A FUNERAL MESSAGE and A MESSAGE TO THE QUARTERLY MEETING

Sermons Delivered by ANN BRANSON, 8th Month 14th, 1861, at the Funeral of Mary Thomas of West Grove, Ohio and at the Quarterly Meeting at Flushing 8th Month 15th, 1861.
Journal of Ann Branson, A Minister of the Gospel in the Society of Friends. Philadelphia: W. H. Pile's Sons, 1892, pages 162-163.

This is The Quaker Homiletics Online Anthology, Part 3: The 19th Century.

Attended the funeral of Mary Thomas at West Grove, who died suddenly of apoplexy. It was a very large gathering; and in fear and trembling I had to sound the warning voice: "Be ye also ready, for at such a time as ye think not, the Son of man cometh." I had to warn the proud and thoughtless not to put off their day's work until it was too late. The same day returned to Flushing, after an absence of fourteen weeks, with the feeling of an unprofitable servant; but with the belief that I could not have returned sooner without a guilty conscience, which I have not felt in the retrospect.

15th--Attended our Quarterly Meeting held at Flushing, which was larger than usual. In the forepart of this meeting, I had to revive the language of the Most High through the mouth of his prophet: "Blow ye the trumpet in the land. Cry, gather togather, and say, Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the defenced cities. Set up the standard toward Zion; retire, stay not, for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction. The lion is come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way." Believing, and having to declare that the Lord would mar the pride of this people and this nation, even as He marred the pride of Judah and Jerusalem in the days of old, which was signified and foretold by the prophet Jeremiah, when he was commanded of the Lord to hide the linen girdle by the River Euphrates, which, when he took again, behold it was marred; so will the Lord mar the pride of this people and this nation, and the language to many is in this day, Repent, stay not upon the ground you occupy, which is a false resting place; lift up the standard towards Zion, retire thither; there wait upon the Lord, that you may experience your "place of defence to be the munitions of rocks, your be given you and your bread to be given you and your water to be sure."