The Life And Witness Of Benjamin Ashworth Ramsbottom

[Gospel Standard 2023. By permission, Mrs. Ramsbottom.]

Benjamin Ramsbottom was born in the industrial town of Haslingden, among the hills and moors of Lancashire, in April 1929. It was here that he heard the three great calls of his Lord and Master: his call by grace in the 1940s; the call to the gospel ministry in the 1950s; and, in the 1960s, the call to the long and fruitful pastorate at Luton – a call which took him away from his beloved Lancashire.

He was brought up to attend Cave Adullam Chapel in Haslingden. He enjoyed helping his grandfather in the chores around chapel, and from the age of nine played the organ for public worship. “I had a natural interest in the services of the house of God but, as I grew up, my heart was bound up in worldly things.” He looked on the Lord’s people and knew that they had something that he did not possess. He felt that he wanted to be like them – but only when he was older.

When he was a teenager, about the time of the end of the Second World War (1945), he recalls leaving a football match miles from home and seeing a man holding a placard – “WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?” It had a significant effect on him and condemned him; yet soon sadly the impression dissipated.

When he left grammar school at the age of eighteen, he tried hard to settle down in the world. One November evening, as he was walking through Haslingden, he met a member of the Plymouth Brethren – who pointedly asked him if he was saved. “I left him disturbed and angry…. I tried to put him off and said to myself that he was an Arminian – but all my arguments could not shake me out of the solemn persuasion that I was out of the secret. This inward concern I found I could never shake off.”

He recalls that his natural desire was always to put things off, but he was learning that there is an eternal difference fixed between the Lord’s people and the world. One Lord’s day evening, the visiting minister – Mr. Salmon – stayed and spoke briefly at the after-service prayer meeting. “I was finding my efforts to settle in the world painful and that evening he spoke from, ‘As an eagle stirreth up her nest….’ He spoke of the thorn in the nest and how, the more the young eagles try to settle in the nest, the more the thorn hurts. Then Mr. Salmon said, ‘If the Lord is dealing with you, the more you try to settle in the world, the more painful it will become.’ From that moment I had a clear realisation that I should never find rest in the world.”

Death and eternity became solemn things to him, the world lost its charms, and he felt the emptiness of his own religion. He was a talented sportsman and enjoyed watching professional football, but recalled clearly “the last time I went to a football match. How ridiculous it all seemed in the light of eternity: grown-up men playing with a ball! I felt as I left the ground I should never again enter” – and indeed he never did.

Alongside a sense of the vanity of the world, he was particularly led into a view of the blessedness of the people of God – seeing them as happy and safe: all that he desired to be. “One Lord’s day afternoon, the closing hymn was ‘Immortal honours,’ but I could see nothing but the little piece over the top of the hymn which says, ‘Safety in Christ.’”

When he was nineteen, he went to study history at the University of Hull. This was slightly delayed because of the large numbers of service- men leaving the armed forces after the end of war. The pressure on university places meant that his choices were restricted and, when he arrived in Hull, he found that there was no free grace cause within fifty miles. “I think I had made an idol of the chapel I had attended and now being completely separated from any place where the truth was preached, I found I had no foundation to my religion. Every prop was taken away.”

He later felt that Berridge’s quaint verse was true of his early experience:

“Every prop will, first or last,

Sink or fail, but Jesus Christ.” (H. 742)

Although he tried many different places of worship, he found no satisfaction. This left him very lonely (“absolutely alone” in his words) – but he increasingly found he had to seek personal dealings in secret with the Lord. “Painful work,” he commented, “coming away from every vain hope, every false foundation. But I could not find any resting place at all.”

As concern about his soul’s welfare increased, the precious promises of the first chapter of John’s Epistle were constantly on his mind. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” and, “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” A particular concern was whether he had truly confessed his sins, given that his spiritual beginnings were so gradual in comparison to the deep convictions of many others.

One day, as he was considering these things, a verse came suddenly like a whisper:

“Rest in the promise God has spoke,

In all things ordered well for thee;

Whose sacred words He’ll ne’er revoke,

Nor alter His profound decree.” (H. 915)

Although he could not recall hearing these words before, for the first time he felt he could rest in the promises of 1 John 1. A little extra encouragement was when he found the hymn in his hymnbook (Gadsby’s, 915) and read the following verse:

“’Tis good to cast an anchor here

And patient wait, till thou shalt see

Thy hopes for heaven more bright and clear, 

Blessed with a surer prophecy.”

