| The Life of Dr. J.R. Miller |
Chapter 13 |
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His seventy second birthday found him still able to reach his desk and do effective work. Again there came to him scores of letters from all parts of the world which made him more eager even than before to work for others with his last ounce of strength.
Perhaps the most striking of the greetings on this anniversary was an editorial utterance in The Christinan Endeavour World:
“You are still a young man, Dr. Miller, though you have advanced one day into your seventy third year. You know the secrets of perpetual youth: love to God, love to man, and hard work. You are a Presbyterian, and no one has better served that great denomination than its editorial superintendent for more than three decades. But you are also a universal Christian leader. Millions of all denominations, in all lands, have read your sixty books, and have entered with your into the holy places. But in the Great Day, when your books and your faithful and brilliant editorial service are gratefully remembered, there will be for you a crown outshining these: the crown of the earnest pastor and the loving sympathetic friend. And many thousands will press to join you in your coronation.”
A little more than a month later Dr. Miller closed his desk for the last time. “His legs have been worn out in the service of St. Paul Church,” his physician – one of the elders of the church – explained to inquiring friends.
But while his legs had given out, his brain was active. His days were spent in conferences with editorial associates, examining the editorial mail, dictating replies to important letters, receiving visits from those who came to him for counsel and help, and arranging and revising chapters for “The Book of Comfort” and the eighth and last volume of “Devotional Hours with the Bible.”
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