Barrie Hibbert shares this memory and story in a letter this Easter:Dr W.E.Sangster was a famous and much-loved Methodist minister. I heard him preach only once, more than half a century ago, at a service in the Wellington Town Hall when he was on a visit to New Zealand. Wearing an ankle-length, black cassock, and sporting a fine head of silver hair, he cut an impressive figure. But I especially remember his voice, powerful and persuasive as he preached the good news.
Towards the end of his life, Edwin Sangster was afflicted with an illness which eventually robbed him of his voice altogether. On Easter morning, shortly before he died, he wrote to his daughter :
"It is terrible to wake up on Easter morning and to have no voice to shout
' He is risen! ' , but it would be more terrible to have a voice and not to shout it."
Amen, Edwin... Alleluia, Amen !
Image: W E Sangster