A Man Preaching His Own Funeral Sermon.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 280, 11 July 1888, Page 6

A Man Preaching His Own Funeral Sermon.

Three thousand persons a c sembled recently at a little church near Athens (U.S.A.), where the minister, the Rev. Nathaniel Pridgeon, who is eighty - four years old, was to preach his own funeral sermon. His reason for doiny so was thL-s : — ' Eighty - four years-,' he said to a reporter, ' have passed over my head. I have heard sermon* preached over people that were not true I have heard bad men praised and good men half praised. I preached the Gospel for fifty years. I know my own faults and my own good points*. T have determined not to have men talking over my dead body about tinners they do not know, f have made up my mind to preach my own funeral sermon, and to-day E will whiu the carnal Piidgeon, and I will extol the spiritual Pridjreon. When at last my eyes are closed in death, I want my body to be put away quickly under the blessing which I will pronounce over my.-olf to-day.' A codin had been ordered and this was placed in the church, Mv IVidgeon rising early on Sunday and examining it critically "and testing it bv placing himself in it. At noon he ascended to his pulpit, the members of the family being in mourning. In hi? sermon he denounced the custom of holding funeral observances ; but since custom had forced them he proposed, he said, to attend to his own funeral hims-elf. 'The sermon,' a reporter fcayp, 'was a ouriou« mcdloy of foolish .sayings and good sense, many observations causing laughter. Hymns" were sung frequently, and altogether the affair was as ludicrous as it was novel. Before lie got throusrh with his discourse many began to leave the church. JMr Pridgeon, after the .sermon was over, gave a sketch of his life. He was born in North Carolina, but has been living in Georgia seventy years He has preached in eleven States, to all of which the Lord called him, except Alabama, and he stoutly declared that only the clovil could draw a man to thab Slate. He has been twice married, and declares that, no man ought to live single tor a single moment when so many good women are anxious to get husbands.'