“Isaac Hann was a little-known Baptist pastor who served a small church in Loughwood, England, in the mid-18th century. At the close of his ministry the membership of his church numbered twenty-six women and seven men. Underneath the list of members for that year this poignant note appears: ‘These are the men that remain at present, though not above four of these do in any shape keep their places [attend].’
Rev. Hann would be unnoticed today, one of those pastors who never quite ‘made’ it. But when he died at the age of 88, his parishioners placed a commemorative plaque in his honor of the wall of their little meeting house. It reads in part:
Wit sparkled in his pleasing face,
With zeal his heart was fired;
Few ministers so humble were,
Yet few so much admired.
Ripened for heaven by grace divine,
Like autumn fruit he fell;
Reader, think not to live so long,
But seek to live as well.”
Thanks for this to my dear friend David Roper of Idaho Mountain Ministries.
