Last Years

During the last years of his life Brother Warner’s time was devoted in greater proportion to writing than during the preceding years of more active ministerial work in the field. Possessing a weak physical constitution he aged rapidly and seemed elderly at fifty. Due to an earnest desire to accomplish much for the cause of God he had, however, a hope that the Lord would “satisfy him with long life,” as the Psalmist expresses it (Psalm 91:16). Whether he had any idea that his life might soon draw to a close, it is not known, but at any rate he felt prompted, after the few years he spent in evangelistic tours, to devote more of his time to writing on specific lines of truth. He wished in particular to write a book on prophetic subjects.

He spent the winter of 1891-92 mostly at home writing, but he was not altogether satisfied to be out of the field entirely. He desired in some manner to combine writing with field work.

We have been very desirous that God should manage this poor frail temple so as to get the most effectual service and highest degree of glory. That He has enabled us to preach the gospel for twenty-six years through constant weakness and many infirmities has been a marvel of divine grace and a miracle of divine power. Should anyone ask why He did not heal us up soundly, we answer: Many years ago as we cried to God to remove this thorn from our flesh, He taught us that He had weighty responsibilities to lay upon us, and that our afflictions would contribute to that humility and utter dependence upon God that were necessary to fill our calling; that in our weakness He would manifest His own power. So the Lord chose to display His power in upholding us in our afflictions rather than in utterly removing them. So with the apostle I “glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”* (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Of late years our experience has been something like this: When out in the gospel field and spending our time between meetings chiefly in conversation with the dear brethren, who are always eager to talk about the good Lord and His dealings, an uneasiness would arise in our heart, a conviction that could we be away quietly with the Lord writing the precious things he has given us to set forth, time would be better used and God more glorified. These feelings created a longing to retire to our editorial sanctuary.

But remaining at home this winter, our mind has not yet been exactly satisfied, owing to the many earnest calls to the field. Last fall in Wooster, Ohio, we were kindly provided with a room to ourself. It being only a few moments walk from the hall, we could retire in good time, arise about three in the morning, have a good long time to wait before God, and yet get an early start to work. During that time the Lord blessed us in preaching daily, and we got more writing done, it seems to us, than if at home. Ever since, that arrangement has appeared to my mind as the best possible plan for effectual service to God. Since the Spirit seems to stir our heart to go forth and preach the word and at the same time requires our time uninterrupted by surrounding company and conversation, except when we can be a special help to some soul, we can see no way but to labor chiefly in towns and cities and have a retired place to spend the intervals between meetings before the Lord. This will enable us to make the best use of our time and also avoid the exposure and fatigue of going about from place to place. God knows it is not because we are not willing to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, but only for the glory of God, that we may do more good in this short life.

He never could remain long out of the gospel field. It was not his privilege, however, to carry out the plan of working in cities while engaging in writing. He rather had to be subject to calls as they came. To remain in one place very long and engage in writing he found to be weakening, due to the fact that he was likely not to take sufficient exercise. We have already noted his illness with rheumatism just before making the trip to Denver in the spring of 1892, and his sickness he had during that trip. He was not at home long after this trip until he was called to the Pacific Coast. While on the latter tour he spent two weeks, during the holiday season, at Farmersville, California writing on his book on prophecy, The Cleansing of the Sanctuary. He returned in February and attended some of the camp and grove meetings during the summer. In the latter part of the following winter he spent some time in the home of Brother B. E. Warren, in Springfield, Ohio writing hymns for a new songbook he was helping to edit. This book, Echoes from Glory, was ready by the time of the June camp meeting at Grand Junction.

On August 12, 1893, he was married to Frances Miller.* This was his third marriage, his second wife having died in Cincinnati some time previously. During the summer Brother and Sister Warner made a tour to Illinois and Missouri, and later to Pennsylvania.

In the “New Year’s Greeting” in The Trumpet for 1894 he expressed a desire to make a world tour. He thought seriously of doing so, but concluded later that his health would not permit. His years were drawing to a close. At the end of the Greeting he wrote the following verses:

My years of time all flee away,
And, swifter than an arrow,
I glide along my pilgrim way,
And hasten to the morrow.
Away, away, see the moments fly,
We cannot hold them waiting;
Then on their pinions let us try
To drop a future blessing.

