MEMORIAL CHAPTER ADDRESS MADE BY REV. JOSEPH H. SMITH, AT THE FUNERAL OF THE AUTHOR AT GRAY CHAPEL DELAWARE, O., NOVEMBER 13, Paper First PERSONAL SALVATION:ITS STAGES Paper Second PRESENT SALVATION:ITS SOURCE Paper Third PARTIAL SALVATION:ITS SCOPE Paper Fourth PERFECT SALVATION:ITS NATURE Paper Fifth PREFECT SALVATION:ITS CONCOMITANTS Paper Sixth PERFECT SALVATION:ITS ESSENTIALITY Paper Seventh PERFECT SALVATION:ITS BLESSINGS Paper Eighth PERFECT SALVATION:ITS ATTAINMENT Paper Ninth PERFECT SALVATION:ITS PERMANENCE ADDRESS MADE BY REV. JOSEPH H. SMITH, AT THE FUNERAL OF THE AUTHOR AT GRAY CHAPEL DELAWARE, O., NOVEMBER 13, I am rejoiced that representative men of the Church are to speak to you of Brother Keen as a man and a minister. It is my sacred privilege to speak of him as a Pentecostal evangelist. It was in this capacity that I knew him, in this relation that we were bound together with ties of tenderest affection, and in this work that we labored side by side, witnessing the marvelous power of God in the ministry of the old Gospel Story, and in the use of time-honored methods of our beloved Church.

Providentially associated in many of these engagements, I have seen so many points of purity and power in this saintly and successful soul-winner’s career, which I wish to emulate, that I think I can do this occasion and his memory no better service than to bring a few of them to notice at this time.

And first, let me remark that the secret of all this blessed attractiveness of his lovely life, the secret of all the marked and mighty successes of his unusual ministry, and the secret of the most remarkable and triumphant dying which some of us have ever witnessed — the secret of it all was personal experience in the deep things of God. I will not tax you to relate (what you may find in his own little book, entitled “Praise Papers”) the narrative of the steps in the progress of his spiritual life, but only emphasize this upon your recollection, that what gave type and distinctiveness to his ministry was the prominence and permanence of joyous, heartfelt religion in his personal life and his public preaching.

I should mention, too, in this connection, and as a key to unlocking the problem of the success and strength of his ministry, that it was early in his career — I think during the first year of his first pastorate — that he secured the experimental demonstration of the truth of that chief doctrinal depositum of Scripture which he loved ever afterwards to proclaim to the Church of God. At the beginning of his ministry he earnestly sought, clearly obtained, and ever after joyfully witnessed the blessed experience of perfect love.

What is most prominent in the man, is likely to be most persistent in his ministry and most manifest in the products of his labors. It was so with Brother Keen; for experimental religion, and, the easy yoke and light burden of that religion, were the pre. eminent characteristics of his preaching, and conscious and complete salvation the striking result of his ministry.

As a consequence of this fullness of spiritual life and liberty, his was always an evangelistic ministry. And I pause to emphasize this, lest some might gain the impression from his special evangelism hater, that he found the confines of our pastorate too narrow and straitened for evangelistic zeal and success. Not so. He demonstrated, upon the other hand, that it is not the circumstances, but the man, which determines whether a ministry will or will not be revivalistic and soul-saving. Not but that he found many things in many Churches and in many men which might Circumstantiate and hamper the course of the evangelistic passion that burned always within his bosom yet while recognizing and esteeming difficulties, he knew no preventions of revival work. And his nearly a quarter of a century in the pastorate and presiding eldership, is a record of Pentecostal revivalism in the regular ministry, resulting in the conversion and sanctification of hundreds of precious souls, many of whom, from different cities in Ohio, and from Indiana as well have doubtless greeted him ere this in the happy regions beyond. We submit that Brother Keen’s pastorate and eldership should be the usual rather than the exceptional in the Christian ministry.

And, indeed, as a result of his especial ministry, and particularly at his Pentecostal services, we have no doubt that a regiment of evangelistic ministers have been marshaled and inspired, which, for our generation at least, will keep revivalistic fire burning in the camps of the great Church army which Brother Keen loved so much. He showed how we may always have old-time revivals, even with new-time conditions. It is of his special evangelism which I wish to speak more particularly. It was my privilege to be taken into his counsel and private prayer circle at the time when he was contemplating and considering this great step of his life. It was my sacred and sweet privilege to be with him in the closing days of review, and we went over some of the ground together again. I think I knew the springs of his heart in this great, though brief, general evangelistic career. I believe he was a providential man. No observer, not to say student of our Church history, can fail to note the presence and the persistence of two great problems in the state of the Church in our day. His special ministry grappled with those problems, and has at least opened the way towards their most Successful solution. I refer first to the matter of maintenance of a vigorous revivalism in the Church, commensurate with her general progress, and in victory over various non-revivalistic tendencies which are strengthening themselves within our borders. How to sustain old-time evangelism with new-time conditions? That is the question which no preachers’ meeting nor theological seminary can settle by thesis, but which dear Brother Keen demonstrated by the precepts and precedent of his Pentecostal evangelism. Not that he laid down any set of rules, or devised any system of methods. No. That was not his style or his calling. But God gave him his last appointment (and it proves to have been with less than the ordinary ministerial time-limit, too) as an object-lesson study to our preachers. And I may say it meekly, but positively, that our Churches will have overlooked a gracious providence if they fail to have studied and improved upon this gracious visitation.

