Death
Much to the sadness of those who had been involved in the movements that he had led, Machen died in 1937 at the age of 55. Some commentators (notably Stonehouse) point out that Machen's "constitution" was not always strong, and that he was constantly "burdened" with his responsibilities at the time.
Machen had decided to honor some speaking engagements he had in North Dakota in December, 1936, but developed pleurisy in the exceptionally cold weather there. After Christmas, he was hospitalized for pneumonia and died on January 1, 1937. Just before his death, he dictated a telegram to long-time friend and colleague John Murray -- the content of that telegram reflected deeply his lifelong faith: "I’m so thankful for active obedience of Christ. No hope without it." He is buried in Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland. The stone covering his grave bears, very simply, his name, degree, dates, and the phrase "Faithful Unto Death," in Greek.
The Baltimore-born journalist, H. L. Mencken, wrote an editorial on Machen in December 1931 and later contributed an obituary entitled "Dr. Fundamentalis" which was published in the Baltimore Evening Sun on January 18, 1937. While disagreeing with Machen’s theology, Mencken nevertheless articulated a great respect and admiration for his intellectual ability. Mencken compared Machen to William Jennings Bryan, another well-known Presbyterian, with the statement, “Dr. Machen himself was to Bryan as the Matterhorn is to a wart.”
Read more about this topic: John Gresham Machen
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death freely chosen, death at the right time, brightly and cheerfully accomplished amid children and witnesses: then a real farewell is still possible, as the one who is taking leave is still there; also a real estimate of what one has wished, drawing the sum of one’s life—all in opposition to the wretched and revolting comedy that Christianity has made of the hour of death.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Faithfulness to the past can be a kind of death above ground. Writing of the past is a resurrection; the past then lives in your words and you are free.”
—Jessamyn West (1902–1984)
“We achieve “active” mastery over illness and death by delegating all responsibility for their management to physicians, and by exiling the sick and the dying to hospitals. But hospitals serve the convenience of staff not patients: we cannot be properly ill in a hospital, nor die in one decently; we can do so only among those who love and value us. The result is the institutionalized dehumanization of the ill, characteristic of our age.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)