On the 1st of February, 1856, the angels in heaven tuned their harps afresh, and if possible, raised their voices to higher praise, for a spirit that the heavens were glad to receive, left its clay tenement. The church of which he was a member was shrouded with the veil of mourning, for one of its brightest ornaments had robed itself with spotless white and taken its flight to join the innumerable company that John saw in the mansions of heaven, prepared by Jeans Christ our Lord for his meek and lowly followers.

      C. H. Powell was born on the l6th of February, 1833. He united with the Baptist Church at Ebenezer in 1847, and lived in full fellowship, and enjoyed the confidence of the church, and the affection and esteem of his numerous acquaintances and friends, until his death, which occurred on the 20th of September, 1855.

      He left his home and the friends of his youth for the purpose of attending the Medical School in Cincinnati, thus being deprived of the last kindness his relatives might render him, and without his kind mother to smooth his dying pillow, he bid the sorrowing world and all its allurements a long and final adieu. He feared not the coming of the last enemy: no, death was a welcome visitor to him.

      He told, his fellow-students, while dressing his blisters, that it was all done right: but, said he, I have the best mother in the world, and if she was here to do what you are doing, I would feel like it was done better.

      Page after page might be filled up until a volume was written on the past history of our good and pious brother, but those who knew him need not be told of his good qualities. To all his young friends he has given kind and religious instructions, and by his past life, I may say, take pattern, and by his early death, take warning. Dear parents, brothers and sisters, your loss is his eternal gain. Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord. Prepare to meet your son and brother, for his home is in heaven - he has gone to rest in the peaceful grave, by the loved and dead, and when the God of heaven calls you, like him, away from this sorrowing world, he will be there to meet and welcome you, if you prove faithful to the commands of your God.

      Relatives and friends of the deceased, grieve not for him, but so live in this life that, when you come to die, you may leave bright and shining evidence of your ultimate felicity in the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
          Robt. L. Phillips

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[From The Tennessee Baptist, April 5, 1856. CD edition from M/F. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]

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