Elwood Negus

NEGUS

Posted By: Sharon Elijah (email)
Date: 4/25/2018 at 12:29:40

12 August 1875 - The Tipton Advertiser

Elwood Negus moved from Ohio to Iowa township, in Cedar Co., in the spring of 1846. For many years he lived on a farm, and was known as an honest, honorable and moral man, pleasant and agreeable, both to his family and others. About five years ago he went into the livery business at Muscatine, to which he paid close attention until about six months age when his health failed, and was confined to the house nearly all the time since, to his death.

His protracted sickness gave him, as he expressed, ample time to review his past life, and in taking a retrospective view of the past he realized that his trust was not on the sure foundation. But he found, as his friends and family confidently believe, pardon for all his sins. On one occasion near the close, he said "the time has been when I thought that morality was sufficient; but I find that will not do." At another time he said, "When all earthly power fails, and the physician's skill fails to assist us, if we cannot trust in the Lord in what can we trust? There is nothing else to rely upon." To a brother who was about to leave for a few days, he said, "Try to meet me in heaven." He remarked that previous to his sickness he had often prayed in the secret of his heart; but during his illness he was frequently heard to pray vocally. In one of them he said that on account of his sickly family he would like to be restored to health, but ended with, "Thy will be done." He had an ardent wish to be resigned to the Lord's will, whether to be restored to health or called away from the scenes of earth. He calmly gave appropriate advice to his wife and children in regard to their temporal and spiritual welfare. He urged the latter to continue, as they had been doing to keep out of bad company. He also cautioned them against looking and dwelling upon the faults of other people. For near an hour previous to his decease he appeared to be quietly resting, when he suddenly aroused and said, "Call the family; call them up" and turning on his back raised both hands and said, "Come Lord, come" and immediately expired very peacefully on the morning of the 28th of Seventh month, 1875, aged 48 years.

By his request his corpse was interred in Friends' burying ground, at Springdale, where his father and three children had been buried. "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord." Laurie Tatum