My years of time, how fast they flee!
And yet the scribe of heaven
Records whate’er my actions be,
The thoughts my life has given.
Thanks be to God for His boundless grace
That keeps the record holy;
Just ready, Lord, to see my face,
And enter into glory.

My years of time are meted out,
A moment of probation,
Upon which hangs the awful weight
Of endless destination.
Press on, press on, O my soul, and seek
Eternal life’s fruition,
Since everlasting ages reap
The fruits of short duration.

All seem a golden summer;
And each one, blessed with heaven’s grace,
Shines brighter than the former.
O God, Thou crownest the happy years
With thy unbounded goodness,
Thy wondrous love has changed my tears
To songs of joy and gladness.

My years of time will close ere long
Where blooms an endless spring,
Where all the ransomed swell the song
The angels cannot sing.
Roll on, sweet years, for I know my last
Will end high up in glory,
The toil I love will sweeten rest
And gem my crown of duty.

In the meantime there had opened up a rather unique method of evangelistic work. Brother G. T. Clayton, who had been engaged in the Eastern field, had planned an Ohio River campaign. He had purchased a boat 26 x 80 and fitted it up for a dwelling and a meeting hall. The plan was to float down the Ohio and tie up at every town on each side of the river and hold meetings for a season. January and February of 1894 were spent on this Floating Bethel,* as it was called, with Brother and Sister Clayton. By this means he could do writing and at the same time hold meetings.

Late in May 1894, he held a discussion with an Adventist leader. He attended during this summer, as usual, the general camp meetings and grove meetings. He began the erection of a house on the campground near Grand Junction and by the following winter it was sufficiently completed that it could be occupied.

We are making some quotations from his “New Year’s Greeting” for 1895. Little did he know that this would be his last message of this kind—he died in December of that year.

To all our dear friends and readers we devoutly wish a happy New Year. May each of you enter the year with a holy zeal to glorify God in your soul and body, which are the Lord’s. Nothing better can we wish you than the meekness of Christ in your heart and life and the omnipotence of faith in your work for Him.

How solemn and awful the place where we stand today! We have been carried down the stream of time until we approach its very outlet into the boundless expanse of eternity. Upon us have fallen the ends of the world. We are called in the providence of God to take a part in the last great struggle against the principalities and wicked powers of this sin-stricken earth. Oh, how significant to us are the words of John, “Little children, it is the last time”* (1 John 2:18)? The harmonious testimony of all truth and of current facts on earth show us that we are rapidly approaching the last day of the last days…. But we know nothing with any degree of certainty. God alone knows the awful day and hour, and we may err even in naming the approximate time. Yea, before another New Year’s bells ring on earth the trump of God may proclaim the death of time. One thing is sure, the Lord’s coming is not very far off, and men of all creeds and faiths seem to agree in this….

…In great weakness of body we began the erection of a house last September. Bless God, He has in every way wonderfully blessed us in this work; and now we expect in a couple of weeks to move into our house on the camp and take up the writing of prophetic truth with a physical and consequent mental energy we never before possessed.

We were consecrated to go to the foreign lands, and indeed thought the Lord would soon send us forth. But He showed us we were physically unfit. However, we may yet go. Our only wish is that God may get the greatest possible glory out of all our remnant of time and feeble abilities, coupled on to His omnipotent power and infinite wisdom.

At the close of the Grand Junction camp meeting of that year, the last year of his life, he wrote the poem “After the Battle.”

Lo, they are gone; that armored host
Whose feet have daily pressed
These grounds have fled their several ways,
And all is hushed to rest.
But, hark! the leaves upon the trees
In echoes lisp their song,
And on the wings of every breeze
Salvation floats along.

Oh, sacred ground! oh, honored site!
Behold, Jehovah’s feet
Have stood among us here, and light
Eternal, pure, and sweet
Has glittered from His sword of truth,
And from His awful eyes
Two fiery streams have issued forth,
Revealing sin’s disguise.

No battlefield where armies stood
In rank, with musketry,
And garments dyed in human blood,
Achieved such victory,
Or turned a scale of destiny
Of such momentous weight,
Or ever reared a monument
Of liberty so great.

Not with the cannon’s roar of death,
Nor din of battle wild,
But by the burning fuel of fire
Salvation won the field.
’Twas not a crown of earthly state,
Nor freedom’s empty boast,
But souls upon an awful brink
Called forth this mighty host.

