sparkle,
Such as monarchs never wear;
They are gone to richer pastures,
Jesus is their shepherd there.
Hail, ye happy, happy spirits,
Death no more shall make you fear
Grief nor sorrow pain nor anguish,
Shall no more follow you there.