A Tribute to Elder Christian Kaufman
1780 - 1874
ANOTHER OLD SOLDIER OF THE CROSS GONE.
DIED - on the 14th inst., our dearly beloved Elder Christian Kaufman, aged 93 years, 4 months, and 8 days. The subject of this notice was born in the state of Virginia, emigrated to Ohio in early life, and settled in Fairfield Co. God was pleased to manifest himself to him in the forgiveness of his sins, when between twenty and thirty years of age, as near as I can find out, and when about thirty years of age he began to preach the gospel, being a member of the Baptist Church called Pleasant Run. Meeting with so much opposition in this church, on account of the doctrine which he preached, he called for a letter of dismission, which was granted, and joined the Baptist Church called Union, in Perry Co., Ohio - a church that believed the doctrine he preached - the doctrine which the Old School, Predestinarian Baptists now believe. In this church, I believe, he was ordained to the work of the ministry. When he left Fairfield County, he settled in Delaware County, and united with the Predestinarian Baptist Church called Ebenezer, in which his membership was at the time of his death. In this church he had his membership nearly forty years, and was ever found at his post, though he met with much opposition without and within the Baptist Churches. When Fullerism, or New Schoolism, made its inroads among the churches, he was one of the first to raise the warning voice, and when the division took place, Brother Samuel Carpenter made the motion in the Muskingum Association to withdraw fellowship from all who had fallen into the new measures, he seconded the motion. The Lord made him a faithful watchman, and when I say that in every respect, as a member and a minister, he has had few superiors, I think I do not say too much. The churches that were blessed with his labors were generally sound in the faith and practice of the gospel. About the year 1840, I became intimately acquainted with him, and about this time he was married to my mother as his second wife, who still survives him, and is left a widow again. He has been to me a father in Israel indeed, and many are the lessons of instruction in the gospel that I have received from those lips which now lay silent in the tomb. As he lived in the faith, even so he died in the faith. To the last, as long as he could speak, he manifested implicit confidence and trust in God his Savior. He was blind about twenty years, but continued to preach until the Sunday before he died, having preached about sixty-three years.
"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them."
The unworthy writer, by request, tried to preach on the funeral occasion, to a large and attentive congregation, from I. Thess. 4:13-18.
His generation is 145 - 122 living.
We feel sensibly our loss, and mourn his absence, but do not sorrow as those who have no hope, believing our loss to be his eternal gain.
Your brother in tribution,
JOHN H. BIGGS.
Ashley, Ohio,
March 24, 1874.
