JOHN VASSAR was one of the remarkable Li characters who came to the front during the civil war in the United States. With its religious history his name is indelibly linked. Hundreds of soldiers, when they read the tidings of his death, recalled the beloved old man, in his brown coat and soft felt hat, who used to tramp from tent to tent with a satchel of Bibles and tracts on his back. Nor did he only carry good books in that well-known satchel. He always had a supply of envelopes and postage stamps, and a needle and thread to mend a ragged uniform, or some knickknack which soldiers always need.
One thing he was sure to have, and that was a word in season. A negro in the army gave a capital description of the veteran colporteur when he said, “I just tell you what I think of Uncle John: he is a real Christianity!”
And so he was. You could not meet John Vassar on a steamboat, or in a streetcar, or anywhere, without being kindled by his fresh, earnest talk. Even as Jacob brought the smell of the barley field and the vineyard in his garments, so this good old man carried the flavor of his religion with him wherever he went.
Sometimes during his visits to Brooklyn he used to drop into our prayer meeting and modestly take his seat by the door. We were always sure to hear from him, and his words were nails in a sure place. He always illustrated what power there is in true Christian men when they will “witness” freely and on all fit occasions for their Divine Master. Today this land needs a hundred thousand Vassars.
Dear old Uncle John has reached his last bivouac. The tireless frame that scoured the prairies of Illinois, and the camps of the Union armies, and the rural regions of North Carolina and Virginia, and the evergreen glades of Florida, is smoothed to its last quiet sleep. The soldiers and the negro freed man will bless his memory, and many a polished pastor and profound scholar may at the last great day envy the crown and the reward of that true servant of God—homely and brave John Vassar. He now knows the reality of that which he on earth sang—
“We’re marching to Zion!
Beautiful, beautiful Zion!
Were marching upward to Zion,
The beautiful city of God!”