The Last Days Of Henry Fowler

Gospel Standard 1864:

Some Account Of Mr. Fowler’s Last Days

Dear Mr. Editor, As one of your readers, I have much pleasure in providing you with an account, so far as I have materials reliable, concerning the last days of my beloved father. It consists of three letters, each written under varied circumstances, showing the state of his mind within two months of his decease. These letters I number 1, 2, and 3. No. 1 was written to the late Mr. Charlwood, formerly of Norwich, now gone to his rest. No. 2, to his brother John, still living in Devonshire, and in his 87th year. No. 3, some few particulars of his last days, by his son Ebenezer, who was wrecked in the ship Madagascar, on his return from Australia, in the year 1855, where he had been to recover his health. It was addressed to Mr. Ebenezer Morris, Sussex.

Copy of No. 1, to Mr. Charlwood:

“London, Oct. 21, 1838.

“My dear Friend, On my return from the Isle of Wight, Sept. 28th, I read your kind letter, and would say something to your case, if I could; but I am afraid I can say but little that would be of any service to you. You know that power belongeth unto God; but he giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.

“Well, you have been in trouble without and within, as you tell me in yours; but these last troubles of yours have not been your first troubles. O no. If you look, my dear friend, to years that are past, no doubt you can recollect many a trial, within and without, that you at the time thought you could not possibly get through; yet you were brought through them all, not by any wisdom of yours, nor, perhaps, by any direct application of any promise; but so it fell out. Not by chance, but by the overruling power and providence of God were you delivered. God made darkness light, and crooked things straight, according to his promise. Can you be so base as to deny this? Well, then, if God has helped you in times past, it is a proof that he has heard the crying and sighing of the poor prisoner, according to his blessed promise, Ps. 12:5.

“But I perceive your letter has some few rays of light; and I think God is separating you more from yourself and from men, good and bad. This is what God designs by putting his children into the furnace. A man makes a wrong judgment of most things, till God chastens him and teaches him out of his law. We are apt to look too much at the Christian character, and too little at the Person and character of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hence we are often stumbled and perplexed. We see great infirmities in many we believe to be saints, and that is trying; and we see so many that outdo us in the race that we are apt to faint and write bitter things against ourselves, and set ourselves down for nothing, because we cannot keep pace with them. But this is our error, and this error God alone can remove. O! How hard it is to learn what the Holy Ghost means by these words: ‘Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils.’ This I would say, whatever brings us more to feel our entire dependence on God, both in providence and grace, is a great mercy, though it may at the time make us think that he is going to tear us in pieces.

“You seem to think that there are some in and about Norwich who wish to hear experimental gospel truth. I hope it is so; but the difficulty is in coming across men who are sent to preach such truths, and are not engaged. And then again, most of the real preachers of truth are poor, and cannot, in justice to their families, travel and preach for the bare expenses of their travelling. Your friends who wish to have truth preached to them, must consider these things. I am afraid that the wealthy in your parts have very little heart to support the cause of God; though, perhaps, they can talk bravely on doctrines sound, and split hairs in divinity. The chief lovers of simple, naked gospel truth lie among the poor and the struggling tradesmen, who are more perplexed and distressed from week to week than the day labourer. But the Lord reigneth.

“I have been silent four months, and have been travelling for my health most of the summer. I am certainly much better, and for these last three Lord’s days have preached a little; but I am obliged to be cautious. I am still weak, and have complaints upon me of a serious nature. Many of my friends thought I should preach no more, and I thought so too; but the Lord has had mercy on me.

“I thank you very kindly for the basket and contents, which were duly received by my children, and made use of. I was at that time at the back of the Isle of Wight, with my wife, as I was advised by my doctor. Since then, I have been into Berks, and last week to Eastbourne, Sussex. 

“Yours truly,

“HENRY FOWLER. 

“P. S. I am happy to say I am still able to continue my public labours, and with a measure of increasing strength. My cough still continues, and seems fixed in the constitution, and, like Jacob’s lame thigh, I expect to carry it down to my grave.”

Copy No. 2, to his brother John:

“London, 23, Grafton Street East, Nov. 9, 1838.

“My dear Brother, I hope this will find you and your family well. I have had a long affliction, as you are aware. It is now twelve months since I first ruptured a small vessel in my lungs, and the vessel has opened again seven times since, but not lately. I have been laid aside from preaching four months; but through God’s great mercy I was helped by his power to commence preaching again the first Lord’s day in October, and I have continued to preach my usual times ever since. I have still a troublesome cough, but it is better than it has been. My appetite is good, and I gain strength. Surely the hand of the Lord must be seen in my recovery, for most of my friends thought mine a hopeless case; but nothing is too hard for the Lord. May I never forget the mercy of the Lord, which endureth for ever. I have travelled much, by the advice of friends and my doctor, the past summer, and have been at great expense; but my gracious God has furnished me with ample means in his kind providence. I know not that my travelling about did me any good, for I have been better since I have been at home and left off medicine. I would rather say, ‘It is the Lord that has restored me,’ and give him the glory.