In the months that followed, Isaiah 53 was made exceedingly attractive. “I read it day by day and felt such nearness to the Lord in meditation and in prayer. I felt an interest, not in any special verse, but in the blessed work there described. I often meditated on those two words – ‘the atonement’ – and they seemed so blessed: I seemed to follow the Lord from the garden to before Pilate and then to Calvary.” The whole of the Epistle to the Hebrews – with its emphasis on the shed blood of Christ – was also very precious. “I felt a soft heart and such love to the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. This went on for weeks. I wondered at the time if it was just imagination, but I have never been able to feel the same things in the same way since. I believe at this time I first truly realised my sin – as seen in the light of the spotless perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and His awful sufferings under the weight of His people’s sins.”

Many, many years later, at the memorable services for the fiftieth anniversary of his pastorate, he closed the meetings by once again turning to read Isaiah 53 – noting that it was the place where his soul first cast anchor. The glorious themes of the atoning love of the Lord Jesus contained in that chapter remained the great themes of his life and his ministry. “It is,” he often said, “that vital, personal, saving, experimental knowledge of the Son of God. Nothing else will do.”

At this time of blessing early in his spiritual life, there was a verse of Joseph Swain that was impressed with great power on his heart and seemed to summarise his feelings:

“My sins, O how black they appear, When in that dear bosom they meet! Those sins were the nails and the spear That wounded His hands and His feet. ’Twas justice that wreathed for His head The thorns that encircled it round;

Thy temples, Immanuel, bled,

That mine might with glory be crowned.” (H. 162)

He felt the burning beauty of that hymn so deeply that he was never able to give it out, not even around the Lord’s table.

During his time at Hull, he came into contact with many students (including at the Christian Union) who opposed the doctrines of grace. He found that these doctrines – known since childhood – were increasingly coming under scrutiny and being tested. He was very concerned to be right on these points. While meditating frequently on Isaiah 53, he saw the doctrine of particular redemption with complete clarity once and for all: “He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied.” He felt it to be a most blessed verse, and that he could sympathise with the Lord in His sufferings and rejoice with Him in His triumphs. Another truth that became particularly attractive to him was the covenant of grace. He had often heard of it but had never fully felt its preciousness. “I had to pass through some things which caused deep sorrows, and I felt how much was wrong with myself, but the word was most sweet, ‘Although my house be not so with God; yet He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure.’

‘On my unworthy, favoured head,

Its blessings all unite.’” (H. 84)

When speaking of the doctrines of free and sovereign grace over the years, he often used to emphasise that he believed them not simply through tradition, but because in his student days – when attacked from every quarter – they had been burned into his heart.

In those early days, it was his particular delight to hear anyone speak of the glory of Christ, and he loved returning home from university to hear the truths of the gospel. One particularly special time, he heard Mr. E.G. Rowell preach on, “His mouth is most sweet: yea, He is altogether lovely. This is my Beloved, and this is my Friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.”

The time came for him to leave university and take up teaching, but first he had to take his final examinations, which was a time of great anxiety. The night before the first exam he read Isaiah 43. It seemed as if the Lord spoke the words with great power: “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee.” All his fear was taken away and the power of the word remained all week – especially the absolute certainty of the promise.

Following these days of blessing, he was exercised about believer’s baptism, but did not mention his experience to anyone and did not venture until some five years later. He often wished that he had felt able to speak to his dear, aged grandfather – who made such an impression on him from the youngest age – and who died during this period.

There were many hindrances to an open profession, not least that he lived away from Lancashire for four years, and that the church at Haslingden seemed more or less finished following his grandfather’s death. He had a ready excuse but, “looking back, the Lord Jesus never accepted that excuse from me.” Eventually the Lord removed every hindrance and he was baptized on the first Lord’s day in May 1953, joining the little (and re-formed) church at Haslingden. As he came to the end of the day of his baptizing, he felt a little disappointed because he had not felt anything special. In bed that evening as he read Hebrews 13, the verse came like an inward whisper: “Be content with such things as ye have: for He hath said, I will never leave, thee nor forsake thee.” The Lord’s He hath said seemed so much better than any special feeling on one particular day, for it carried with it an eternal promise – and so he proved across the next seven decades, through days of trial and days of blessing alike.

