Sam Pollard is Dead!
By the Rev.
R.E.Craddock
The words ring in our ears and wring our hearts.Is it ture?I thought Mr.Greatheart did not die.John Bunyan intimates that this guide of those who travel to the sky brought many pilgrims down to the river,over which there is no bridge, but he himselt did not cross.
Mr.Despondency died,but he was not even Sam Pollard’s neighbour;Little Faith,Mr.No-Heart and Mr.Fearing(good as he was)all died,but they were not remotely related to Sam Pollard.
No!our modern Greatheart is not dead:he has left the land of the dying for the land of the living,called by John Pulsford”the summer land of the angerls.”
His brave,brilliant,beauti福l life no longer pulsates and throbs with love and affection and passion for the Miao,No-Su and Chinese of Yunnan,but he lives again in their lives made better by his presence.
Our whole Denomination is bereaved.Yet there is no cause for tears.Death has no right-of-way across the mound where his body lies,for immortality illumInes his sepulchre and the quenchless light of a great hope shines upon his grave.
No 因此ciety ever sent a greater missionary to the shores of China.No more heroic or more saintly soul ever climbed its mountains or trod its plains.Things,time-born and time-bound,had no place in his thoughts.He ever laboured as one who sensibly walked upon the border land of that heaven into whose rest he has entered.
In him a most engaging simplicity and frankness of disposition lent a great charm to a strong,vivacious,virile character.By the spirit of the Cross,by his self-sacrifice he has laid down his life for others,and has found it in another world.
Rev.S.Pollard
When he come home in 1908
We could say much about his fine linguistic gifts,his estraordinary mathematical powers,his many exceptional endowments,but we forbear.Though we must add that his love for children passed that of many a mother.
To the dear boys,Bertram and Walter,who brightened our home in Birmingham for four 耶ars,also to Sam,the,splendid son at Cambridge,our hearts go out in profoundest sympathy.
Dear Mrs.Pollard and little Ernest,God bless and sustain you!
Farewell,Sam,till the morning!There are no “Tight Corners”where thou dost now serve.
——Missionary Echo,1915,179-180.
作者R.E.Craddock怀着悲痛的心,写下了Samuel Pollard去世了的消息。在他身上,一种非常迷人的单纯和坦率的性格,给一种坚强、活泼、刚健的性格增添了巨大的魅力。通过Cross的精神,通过自我牺牲,他已经为别人舍命,并且在另一个世界找到了它。
你喂养我的羊!
Samuel Pollard很好的照料了自己的羊群,护着他们走向了回家的路上。
他结束了劳累的一生,放下重担,欢喜回到安息之处!
他的家人,在英国的孩子,还有陪伴在他生命最后一刻的妻子以及小儿子,在他眼中,都是宝贵的。虽不舍,但他相信,一切都会好起来的。没有了他的家庭,依然还有爱维系着他们,陪伴他们成长和老去,将来再见于天上!