(…continued) In 1810, Lewis Conger was a first year student at the newly established Andover Theological Seminary in Boston, Massachusetts. Soon after classes began, he became seriously ill. He was told that he would probably not recover. One of his professors, Edward Griffin, wrote to the family of the sick boy, to inform them and to offer a word of hope. On January 2nd, 1810 he wrote:
Dear family, Lewis has the typhus fever. His body and mind is weak, but he loves to hear of the name of Christ, and listens with deep interest and tender affection to everything that is said about the blessed Savior. My dear friends, you have given a son to Jesus, and if Jesus has work for him to do here, he will preserve him and make him a blessing to the church. But if Jesus has other plans, he will, I doubt not, take him to himself. I beseech you, my friends, prepare for everything which God has in store for you. My prayer is that God support you under this trial.
Four days later, Professor Griffin wrote to the family:
I wish with all my heart that I had some good news to communicate to you. Lewis died at 10:00 this morning, and thus was released from his pain and suffering. This, I know, is not the news you wanted to hear, but there is still good news. Jesus of Nazareth is still Lord of all life, and we can know that our dear Lewis is happy. Ah, my heart, why this aching and trembling? We always pray, and Lewis always prayed, that the will of God may be done. And this must be God’s will, or else he would have spared him; and so why now should we oppose God’s will? No young man was ever more beloved. He has not lived in vain. He has been the means of good to some souls here, and by his influence on the college, has probably been indirectly the means of good to thousands. Think no more of him on a bed of sickness, in a land of strangers. Think of him in heaven. There is where Lewis is now. Only his body has been left behind. We have not lost him. He has only gone on before us. There, in heaven, we shall soon find him and enjoy him again, and forever, and far more than we ever did in this world.
Lewis Conger was approaching God. He was meeting his Maker with a freedom and confidence solidly grounded on faith in Christ Jesus, one who had lived and died and rose from the dead. Only in Jesus is it possible to have such a confident hope in death.
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Revelation 14:13 — I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.”
Psalm 116:15 — Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful servants.
Luke 23:46 — Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.
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Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.
–Jesus, Luke 23:46