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The second great call experienced by B.A. Ramsbottom (as he was almost universally known during his adult life) was the call to the ministry. From a small boy, he often used to think of preaching, although he later commented that this “sprang from nothing but pride.”

Mr. Wolstenholme, in chairing the church meeting at which he gave his testimony, stated publicly that he wondered if the Lord would call him to the work of the ministry. This was a great shock and surprise: Mr. Wolstenholme, the minister from Blackburn, was a former sergeant major known for his somewhat discriminating views.

A few months after his baptism, while at Sheffield for the weekend, he was asked to give an address at the chapel. As he began to speak (with some nervousness), the word so sweetly spoken on the night of his baptism came back with considerable power – “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”

“I think,” he later recollected, “that I have never felt greater freedom than on that occasion, speaking from ‘He led them forth by the right way.’” The church at Sheffield, feeling he was called to the work of the ministry, convened a church meeting and unanimously invited him to preach at Sheffield, if the church at Haslingden would agree. In the same week, he also received two further letters from other churches, inviting him to preach.

He spoke to the Haslingden deacons, and indicated that he had – at that time – no special exercise about the ministry. On their advice, he therefore declined all of the invitations. Between 1953 and 1956, he continued to receive various invitations to preach, but declined them all. He did, however, give addresses on behalf of the Sovereign Grace Union and the Trinitarian Bible Society – and was invited to write for a number of magazines including the Evangelical Quarterly, Free Grace Record, Peace & Truth and the Evangelical Magazine.

In January 1956 an invitation to preach arrived from Mr. Lythgoe, Pastor of Zion, Manchester. “This came as a real shock. Mr. Lythgoe did not really know me, and I knew he had only seven or eight Lord’s days away from Manchester, and that he was very particular who supplied for him. I wrote back to say I was afraid I could not go.”

In response, Mr. Lythgoe sent a long letter – among other things pointing out that the Lord does not call all ministers in the same way and that not all could expect a similar call to, say, the Apostle Paul. “This brought me into a real concern…. I had read of godly men suddenly having a word powerfully applied telling them to preach. I was waiting for this and, for three years, had remained unexercised about the invitations I had received. From this time, my concern began.”

In June 1956, Mr. Lythgoe wrote again, imploring him to preach in Manchester later that month. On the third Lord’s day in June, Mr. Lythgoe told his congregation he hoped he would have a young man preaching the next Lord’s day but he did not know – and neither did the young man!

He felt unable either to decline or accept. In some considerable concern and distress, he felt great liberty in laying the matter before the Lord and was sweetly led in Isaiah 55. He had tried to reason out what he should do but was stopped by verse 8 (“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways.”) He felt that his preaching would be unprofitable, but was answered by verse 10 (“that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater.”) Above all, verse 12 was impressed strongly on his spirit: “For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace.” It was his answer, and the word came to him with a powerful resolve: “I will go in the strength of the Lord.”

“Then how sweetly I viewed the Lord saying, ‘Ye shall go,’ and my spirit saying, ‘I will go.’”

He spoke to the deacons and the church at Haslingden, although indicating that the Lord had only shown him that he could preach in this one place. Greatly troubled at standing up in the Lord’s name, and concerned about what to speak, the word came – “Ye shall … be led forth with peace.” The congregation at Manchester received him so kindly that the fear of speaking was taken away as he spoke from Colossians 3. 1; journeying home, the word was once again impressed on his spirit, “Ye shall … be led forth with peace.”

He begged the Lord that, if he was not meant to preach, he would never again receive an invitation. Mr. Lythgoe wrote shortly afterwards, however – and he felt he dare not refuse. “During these months, the awful solemnity of the work of the ministry was shown to me, and it seemed that every possible burden was brought before me…. The chief obstacle was my own unfitness.”

Yet he also felt the desire to submit, if the Lord’s will, and felt encouraged by the word, “The cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto Me, and I will hear it.” One day, while in prayer, there came a sudden realisation that he never could be fit and that the call to the ministry was entirely on the grounds of grace. He later reflected that he “saw it as much a call by grace as the sinner’s conversion.”

Then he received a terrible and solemn shock. He heard of a well-respected, free grace minister among the Independents who had grievously fallen and was in prison. “This finished my ideas of preaching. I felt I too should one day fall, and this was such a temptation to me that I resolved to put away all thought of preaching from my mind.”