“I found, brother, in my affliction, the mercy of having a good hope through grace. I was not at all anxious to live, nor distressed by the fear of death, for I knew that I was saved in Jesus with an everlasting salvation. The sin of my depraved nature and the absence of Jesus made me often groan; but I could say he was the chief desire of my heart; and he is still, while I write, though I often feel as if his mercy was clean gone for ever to this day. Blessed be God, his love is unchangeable. He does not withdraw his love because we cannot love him as we would. O no!

“God has been very gracious to our family. Our brother and two sisters, I believe, are enrolled in the book of life, and are gone to glory, and I hope that we who are left shall join the redeemed multitude.

“O my dear brother, let not a sense of your unworthiness cast you down. The more vile and helpless you are in your own eyes, the more fit you are for Christ to look upon. I have more plague with my blind, legal heart to this day than I have with all my outward sins, and they have been great; so that I wonder at the long- suffering and patience of my God to such a rebel.

“HENRY FOWLER.” 

Copy No. 3, by his Son, Ebenezer Fender:

“London, Dec. 17, 1833.

“Dear Sir, I have the painful intelligence to communicate of the death of my dear and honoured father. He breathed his last on Sunday, 16th Dec., at 1 a.m. I was among those present at the time. His departure was so easy that I was not aware that his spirit had fled. The last time he preached was on Tuesday evening, Nov. 15th. He was obliged to take to his bed on the Monday, after which, during the last fortnight, he only left it to have it made three or four times, on account of his great weakness. His cough was very violent at first, and as weakness increased, his suffering became very great. Not being able to lie down, through a sense of suffocation seizing him when he did so, he sat up almost the whole time of his confinement to his bed. He spoke frequently with great affection of his friends in London and in Sussex, and it was a source of grief to him that he was unable, from the nature of his complaint, to hold conversation with them. During the first part of his confinement, he said to my mother, being asked how he felt in his mind, ‘I am under shades and glooms. The Lord sees fit to lead me through much tribulation; but I know it is well with me, whatever my frame of mind, and will be so at the last. I must come in on the old ground, redemption free, justification free, salvation free.’ I cannot remember the precise order in which these expressions of his feelings were uttered; it was at different times, for his breath would not allow him to say much at a time.

“On Sunday, December 2nd, when my brother Samuel went up to see him in the evening, he said, ‘Satan has been very hard with me since my affliction, very strong with me; and at times I have had hard work to keep hold of the hem of the Saviour’s garment; but this is my consolation, that though he is not now so feelingly precious to me, yet I know I am precious to him;’ and he added, ‘Since thou wast precious in my sight thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee.’

“For the last fortnight, his mind was in a far more happy frame. He seemed quite tranquil, and many times expressed his firm reliance on Christ, and his assurance of Christ’s love to his soul. At one time he sang this verse:

‘If thou, my Jesus, still be nigh, 

Cheerful I live and joyful die;

Secure, when mortal comforts flee, 

To find ten thousand worlds in thee.’

“On Friday, December 14th, feeling himself easier, in an expressive manner he quoted these lines:

”Tis he forgives thy sins, 

‘Tis he relieves thy pains,

‘Tis he that heals thy sicknesses.’

“On Saturday he was much worse, and symptoms of approaching dissolution appeared. In the evening he took my mother’s hand, and said, ‘My dear, I feel quite happy. Christ is very precious to me;’ and added, ‘I think I have been wandering a good deal this evening, but what I now say, I speak from the real feelings of my heart.’ He asked the time, and when told, he said, ‘Not later! Lord, when, when?’ and other words which we could not distinguish. These expressions were uttered about three hours before his departure.

“Towards the closing scene his voice changed, and he spoke with great difficulty. At this time he said, solemnly, ‘Christ is the substance and end of the law.’ Soon afterwards, ‘Come, Jesus, come quickly,’ and repeated the word ‘Come’ several times.

“The last words we could distinguish as connected, were, ‘My God! my God! take me to thee, to see thy face and sing thy praise;’ and directly afterwards, in a broken manner, ‘Come, dear Jesus, fill every corner of my wandering heart.’ This was not more than ten minutes before he died. He spoke several times after that apparently in prayer, as we could distinguish plainly the words, ‘Jesus,’ ‘My God,’ ‘Come.’ After a little silence, with a long sigh, he breathed his last.

“EBENEZER FOWLER.”

