The Late Miss May Lonie
An “In memoriam” service was held at the Devonport Congregational Church on Sunday evening, in connection with the death of Miss May Lonie, the building being crowded to the doors. The Rev. D. Brown, who preached from Revelation XIV, verse 13 “Blessed - are the dead which die in the Lord, from henceforth, yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their work do follow them” said they were met under a cloud occasioned by their sorrow over the loss of a young life which seemed to be just blossoming forth into usefulness, and their only consolation was that beyond and above it shone the light of heaven. One who had been associated with them in church fellowship, and whose voice had often been heard in the services of the church, had been called away to the Father’s home with its many mansions. The late Miss May Lonie had not experienced any sudden or violent change of feeling such as was sometimes associated with the act of conversion, but from her earliest years she had shown a natural liking and inclination for the service of God, and so had come quietly and almost imperceptibly into God’s Kingdom. That was as it should be. God’s life in the soul should begin in childhood. Of her they might say as it was written of one of old, “Her sun went down while it was yet day.” She was but standing on the threshold of life - she was only 19 years of age - and was possessed of marked gifts in certain directions, and had newly completed a course of training which had fitted her to use her accomplishments for the benefits of others. But just as she was seemingly entering upon a career of usefulness her life was cut short. It was not for them to account for it. God’s ways were not as theirs, and mystery which seemed so great now would vanish in the light which would come to them when they stood before God’s throne. God was their Father, and they might rest assured that He knew what was best for all of them. In another and better sphere they might rest assured that their natural powers and talents would find fuller and freer play. In their text, the Apostle spoke of those who died in the Lord – a phrase, which they met with frequently in the New Testament. The believing soul stepped into the sphere. When they trusted Christ, death came to them simply as a stepping out of the world and into Christ, into a new sphere of existence, their work becoming His, their destiny and life plan His, so that their lives and Christ’s were inseparable. That was what Paul meant when he said, “Whether we live, therefore, we live unto the Lord, and whether we die we die unto the Lord.” The Christian did not forfeit his place in Christ when death came upon him; death left the union between Christ and the believer unimpaired. On the other side of death God stood waiting to receive them, and it was their privilege to learn the lesson that their loved ones were better and safer in God’s keeping than in theirs. They were apt to imagine that when death came to men and women, gifts with great powers and talents, that those powers and talents were lost to them, but that was not so. There was no waste in God’s Kingdom. The dying soul went out of this world to carry on God’s work in the next, and, in the words of the text; their works followed or accompanied them. If angels of God were sent forth, as ministering spirits to minister to those who should be heirs of salvation, as Paul told them, was it not reasonable to suppose that the departed spirits of their loved ones were similarly employed? And they might be sure their departed ones knew a greater blessedness and were more usefully employed than was ever possible for them here. They should not mourn their loss, therefore, but rejoice rather that they had entered into God’s Kingdom, and should so live that when their turn came to go forth from this world into the next, they would be ready to meet them. The hymns sung included “Our God our help in ages past”, “Light after darkness, gain after loss”, and “For ever with the Lord”, the choir (of which the deceased was a member) also rendering the anthem, “These are they that came out of great tribulation”. At the close of the service Mr. E. H. Betts, the organist, played the “Dead March”, many members of the congregation standing in reverent silence till the last chord was played and then slowly retiring.