Brown, Sarah (1763-1837)

Died, June 8, 1837, at Gaddesby in Melton Mowbray circuit, Sarah Brown, a widow of “good report,” in the seventy-fourth year of her age.  When Gaddesby was missioned, 1830, Sister Brown opened-her house for the worship of God, and together with her daughter, “gave herself first unto the Lord, and then unto us by the will of God.”  Under her roof the converting power has frequently been felt, and a goodly number have been turned to the Lord.  Her attachment to P. Methodism was strong and unbroken to the last.  She had happy experience that those doctrines which so eminently distinguished our Connexion, are not “cunningly devised fables,” – but founded on the word of God, and by embracing them, she realized salvation.  Her love to that branch of the golden candlestick, by which she was enlightened, manifested itself in “works of faith and labours of love;” and, considering her circumstance, I frequently was amazed at her liberality.  What she had of a temporal kind, she considered as the Lord’, and freely imparted of it to help forward his cause.

Her affliction was very short; but in it she recognized the hand of Providence.  The sabbath previous to her death she had a glorious manifestation of the Son of God; and, during the few remaining days of her earthly existence, she had, not only peace, but joy unspeakable.  Indeed she was in one continued rapture of joy.  In her sickness and death the truth of the poet’s observation was manifest,

“Heav’n waits not the last moment, owns its friends
On this side death; and points them out to men,
A lecture, silent, but  of sovereign power!”

J. Brownson

Primitive Methodist Magazine, 1838.  Page 77.