Several weeks later he attended the anniversary services at Accrington. In the prayer after the last hymn, the minister quoted, “The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for ever more.” All his fears, all of his objections were gone in that instant – and he felt able to lean on that promise until the end of his life.

“It was a beautiful summer evening and a few of us walked home from Accrington to Haslingden. It is four miles – and steep uphill all of the way. I suppose it takes about an hour but it only seemed a few moments, I felt:

“Enough, my gracious Lord, 

Let faith triumphant cry;

My heart can on this promise live;

Can on this promise die.” (H. 345)

He asked for one last token. At a church meeting one of the members spoke about the fleece wet and dry (see Judges 6). He felt he could ask for this and – having the invitation from Mr. Lythgoe as the wet fleece – he begged the Lord for a further invitation from somewhere that had not invited him before. Before the week was finished, an invitation arrived from Ebenezer, Old Hill, in the Midlands.

With the Lord’s leading so clear, he felt he could do nothing but inform his deacons and place the matter before the church at Haslingden. The church meeting was arranged for October 1956, but while waiting he was brought nearly to despair. All he could cling to was this: “With God nothing shall be impossible.” Yet the church received him with great love, the snare was broken and he finally proved God’s great faithfulness to His promise, “Ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace.”

It was a promise that he walked out over the next sixty-six years as he preached Christ faithfully in season and out of season. In the early years, his preaching was mainly among the churches in Lancashire and Yorkshire – working as a teacher all week and then taking often difficult journeys on public transport at the weekend. Later it expanded to other parts of the country, especially after his move to Luton. During nearly seven decades, he preached many thousands of sermons. The joy and peace that the Lord had promised at the start of his ministry was often felt by those blessed under his preaching.

What was the secret to his long and fruitful ministry? There is only one secret to the gracious effect of gospel preaching: the working of the Spirit of the living God. “The best of preaching without the power attending will not avail,” as he himself said, “and the feeblest statement of divine truth, attended with power, will do the deed.” He was blessed with a prodigious memory and a gift for expressing the truths of the gospel in a fresh and living way. He felt a solemn need to warn – to speak of the wrath to come, but always also to speak with great warmth of the love of Christ. It was a preaching that remained consistent during that long period as many things changed in the country and among the churches. Among other things, two stand out as underpinning his ministry. First, a great reverence and love for the Word of God, and a desire in preaching to expound the glorious truths of Scripture; secondly, a wish to exalt a precious Christ – and he never deviated from those glorious truths that had been so powerfully applied to his heart when a teenager. So he did not bring into the pulpit too much of his own experience – although speaking of things that he had heard, seen and handled – nor his own (considerable) learning.

Since his death, his family have been touched by countless testimonies of times when his preaching consoled, comforted or convicted, but, as for the full effect under the Spirit’s sealing, only the day shall declare it.

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The third call experienced in his life – the call to the pastorate at Luton – was, in some ways, the one which caused him most concern and anguish, although it would come to prove one of the greatest blessings of his life too.

By the early 1960s he was increasingly preaching in the south of England. Wherever he went he seemed to find that there were people from Luton to hear him preach. He found afterwards that the church at Bethel were deeply burdened concerning calling a pastor. Unknown to him, his name had been proposed and there was a near unanimous wish to invite him. Strangely he had never been there to preach, but eventually was engaged to preach for the first time on Easter day 1964.

A week after he received an invitation from the church at Bethel to preach three months in 1965 with a view to the pastorate. It was not an invitation that he particularly welcomed. “Now I didn’t really want to come to Luton. I never wanted to leave my beloved Lancashire. Also I had two invitations for pastorates from churches in Lancashire.”

In the end he felt that he had to accept but, as 1964 came to an end, also felt a great depth of darkness and despair. He just could not face leaving Lancashire to come down for those three months to Luton. At the end of November, he preached at Siddal, Halifax from what felt like the very cry of his heart: “Lord, all my desire is before Thee; and my groaning is not hid from Thee.”

He began preaching the trial period in Luton in 1965, “almost in black despair,” taking as his first text: “I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight.” A strange contrast emerged. He felt in darkness and that his “preaching was not particularly good and not particularly profitable.” Yet many who were there during those three months never forgot the power and unction that attended the preaching – and across the ensuing years many testimonies gave witness to the work of the Spirit during those months.