In concluding my communications of my beloved father, I would inform you, simply to illustrate the firmness of mind he was kept in by the power of God in his dying moments, and when under clouds, of an opportunity that occurred, uninvited by himself or me, of his expressing his experimental standing in Christ in the hour of dissolution. Though causing me at the moment painful anxiety, yet in the end Satan was thrown and God glorified. It was this: For many years I had heard and enjoyed the word of life from his lips under his ministry, confirming and building me up in the hope of the gospel, and I was resolved, before he departed, to open up my mind thereon to him more fully than I had ever done before. I called on him for that purpose after morning service, December 2nd, 1838, and said, “Father, I want to speak to you on eternal matters regarding myself;” and nearly choked with anxiety of mind therein, I got out the words, “It is all right with me,” purposing to enter lengthily therein. To my bitter disappointment he thought I asked him whether it was all right with him. Then, in a solemn, loud voice, sitting up in his bed, and with measured utterance he answered me thus: “My testimony is before the world.” I was in confusion. I embraced him, and ran down stairs to my mother and told her to hasten up and inform him he had misunderstood me, that I meant myself, not him. She did so, and he said, “Mother, I am glad to hear it, for I began to reflect that I must have mistaken Sam.” The evening of the same day I went up to him again, determined to have it over. Several of the family were standing around the bed; and, with an earnest expression in his eyes, and calm serenity in his countenance, he grasped my hand before I could utter a word, and said, “My dear Sam, Satan has been a great enemy of mine. He has been very hard with me since my affliction; very strong with me; and at times I have had hard work to lay hold of the hem of the Saviour’s garment; but this is my consolation, that though I cannot lay hold on him as. I would, he holds me up; for I know that underneath me are his everlasting arms.” He immediately threw himself back on the pillow, from exhaustion and want of breath, closed his eyes in silence, and I saw him no more alive.

Now, dear Sir, I will give you a few more extracts of his last days, from a pamphlet published many years since by Mr. A. Charlwood, of Melbourne, Australia, entitled, “The Voice of Years,” but which I believe has not been publicly circulated. It is addressed to the late Mr. John Gorringe, of Eastbourne:

“A little before his (Mr. Fowlers) death, I was in London, and heard him for the last time, at Gower Street. Before he read his text, he related the following anecdote of old Borroughs, one of the reformers: ‘I have read,’ said he, ‘that old Borroughs once got up to preach, and said, ‘Now, all I have to say this morning is to the children of God; so, all you hypocrites, go out every one of you;’ and that several got up to go out, hanging down their heads, when he called them back by name, as, ‘Dame So-and-So and John So-and-So, come back! You are not the hypocrites; not you! but it is these hardened, presumptuous wretches that sit here, (pointing at them,) and laughing in my very face. These are the hypocrites. They have heard the gospel till they are gospel hardened. They are like a blacksmith’s dog; the very sparks of hell will not move them.’  You have it,’ said he, ‘as I read it, whether true or not;’ and then gave out his text from Isa. 1:18: ‘Come, now, let us reason together,’ &c. I cannot remember much of the sermon, but the Spirit of the Lord seemed to rest upon him that day. Although so feeble and so near his end, yet he spoke with great power, and gave an account of a wicked man’s visiting him in the vestry; and, pointing to it, he repeated with peculiar energy, ‘I have had a hundred hypocrites in that vestry!’ This man told him he had not had a doubt of his state for seventeen years, and it was afterwards found out that he was then living in a sin that ought not to be named; ‘And I,’ said he, ‘stood trembling before him, and could bless God that there was such a text in the Bible that the Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, and in those that hope in his mercy. ‘What,’ said he, ‘perhaps some one may say, have you been brought so low as this, and you a minister?’ Yes, after I had stood up for many years in God’s great name; and you know, dear Sir, it was his being thus brought low at times that made his ministry acceptable to you, and me, and others that were in a low place. Also, I remember hearing him once from Micah 7:18: ‘Who is a God like unto thee?, &c. After saying many gracious things, he broke out, and said, ‘If you forget everything else, don’t forget the last clause in my text, for it hath comforted my soul hundreds of times: ‘ He delighteth in mercy.’ I remember it seemed to cause hope to spring up in my soul then, and it cheers my heart now to reflect on it. He was one of the very few that understood the largeness of God’s mercy, having felt much of the bitterness of sin. Whilst speaking from the words, ‘Come, and let us reason,’ &c., he said, ‘The devil is reasoning with some of you: “What, would you go now? What, after sin so recently committed? Would it not be better to stop till conscience is deadened, and the effects a little worn off’?” But, looking down again to his Bible, he said, ‘No; my text says, Come now, saith the Lord.’

“I called and saw him the week following for the last time, and found him so feeble that I was the more surprised at the manner in which he had preached on the Sunday previously, and could but see that the Spirit of the Lord had carried him above himself on that occasion.

