Samuel Marsh:
Every year at this service we turn to the author of the letter to the Hebrews Every year that writer tells us the same thing: that "faith is the assurance of things hoped for The conviction of things not seen." And because we can only believe what we have not seen if we trust the witnesses that told us about it, he adds That it was by faith, that our ancestors received approval [Heb. 11: 1-2] Then the author goes on to name some of those ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob Moses and Rahab Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah David, Samuel, and the prophets And then he points out their continuing usefulness to us by saying, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses Let us lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely And let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us Looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of our faith Who, for the sake of the joy that was set before him, Endured the cross Disregarding its shame And has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God [Heb. 12: 1-2] I love the term, the concept, the idea of: " a cloud of witnesses" And I love the feeling of being surrounded by them For witnesses have introduced Christ to people for years In the New Testament, of course Peter and Andrew James and John Stephen, Paul, Barnabas, and Timothy But that cloud is not made up of just Biblical witnesses. We also find Augustine and Guttenberg We have Luther We have the Wesleys - John and Charles and Susannah We have Martin Luther King, Jr But again, that cloud is not made up of just famous witnesses either It includes the people whose graves we visit And the people who introduced us to Christ Parents and grandparents, friends and neighbors. And it must include us - as Jesus made clear at his ascension As we remember and give thanks for the Methodist pastors buried here We do so for the lives they touched and the witnesses they made - both clergy and non clergy - Who have made up our congregation since 1820 And other congregations in this area as well. So, just six days after we celebrated the day on which Christ Commissioned and charged us to be witnesses We celebrate these pastors both for their own work as witnesses And as representatives and symbols Of the many, many witnesses in that cloud as well. Samuel Marsh is a witness in the cloud that surrounds us. Strictly speaking, Although he apparently came out of our congregation And worked within it And although he was brought to Christ at the age of 30, In Potsdam in part by Rev. Peter Douglass Gorrie, our pastor at the time Marsh was never the appointed pastor of our congregation. Born in 1819, he had been educated at Norwich University in Vermont (a military institution) Then, he studied medicine in Ohio, Massachusetts and Vermont Ultimately, establishing a medical practice in Potsdam Subsequently he received a license to preach And at the 1856 session of the Black River Conference he was admitted as a provisional member (Along with another man whose grave we will visit today Samuel Call - whom Marsh had converted to Christ) It appears that, while he probably preached around the area, his only formal appointment was to a position teaching at St. Lawrence Academy Where he had already been teaching. However, he had difficulty finding the time to devote himself to the course of study prescribed by the conference, Therefore in 1859 he requested discontinuance of his relation Not long after that He resigned his position at the school And resumed his practice as a physician. Because he had discontinued his conference relationship he was not, on his death, entitled to a memoir in the conference journal. But the memoir editor was his old mentor P. D. Gorrie Who managed to put what amounts to Marsh's memoir Into the memoir he wrote for Rev. James R. Nichols Using the fact that both were provisionally admitted in 1856 And the fact that their deaths were in the same conference year It seems only appropriate that Marsh and Gorrie who both converted Marsh and eulogized him are buried within sight of each other. Why did Gorrie take such liberty? Part of it was that he was mourning the fact that Marsh died tragically at age 43 from a wound suffered at Gaines Mill (or "Hill" as reported) But most of it had to be that Gorrie was well acquainted with the fact that Marsh In this congregation In the other churches in which he preached In his work as teacher and physician had been the kind of witness that Christ had charged him to be. The kind of witness that Samuel Marsh was Prompted him in his 40s to leave his wife and children at home And sign up with a NY regiment of volunteers Where he was commissioned Lt. Colonel The kind of witness that Samuel Marsh was Was demonstrated when his regiment was the last to leave the battlefield at Bull Run And they left in good order Unlike many of the union troops who preceded them The kind of witness that Samuel Marsh was Was shown by the turnout for his funeral In the then two year old brick church located right where we worship In the newspaper account of that funeral, it appears that some 2200 people attended With 1200 crowded into the church building And 1000 more standing between the church and the parsonage With a church window removed so that they could hear. Gorrie, who preached at the funeral, concluded his creatively placed memoir by saying, "He was all but idolized by his friends and the community in general. His end was emphatically peaceful; he died a Christian soldier, and no doubt, while we write, sings in the Christian's heaven." But perhaps there is no better demonstration of the kind of witness that Samuel Marsh was Than his last letter home Dictated July 2, 1862 while he was dying on a hospital steamer in the James River at Harrison's Landing Dictated perhaps to a nurse [Read letter] Samuel Marsh Teacher Physician Methodist pastor Civil War officer and patriot Husband and father Witness for Christ As he was commissioned to be at Christ's ascension A part of the cloud of witnesses that surrounds and envelops us. And for whom we give thanks to God.
While the service begins at the grave of Rev. Samuel Marsh, worshippers will, as part of the service, process to the graves of the 13 other Methodist pastors who are buried in this cemetery. The seven pastors who served our congregation are marked with an asterisk). The remaining seven have varying ties to the community.
In addition, recognizing that many in the cloud of witnesses were lay persons, we will stop at the grave of Bill Eldridge who will, for today's service, represent all the deceased laity of the congregation
At all of them a worshipper will read the brief biography of the deceased and then will pray:
P: Almighty and Generous God, On this day we offer our thanks to you For the life and ministry of ____________________
All: Amen