Before he returned to Lancashire, he received a call from the church at Luton to begin the pastorate the following year. He felt that he could not accept it, but neither could he refuse it and – in some confusion – suggested preaching another trial period at the start of 1966. That period came and went. He still felt unsure of the way, and that his preaching was no more profitable than in the previous year.

“There came a day in June 1966 and I felt that on the next day an answer would need to be given. Now the evening of that day I was going to hear Mr. Garnham preach. If ever a person wrestled with God for a Yea or Nay – ‘If it be so tell me, or if it be not so, tell me’ – it was that June day in 1966. I was prostrated before the Lord all day. I felt it was so weighty, so much hung on it.”

That night the text was: “And He led them out as far as to Bethany, and He lifted up His hands, and blessed them.” One thing that the minister said was this: “The Lord Jesus could have blessed His disciples in Jerusalem. He could have blessed them where they were, but He did not. He led them out. They had got to go to Bethany. He blessed them there. The Lord could keep you here and bless you here, but He is not going to do that. He is going to lead you out as far as Bethany. So you have to go to Bethany, and when you go to Bethany, the Lord will bless you there.”

The following morning he wrote the shortest letter of his life – one sentence – accepting the pastorate. “O but the trial of it! I was so tried I had made a mistake.”

So it was that, with some sadness and still in a measure of darkness, he left his family and the Lancashire that he loved so much and moved to Luton. “For four-and-three-quarter years, I thought that I had made a mistake and used to pray continually that the Lord would make an honourable way how I could get out of Bethel and get back to Lancashire. They were very, very deep, very, very solemn things, very, very close things – heartrending things.”

But, like Bethany itself, he came to find Luton as a place of love and a place of blessing. Despite fearing that his pastorate would collapse in dishonour in a matter of months, he was sustained by the Lord through- out fifty-five years.

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In the first year of his pastorate (1967), he married Jean Kelsall from Coventry. It was the happiest of marriages and she proved a constant support during all the years of the pastorate. They were blessed with six children.

Much could be written about the long pastorate. There were, of course, days of difficulty and trial, but through it all – supported by loyal deacons and church – the Lord built up both the congregation and the church. Many can testify to days of gracious reviving during each of the subsequent decades. He felt a deep love and care for his congregation, and perhaps particularly towards those walking in difficult or dark path-ways.

Speaking at the twenty-fifth anniversary of his pastorate he said: “If I were to be asked what were my sweetest memories of Bethel, they would be things like this. The prayer meeting, 7 o’clock, the meeting just about to begin and the door opens and someone creeps in and sits on the back row who has never been before. I have witnessed that again and again. Then those occasions, an unexpected knock at the door, an unexpected telephone call … and some sweet testimony of the Lord’s dealings. We have had some delightful church meetings, days of the Son of Man, over the years where sinners with tender, broken, weeping hearts have told their little tales of hope in the Lord’s love and mercy.” At times, he added, “We have not been very far from heaven. But beloved friends, really that is what it is all about, what brought me from Haslingden to Luton, what binds our hearts together in Christian love – the Lord of glory dying that sinners such as we might one day be in heaven for ever and ever.”

In the 1980s, several of the congregation become concerned about the possibility of circulating printed transcripts of his sermons that were proving such a blessing, particularly thinking of those who did not live near a place of worship. Every month since August 1985 a Bethel Pulpit sermon has been published and circulated – and latterly a shorter prayer meeting address too. Over four hundred sermons have been distributed across the world in the subsequent years, and have been used by the Lord both in private reading and during reading services.

From the earliest days of the pastorate, he had a particular burden for the young people in the congregation. For many years, on the first Saturday evening of each month, he held a meeting for young people crowded into the chapel’s schoolroom, where he would speak on a range of relevant topics – talks that had an influence on many lives. A Bible class for young people was also started at his house on Sunday after-noons.

Each month, he addressed the whole Sunday School and it was a series of talks on doctrines of Scripture that formed the basis of perhaps his most widely-distributed book: Bible Doctrines Explained for Children (later, Bible Doctrines Simply Explained). Much of his writing ministry was concerned with setting gospel truths simply before young people and he wrote a large number of books of Bible stories. The books have been translated into many languages and distributed widely across the world.

He never lost his early love for history and especially the glorious heritage of the church of God. Among other historical writings, his life of William Gadsby was published in 2003 – the fruit of a lifetime of interest and research into this remarkable minister whom he esteemed very highly.