“Yours to serve,

“SAMUEL FOWLER

———————

Copy (Extract) Of Mr. H. Flower’s Will

Resting upon the sure foundation God has laid in Zion; believing that God has loved me with an everlasting love, of which he has given me sundry proofs by the most Holy Spirit’s gracious operations; and acknowledging that, from the day the Holy Spirit quickened me by his power unto this present moment, my God has been faithful to his promise; and knowing the uncertainty of life, or when my most gracious God and Father may call me home, to receive the crown of life, as the free gift of his grace, I think it right to hold myself in readiness, and set my house in order. This, therefore, is my last Will and Testament. Unto my beloved wife, Ann Fowler, I give and bequeath the whole of my property, whether it shall consist at the time of my death of money, stock, securities, goods, chattels, jewels, or plate. And I appoint my beloved wife my sole executrix.”

Lines To The Memory Of The Late Henry Fowler, Minister Of God’s Word At Gower Street Chapel, Who Died December 16, 1838.

Dedicated to his beloved Church and Congregation.

“The memory of the just is blessed.” Prov. 10:7.

To friendship due, I shed the silent tear;

‘Tis nature weeps; grace lifts our thoughts on high. 

Does o’er the spoils of death her banner rear,

And wipes the tear from sorrow’s weeping eye.

‘Twas gain to die, to him whose only hope

The Rock of everlasting ages bore;

He saw the goodly land from Pisgah’s top, 

Where sin and death are felt and fear’d no more.

While kindred weep beside the dreary tomb,

The church triumphant vent their swelling joys, 

And greet the weary pilgrim welcome home 

From sorrow’s vale to mansions in the skies.

Swift as the holy prophet’s wondrous flight, 

On angels’ wings his spirit soar’d away

Up to the regions of eternal light,

And left to earth and worms the sleeping clay.

Steadfast his hope, that anchor of the soul, 

Which sin, nor hell, nor death could e’er remove; 

While o’er his shatter’d bark the billows roll, 

Firm as the basis of eternal love.

As death approach’d, calm as the summer’s sea, 

Without a ruffling wave to wash the shore, 

Such was his passage to the realms of day.

He died to live, and lives to die no more.

Walmer and Deal his friendly visits hail’d; 

With joy they greet him to the eastern shore; 

Till pale disease his mortal frame assail’d;

He bids farewell, to share their joys no more.

Near his fond heart that little Sardis lay, 

Without a shepherd; yet a chosen fold, 

Where Jacob’s God still condescends to pay 

His Bethel visits, as in days of old.

No more to preach salvation to the lost,

The silver Thames shall bear thee to and fro; 

Long as her waters roll from coast to coast, 

Or in perpetual motion ebb and flow.

In manners gentle, and of soul sincere, 

Grave without gloom, in conversation free, 

To human woe he ever lent an ear,

And dropt the tear of friendly sympathy.

His lonely fold, the Church, send one to feed, 

Who shall immortal souls to Jesus win;

No hireling clad as with a shepherd’s weed, 

Who never yet by Christ the door came in.

O church of Jesus! as a virgin pure

May he still keep thee with his watchful eye; 

From every error well the fold secure,

And from his fulness all thy wants supply.

Ordain’d a pastor, by the Spirit led,

He took the pastoral charge and fed the fold; 

E’en that dear flock for whom their Surety bled, 

Whose goings forth were from the days of old.

Such was the man I still to memory hold,

Whose pledge of friendship ofttimes meets my eye, 

Nor has my fond affection yet grown cold,

Nor does mortality dissolve the tie.

Not at Gamaliel’s but at Jesu’s feet,

As from the fountain head he wisdom drew;

‘Twas there he sat his studies to complete, 

Jesus the Alpha and Omega too.

From Jonas Eathorne’s blest obscure abode, 

Beside the bed whereon that cripple lay, 

Reflection wakes, my thoughts retrace the road 

That to his future labours led the way.

‘Twas there, nor is the pleasing scene forgot, 

Where from his lips at first salvation flow’d; 

Nor was that little consecrated spot

Less than a temple dedicate to God.

No more the standard of the cross to rear,

No more to set the battle in array;

Nor yet with Amalek to break a spear;

The conflict’s o’er, and victory crowns the day.

Beyond the reach of sorrow, sin, and death, 

Where brethren false no more thy peace annoy, 

Nor the base whisperer’s pestilential breath 

Shall damp the pleasure of eternal joy.

His sword and buckler for the winding-sheet, 

The veteran soldier of the cross laid down; 

The promised great reward of grace to meet, 

To bear the palm, and ever wear the crown.

Write on the tablet o’er his sleeping dust:

“Here rests in hope, through Jesus’ blood and pain,

Till the last trump the hollow tomb shall burst, 

When with his Lord in glory he shall reign.”

Yet still he speaks, as from the silent dead,

The hollow chambers of the dreary tomb,

Repeat what Jesus to the church has said:

“Watch! for, behold, I quickly, quickly come.” 

KENT.