The Life And Ministry Of George Kent

Gospel Standard 1867:

Death. On January 20th, 1867, George Kent, of St. John’s Park, Upper Holloway, in the 62nd year of his age, for many years a deacon of the late Mr. Snorter’s church, London.

The beloved relict of the above has placed in my hands a few particulars, which, by the blessing of God, may be useful to some of his children.

When between 24 and 25 years of age, he was called by sovereign grace. About that time he heard a sermon preached at John Street Chapel, Bedford Row, by the late Mr. J. H. Evans, from Job 23:13, which made a very deep impression upon his mind. And about the same time he had a brother killed by striking his temple, through not sufficiently lowering his head when driving under his father’s gateway. This afflicting circumstance appears to have been the means of stirring him np to seek with greater earnestness an interest in that great work done by the Lord Jesus Christ for poor needy sinners; and after a time he, with his dear partner, was baptized and joined Mr. Evans’s church. But as the Lord was pleased to deepen the work of grace in his heart, he felt to want something more than he could find under Mr. E.’s ministry; and in the providence of God he was led to Gower Street Chapel, and heard Mr. Gadsby, Mr. Warburton, and others. One day, being in peculiar trouble, he was induced to go to Zoar Chapel, Great Alie Street, Whitechapel, where the late Mr. Shorter (then unknown to him) was preaching. The sermon so met his case that it seemed to him as though Mr. S. knew all about him, and whenever he came to preach in London he took an opportunity of hearing him.

In March, 1843, some of those friends who had been in the habit of hearing Mr S., gave him an invitation to come and settle amongst them, which he did. This circumstance was very pleasing to our dear departed friend, and he and his beloved wife soon joined the church. Some time after, he was chosen for a deacon, which office he was enabled by the grace of God to fill, with great satisfaction to the church, until the close of his mortal life.

In an illness in 1845, Mr. Shorter visited him, and told his people from the pulpit he did not think they would see their dear brother Kent again. But he was in a sweet frame, and told his pastor he thought no more of death than of going out of one room into another. He told his wife, too, at that time, he had sweet seasons in the night. Once the words, “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee,” were spoken to him with great power.

About five or six years before his death, he underwent a most painful operation. Not administering chloroform, the doctors were greatly surprised at the manner in which he was enabled to bear up under it. But they were ignorant of that power and those almighty arms which were then, in a time of need, so manifestly underneath. He was favoured with a soul-melting view of an agonising Saviour in the garden of Gethsemane, and upon the cross of Calvary, which so overwhelmed and swallowed up his mind that his own sufferings were in a measure forgotten. To a friend he said, “Othat blessed 34th Psalm!” And, “‘His way was much rougher and darker than mine; Did Christ my Lord suffer, and shall I repine?'” And also, “The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink if?”

He was made a great blessing to his mother on her deathbed; and more especially to a brother of his wife, who left behind him a sweet testimony of his interest in Christ, and was interred by Mr. Shorter in Bunhill Fields cemetery.

On Lord’s day, Jan. 13th, he went to chapel, and heard Mr. Cowley twice, and heartily joined in the hymn sung: “Crown him Lord of all,” which was the last he ever sang. He then appeared as well as usual, and in prayer in the evening with the family, begged the Lord that “whatever cross he was pleased to lay at our door, we might take it cheerfully, and not run away from it.” He went out to Kentish Town on the following Monday and Tuesday; but, on returning the latter evening, did not feel so well. On Wednesday he sent for his medical man, after which he appeared better each day, until Sabbath morning, the 20th, when he was seized with great agony of body. He asked his wife to read. She read to him Ps. 46. She then asked him to try and ask the Lord to bless the means, which many times before had been made useful. He observed to his wife, “O, my dear, I am a very poor creature; it is now with me, Lord help me, Lord save me, Lord have mercy on me.” On the Friday before his decease, two or three friends called to see him. He said (looking at them in his usual smiling manner), “Well, we have entered on a new year; what is before us we know not; but may we walk in the Lord’s ways while here on earth; and when he is pleased to take us, live and reign with him in eternal glory.” On one occasion, a few days before his departure, he was greatly favoured, telling his wife that he had had two hours’ communion with the Lord in such an outpouring of heart as he could not express. She said, “Ah, you are a favoured soul; it is thus, indeed, I love thee well, my child.” But as he drew near his end, his breathing became so difficult that he could but softly whisper, and then closed his eyes, never to open them again in this world. After he had ceased to breathe, a most sweet and heavenly countenance was manifest. It seemed as though a dove was brooding over him to waft his happy spirit to the realms of everlasting bliss. Nor did his countenance undergo any alteration for the nine days which intervened from his death to his interment, which took place in Highgate Cemetery, near his house. Mr. Cowley, who succeeded the late Mr. Shorter in the pastorate, committed his mortal remains to the tomb in the presence of weeping relatives and many sorrowing friends, on Tuesday, the 29th of January, and, on the following Lord’s day, spoke from the words, ‘I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.’ That beautifully appropriate hymn of Dr. Watts was sung at the funeral: “Why do we mourn departed friends,” &c. “He lived a debtor to his grace, rejoiced in sin forgiven; Died in his Father’s fond embrace, Then fled from earth to heaven.” Kent.