The thrones of earth must crumble down,
All nations fade away;
Dominions of antiquity
Cannot abide for aye:
But spirits captured here from sin,
And marshaled with the free,
Shall live and reign and sing and shine
Through all eternity.

But they are gone, those heralds strong,
Who stand within the sun,
And all that army dressed in white
To other fields have run:
And from this holy battlefield
New waves of glory roll,
And these, in turn, will others wake,
To spread from pole to pole.

Amen! amen! let heaven shout,
And earth break forth in song!
A thousand camps, ten thousand groves,
In every city throng.
Along the rivers, o’er the sea,
In Jesus’ mighty name,
The present truth that set us free,
To all aloud proclaim.

This was his last poem, so far as is known, excepting a few verses he wrote in connection with obituaries. He assisted in meetings in the northern part of the State during the summer. In this series of meetings he obtained very little rest or time for writing, which emphasized the desire to devote more time to pen preaching at home. It was always hard for him to deny himself the glory of the field work, for he enjoyed it; but he felt he must settle down to write.

Besides some other small works, he prepared a new tract showing the fallacy of the millennium tradition, revised the tract “Marriage and Divorce,” and wrote a book entitled Salvation: Present, Perfect, Now or Never. His major work, however, to which he had for some time given attention, was his book on prophecy, The Cleansing of the Sanctuary. Of this he had written nearly four hundred pages.

By this time a children’s school was started on the campground, near Grand Junction. He took quite an interest in the school. Among the last things that engaged his mind was the arranging of a system of Bible study. It is evident that he had in mind some sort of training school, for he had planned courses in history, music, penmanship, etc., in addition to Bible study.

And now we come to the end of the journey of life for Brother Warner. That frail body which had often been so wondrously touched and sustained by divine power was to be left in the grip of an affliction that should end his earthly career. His work was done. The purpose to which God had called him had been accomplished. He was to give place to others. This wonderful man of God, whose physical temple had so often by the Holy Spirit been quickened to new life when about to fall, and through whose touch the same divine power had many times brought help to the afflicted bodies of others, must himself now succumb to the hand of Death, for in this world all must die. His vitality, always weak, and now declining, had but slight resisting power against the forces of disease and decay that humanity is subject to in this life. An undermining affliction seemed to be at work in his body. On Sunday, December 1, 1895, he preached a sermon on Christian Growth in the schoolhouse (also used for a chapel) on the campground. That he should preach while physically weak was no uncommon thing and no one realized that he was so near the end. That discourse was his last.

The following Sunday he suffered very much from an attack of lung trouble and was unable to speak above a whisper. But after prayer was offered he arose, walked across the room, and praised God aloud, also joining in singing. Thus he fought the fight of faith till the very last. His illness soon developed into pneumonia, and he went down rapidly. About midnight on the night of December 11 his watcher, noticing that he seemed to be resting easy, left the room to have his midnight lunch; but ere he returned the spirit of Brother Warner silently took its flight to the glory world above. Thus he died in solitude, at about 12:30 A.M. Thursday, December 12.

Our friend and brother dear, whose life
Made bright this world of ours,
Has passed away mid early snow,
Soon after Autumn’s flowers.

No days of lingering sickness came
To warn us of his death;
No vision from the silent land
To tell of parting breath.

A postmortem examination revealed an enlarged heart but no trace of tuberculosis, which he had in his younger days and from which he was miraculously healed and preserved.

His spirit was very tenacious of life. As ill as he was, he arose every morning at his regular early hour, and through the day engaged to a slight extent in writing. Even the day before he died he was on his feet a part of the time.

The funeral was held on the campground on Sunday, the 15th. A brief notice of his death was inserted in The Gospel Trumpet of December 12. In the succeeding issue the obituary appeared in full between draped column rules.

Of the last hymn he attempted he completed only the first stanza, one half of the chorus, and the first line of the second stanza, the hymn as he left it appearing thus:

Shall my soul ascend with rapture
When the day of life is past?
While my house of clay shall slumber,
Shall I then with Jesus rest?

Refrain:

O my soul, press on to glory!
Worlds of bliss invite thee on,

Oh, shall my immortal spirit*

This hymn was afterward completed by Sister Georgia Elliot. Music was composed for it, and it appears as Number 365 in Select Hymns.