| The Life of Dr. J.R. Miller |
Chapter 11 |
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In “letting Christ’s love pour out” through his love he made no distinctions among people. No matter who they were, or where they lived, if they needed the help he could give, to them was help given. When he was asked to conduct a funeral service a favourable answer did not depend on the fact that the family worshipped with the congregation of which he was pastor; he attended scores of funerals in the homes of total strangers. Especially in the summer when other ministers were away on vacation he answered calls from the members of many churches and from members of no church.
So it was with his calls on the sick and the sorrowing, he was at the service of anyone and everyone. Once a woman asked him to visit her daughter who was dying of consumption. “She heard you pray in the house of a friend, and she wants you,” was the explanation. “We are Catholics, but that won’t make any difference, will it?”
One day a stranger asked him if he would go and see his invalid mother. “She read your books, and she want to see you.” Dr. Miller went to her, but when he saw he was in a Catholic home he did not offer to pray. Yet not only was he asked to lead in prayer; he was urged to return. This was the first of many calls there.
He did not wait to be urged to go to homes outside of his own parish where he felt he might be useful. Learning that a member of another church, who lived near his home, was an invalid, and knowing that her own pastor was unable to see her often, he called on her three times a week for several years. “I am comparatively well now,” the recipient of these visits said a few days after the close of Dr. Miller’s earthly service, “and I feel that I owe my renewed health – in large measure – to God’s blessing on the regular visits of that godly man. Oh, it was good to see his kindly smiling face and to hear his words of cheer and hope.”
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