His loss is much felt by his bereaved widow, as, since his retirement from business, he was frequently engaged in a morning for two hours, reading and expounding the word of God, in which he took much delight. Nor is his loss to the church little, being a man possessing, in a considerable measure, not only the gift, but the grace of prayer. I had the privilege and pleasure of knowing him for about twenty-five years, and must say that I knew but few in whom the grace of God was manifest in such a uniformity of life and conversation. As a natural man, he was of a very amiable, loving disposition; and when to this is added grace, it makes the character truly loveable. 

R. Knill

[I knew the late Mr. Kent well, he having for many years attended my ministry on the week evening during my annual visits to Eden Street and Gower Street Chapels, and usually spending an evening with me; on which occasions we have often had much sweet conversation on the things of God. One of these conversations was to him so marked a circumstance that I feel called upon to name it. It must be about 15 or 16 years ago, but it is very fresh in my memory. He named to me that he had met with a very serious loss in business, which he felt all the more deeply as it would prevent him from retiring from it as he had been long desirous of doing. An impression came upon my mind, and I said to him, “I am not a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I believe the Lord will make up to you all that you have lost.” My words seemed a little to comfort him, and we parted with more than our wonted friend- liness and affection. A few years afterwards, when he came to spend an evening with me, he asked me if I recollected what I had said to hint at such a time. “Yes,” I answered, “perfectly;” and I quoted my own words, “I am not a prophet,”&c. “Well,” he said, “how remarkable! All your words have come true; the Lord has, in a most signal manner, made up my loss. It seemed, from what he said to me on this occasion, that a peculiar power had attended my prediction, so that when it was fulfilled he received it as having been a word to him from the Lord. It is these things which create or cement union between a minister and his friends and hearers; for seeing the hand and hearing the voice of the Lord in their intercourse with each other, public or private, it stamps his power and approbation upon it. Were I at liberty, I could name another instance in which he consulted me, and opened his keen trials; and as I much admired his Christian conduct and spirit in the whole matter, I was enabled to encourage him to go on in the path which he was treading, as I was sure, from the word of God and the witness of my own conscience, that it was a right one; and I am happy to say it ended well. I knew, therefore, a good deal of his mind, and saw the general uprightness of his conduct and the tenderness of his conscience amidst many perplexing circumstances which, as communicated to me in confidence, I cannot name. I have found in my own experience, and I have seen the same thing in that of others, that some of our greatest trials, and helps in and under them, we cannot publicly name, though to do so would be most profitable and encouraging to others similarly circumstanced, for this simple reason, that they so involve persons with whom we are or have been connected by relationship or church fellowship that we must bring them in, with all their faults and failings, if we speak of such matters at all. So it was with my dear and esteemed friend, the late Mr. Kent. I believe I knew many of his most perplex- ing trials, and I am sure I always gave him advice to maintain a quiet, peaceable spirit, with all due faithfulness, and to abide by the stuff. He much valued a settled ministry; and though, like others similarly circumstanced, lie much esteemed the men of God who supply at Glower Street and Zoar, and came on the week-night to hear them, yet he preferred to sit under a regular pastor a feeling in which I fully share. He spent an evening with me last year at the house of my dear friend, the late Mr. Clowes, and we had some sweet and pleasant conversation on the things which concern our present and future peace. He then named his habit of spending two hours every morning after breakfast in searching and comparing the Scriptures a practice which I strongly encouraged him to maintain. He was indeed a spiritually-minded man, a sincere lover of the truth and of good men; and I shall, as long as life lasts, ever remember him with esteem, respect, and affection. 

J. C. Philpot]