8 History of Zion Church

with musical sounds through the hearts of his people, and gave his hearers such glimpses of Heaven, the home of the redeemed, to which, even then he was hastening—and we knew it not. His memory will be always cherished for the great tenderness he manifested for the salvation of souls. Nowhere did his preaching attract larger crowds than in his prayer meetings; here it seemed as if he got closer to his people spiritually as he did physically, as though this nearness developed a closer fellowship with God and his hearers, of which the people received the heavenly benefit. The beauty of thought, of illustration; the application of incident, event and story, brought out of memory’s treasure house ; the winning persuasions of loving appeals, shining and permeat- ing through his addresses on these occasions, filled his hearers with a wondering awe. Nothing so attested his prayer-meet- ing power as the large and silent audiences that drank 1n his life-giving utterances. It was a solemn thing to do, to lead in prayer at the close of one of his Wednesday night sermons.

In disposition, Mr. Sutherland was friendly, not familiar, cordial rather than genial, reticent but not reserved, brimming over with human, helpful sympathy for human suffering, and generous beyond ordinary ken. In his financial benevolences, not letting his right hand witness against his left, and there- fore in some notable instances being victimized as all philan- thropists too frequently are; “ready, aye ready ” in every good word and work, everywhere and anywhere. Self-denial arid self-sacrifice were ever his passionate justifications, for risk of life, so often rare, at beds of sickness, fever and death, and we sometimes grieve over the thought that in the mys- terious providence of God, some such visit led to his own fatal sickness and death. All the sadness of the early days of his sickness, the creeping nearer day by day of the melan- choly truth, are too fresh in our memories, and we calmly say ”he is not here, for God took him.” Mr. Sutherland preached his last sermon on the morning of June 12th, 1898, and his