The other problem, which Brother Keen’s call and course have gone far towards solving, is that of the care and conservation of the holiness work of the Church — a work too manifestly and mightily upon us to be ignored, and too important to be left wholly to hands untrained in pastoral service, or to hearts untried in Church loyalty, or yet to minds untrained and unskilled for prudent and patient judgment. Between those who would seek to settle the difficulties of a work like this by conservative ecclesiasticism or by dogmatic polemics, Brother Keen stood as one true at once to the polity and to the doctrines of the Church, and likewise true to the testimony and the aggressive work of full salvation. He gave so much prominence to the experimental aspect of the matter that doctrinal discussions were wholly subordinated. Yet he wisely recognized the dependence of experience upon some doctrine, and always maintained in clear and unequivocal terms the Scriptural presentation of Bible holiness, as a definite experience subsequent to conversion inwrought and attested by the Holy Ghost. He exhibited the consistence of holiness with good sense, good taste, and good denominationalism in such a marked degree that he rarely had to take occasion to insist upon such consistency. He was the living exponent of the same. His detachment of this theme and work from all side issues was so wise and manifest as to assure him the confidence of thoughtful men, and secure him the obedience in these respects of even the thoughtless. His was an aggressive holiness ministry, with a remarkable absence of combative features and freedom from that which repels men who are of different thought, though of hike heart. His breadth was apparent in his choice of the fullness of the Holy Ghost as his favorite method of presenting this experience. Yet his clearness, definiteness, and positiveness were seen in his faithful presentation of purity as a chief product or result of the Pentecostal baptism.

Our association in work was, for the most part, at our great holiness camp-meetings, which have multiplied over the country, and which his identification with was another feature in the mastery of this great subject.

He saw the hand of Providence in these institutions. Their independence and interdenominational character, while putting them a little outside of denominational control, he was quick to see, put them where they needed leadership, faithful at once to the Church, and true to the great interests which they would promote. Providence opened his door. By grace he entered it. Most of our heading camp-meetings have felt the touch of his happy spirit, and the management of his masterful hand. I may sum it up in this: The cause of holiness today lies nearer the hearts of our ministers and our Churches; and the aggressive holiness movement is in closer touch and alliance with the regular work and ministry of the Church than could have been but for Brother Keen’s Pentecostal itinerary.

He would speak of it as his big Pentecostal circuit, and fully well did he make its rounds.

And now may I speak of two or three closing days of this ministry of sunshine. We had mutually anticipated my coming to conduct a Pentecostal meeting at Asbury Church as a time when we might have frequent converse together. He even hoped to be able to attend some of the meetings. But reaching his home last Saturday evening, I was struck at once with the change in his condition, and felt that the end might be in view. I tried my best to pray him back, and enlisted the people in the same effort; bit we failed. In fact, we received no special encouragement in this direction from Brother Keen himself. We talked about his death with the same composure, interest, and intelligence that we would have talked about our next meeting together. He gave me greetings to different brethren with whom we had been associated, and always a loving, self-forgetful message to each it was.

Little witticisms and bursts of humor sprang frequently from his lips, to lighten the burdens of solicitous friends about him. His mouth was filled with praise continually. Prayer was a thing of the past. “Blessed Jesus,” he would say; and then turning to me, added: “That is all the praying I have to do, Joseph.” “Got nothing on hand.” “Everything is done up.” Glory! His discomfort and suffering were sometimes severe, and involuntary sighs would escape his lips. But fearing once that they might be misunderstood, he turned to his doctor and said: “I want you to know there is no groan in my soul, Doctor.” His faculties were not only clear, but unusually strong.

Reason, memory, imagination, voice, and all were in excellent trim to the very last moment. Sabbath was a day of great physical distress and decline; but when I got to his side, after preaching Sabbath night, he said to me, so tenderly and so joyously: “Brother Smith, this has been the best Sabbath in all my life.” “We have been on many blessed battlefields together,” he said on Monday night, “haven’t we? And they think I worked too hard.

That’ s what they tell. But, beloved, at this time I have no regrets.

None whatever. And if I could, I would do it all, and more again.”

Once more he said to me: “A thought of murmuring, either as to this suffering being hard, or as to this end being premature, has never once entered my mind. Glory!”

Perhaps, less than one minute before his departure, just after one of his most severe efforts at breathing, he said, “How unspeakably precious Jesus has been!” and then he was at rest. A happy ending to a happy life.

The sweetness of his last good-bye kiss tarries upon my cheek The echo of that “unspeakable pressure” rings through my soul still. He does not seem to have left me far, and I yet hear him saying: “Beloved, this full salvation we have preached, I have just found, is fuller than we ever thought.” But I think I see his arrival at port over yonder. Do not you see the hosts of his converts that reached home before him, how they have run down to meet him at the landing? The children are there whom he led to Christ in those children’s meetings, and to whom he preached those ten-minute sermons.

Young men and maidens who have ascended from the roll of honor of the Epworth League which he helped to found, are there to greet his sunny spirit. Yea, the aged whom he helped to pilot through, and ministers whom he led to Pentecostal Victory, are eager to show him straight to Jesus, that he may hear hint say: “Well done, good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful.” But the greater multitude of those he has blest are following on.

They catch a new inspiration from his Pentecostal dying, and move out anew to walk in the power of the Holy Ghost. For one I will say, if such dying comes from such living, I will covenant anew to “precipitate salvation upon every congregation, and live and preach in the power of Pentecost.”