Alongside his writing – and whilst seeing his pastorate at Luton as central to everything – he increasingly was also called to spend time on wider matters. He had a great affection for all who loved the Lord Jesus in sincerity, and had friendships and maintained correspondence with a large number of people. He did not seek to be, nor considered himself to be, a denominational leader – but he did have a great burden for the churches. It was therefore a labour of love to take up the editorship of the Gospel Standard magazine in 1971, succeeding S.F. Paul, desiring to continue in the same vein as his godly predecessors and continuing until 2015 – with a short break due to ill health (partly caused by the strains of the editorship) in 1996-97. “Our one desire,” he wrote in his first editorial, “is that in all things He might have the pre-eminence. We long that the Gospel Standard may contain a sweet savour of Christ.”

As well as editing the Friendly Companion magazine between 1985 and 1996, he sat on and chaired various of the committees serving the churches. Perhaps above all, as the Lord helped, he endeavoured to encourage the churches through his preaching, including at the Annual General Meeting of the Societies, on several occasions in North America, as well as on many special occasions for individual churches. There are happy and blessed memories of, for example, the services at Milton-under-Wychwood on August Bank Holiday, Liverpool on Good Friday and Leatherhead on Easter Monday (the latter for over fifty consecutive years). A largely-unseen element of his concern for the churches was extensive correspondence with individuals and with churches. Although not something he dwelt on, it was an undoubted cause of sadness that virtually all of the chapels in Lancashire and Yorkshire were closed by the time of his death; these were causes he loved very much and that he had laboured among during the 1950s and 1960s.

It could be a temptation when writing about a long and fruitful life to give too much praise to the man. The emphasis of his own life and preaching was the opposite of that, as he pointed away from everything – and toward Christ. In coming toward the end of this account of this life, we quote from a sermon he preached on 2 Corinthians 4.

“We have continually to be reminded of it – the treasure is not in us. The treasure is not in the earthen vessel. The treasure is in Christ, ‘that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.’ If there were a priceless gem on display and it was displayed in a casket of pure gold, people would not know whether they were supposed to admire the casket or the gem that was in it. In a word, in its pure, gospel simplicity it is this: everything in Christ, nothing in the sinner.”

His children remember often when they were young wandering into his study and invariably finding him deep in prayer or deep in meditation. That dependence on his Lord was the secret of his life, and not a dependence on his own ability or gifts.

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A few years ago, while on holiday in Cornwall, watching the sun set into the sea and burdened about the future, the Lord dropped these words into his heart: “Occupy till I come.” As he became frailer physically in older age, he was able to walk out that command through the Lord’s help and to preach with the continued vigour and clarity of his younger years. By the sustaining grace of God, he maintained the pastorate at Luton until the end of 2021. During 2022, despite retirement and increasing weakness, he was encouraged by six individuals constrained to make an open profession of faith at Luton – all of whom had been helped during the years of his pastorate; he was able to preach at each of the baptismal services. As the year came to a close, it was clear that his health was declining – but he was able to preach to his beloved congregation for what proved to be the last time on new year’s day 2023 from the dying words of Moses: “And the LORD, He it is that doth go before thee; He will be with thee, He will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.”

That final call on January 14th, 2023 – from earth into the immediate presence of the Lord that he had loved and served – was in the end relatively sudden. “After he had served his own generation by the will of God, [he] fell on sleep.”

His friend and brother-in-law, Mr. Gerald Buss, was greatly helped in preaching to a large congregation at his funeral from the words, “The Master is come, and calleth for thee.” The mortal remains of our father were then laid to rest in the graveyard of Clifton Chapel, the committal being conducted by his old friend, Mr. Robert Field, awaiting that great day when the dead in Christ shall rise.

Preaching two decades ago on the glories of the resurrection (a favourite subject) our father said this: “How often have we looked down into the open grave of a believer and we have said, ‘Come, see the place where the Lord lay’! All the sin, all the bitterness taken out of it, that as surely as Jesus died and rose again, the blessed dead who have died in the Lord will one day rise again triumphant to eternal life.”

“Soar we now where Christ has led,

Following our exalted Head;

Made like Him, like Him we rise;

Ours the cross, the grave, the skies!” (H. 485)

As we remember those who have spoken unto us the Word of God, may we each be given grace to follow their faith, “considering the end of their conversation.”

“Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.”

Paul Ramsbottom, on behalf of the family