September 2, 2016 (Friday)
Today funeral services will be conducted in Dallas for a man who was friend to thousands, Bailey Stone. He was 86. We had some things in common, because we both went to San Jacinto High School in Houston, Baylor University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary; we both experienced a great change in our lives in our senior years of high school. The phrase, “man’s man,” applies more to Bailey Stone than to any man I have ever known. Wherever he went, men flocked to him and gladly followed his leadership. He loved fishing and came to Rockport often, beginning in his childhood. He was an evangelist, a pastor of several great churches, and Evangelism Director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. One of God’s greatest servants has gone to be with the Lord. (Click here for obituary).
Many of us have reached a point in life where good friends and precious loved ones have left us, and their passing serves to remind us that Heaven is just a breath away. James Montgomery wrote a poem that expresses those sentiments:
Friend after friend departs;
Who hath not lost a friend?
There is no union here of hearts,
That finds not here an end:
Were this frail world our only rest,
Living or dying, none were blest.
Beyond the flight of time,
Beyond this vale of death,
There surely is some blessèd clime
Where life is not a breath,
Nor life’s affections transient fire,
Whose sparks fly upward and expire.
There is a world above,
Where parting is unknown,
A whole eternity of love,
Formed for the good alone;
And faith beholds the dying here
Translated to that happier sphere.
Thus star by star declines,
Till all are passed away,
As morning high and higher shines
To pure and perfect day;
Nor sink those stars in empty night,
But hide themselves in Heaven’s own light.
This poem has been in my “Pastor’s Manual” all these years, and I never realized it is a hymn until today. Click here for more information and the music. (hymntime.com)
Members of First Baptist Church, Rockport, fondly remember a revival meeting in which Bailey preached and Fritz and Shirley Smith led the music. (Fritz passed away in 2008; click here for obituary).