and build a home where we can all be together?’ “ Buddy had expressed what we have often wished for and longed for but never prayed for, for we felt that it was not His will. “ Thank God, some day we will have our home and all be together— forever.” He was a man of vision and until the end of his life was ever planning and building and enlarging his min istry either on the campus or his schools or through his radio minis try. He was an active and faithful steward until the last. Several weeks before his home going in Leucadia, Calif., he had been carrying on his radio ministry from his bed where he had been confined because of a broken hip. On the very day of his death he had broadcast his usual nine o’clock morning message over station KGER and was heard to express a hope that he might be granted 10 or 15 more years of service. But God had other plans. And now that he is with the Lord and rejoicing in His presence, a telegram sent to his family over 20 years ago upon hearing of the death of his lovely daughter Helen, seems to be the message he would give to his friends and loved ones at this time in regard to his death: “ I urge the family and school to wear no garments of mourning and that we do not weep as those who have no hope. Thank -God we live this side of the open tomb. Our Christ lives. Let us try and forget our immedi ate loss . . . . Heaven will seem a little nearer and Christ will be a lot more real. Let us dedicate our selves anew to the work.” The memorial service for Dr. Brown was held in Siloam Springs in the Cathedral of the Ozarks, a building on his beloved campus. Here surrounded by loved ones, friends, faculty, staff and students whom he delighted to call “ his young’uns,” the service was held. His body was laid to rest in the mausoleum near by the campus of John Brown University. The im mediate family who remain are Mrs. John E. Brown, and the four living daughters, Mrs. Jean Smiley, Mrs. >Virginia Neal, Mrs. Mary Griffith, Miss Juanita Frances Brown, and John Brown Jr., now president o f the John Brown Schools. END.
John E. Brown by M ARTHA S. HOOKER
I n the evening of February 12th shortly after sunset, Dr. John E. Brown (Brother Brown) was called into the presence of his Lord and Saviour. And as the news of his homegoing was broadcast, the floodgates of memory were opened and friends both new and old be gan to recount the blessings that this life, so fully and completely lived for the Lord and others, had brought to their own lives. Truly many “ thanked God upon every remembrance of him.” John Brown was bom in Oska- loosa, Iowa 77 years ago. At 17 he and his brother left Oskaloosa and went to Bogers, Ark. to work in the lime kilns. This proved to be a move ordered by the Lord for during this very year John Brown received the Lord Jesus as his Sav iour in a Salvation Army meeting. With his conversion came the call to preach, and again the Lord was working out His own plan for this life when he was sent by the Sal vation Army to Siloam Springs to hold an evangelistic meeting. Soon his reputation as an evan gelist reached beyond the confines of his beloved Arkansas and for many years he was known as the leading evangelist of his day. With his evangelistic party, he held meetings in the smallest towns as well as the largest cities. It was during this period of evangelism that God gave the vi sion of a “ school on the hill” that would train boys and girls who like himself would otherwise be denied the privilege of an educa tion (his formal education ended after only a few years in grammar school). To make this dream come true, he and Mrs. Brown gave
their lovely home and adjoining land, and in 1919 a school that would train the “ head, the heart and the hand” became a reality at Siloam Springs, Ark. Today that school bears the name of John Brown University and at the time of Dr. Brown’s homegoing five schools and three radio stations (KUOA, AM-FM, Siloam Springs; KOME, Tulsa; KGER, Long Beach) stand as mon uments to this man’s vision and consecration. But John Brown belonged not only to the campus of his own schools but he was a friend of all schools that sought to train young people in the Word of God and send them out into the world fitted for service. His radio audience too felt that he belonged to them and many who knew him by his per suasive and sympathetic voice on radio felt bereft of a real friend. He was a family man and loved his home; a devoted husband and father of six children; but for the sake of the work to which he felt called of God, he had to make many sacrifices and forego the joy of being at home with his family. Dr. Brown relates this incident which illustrates a bit of the sacri fice he was forced to make in re gard to his home: “ It was one of the times when I was leaving home in service. The family were all to gether when Buddy (as John Brown Jr. was called as a child) begged me to stay one more day, and when I said, ‘But, Buddy, dear, Daddy has to go for if I do not these schools will suffer,’ there came the startling outburst that sad dened me beyond words, ‘Daddy, why don’t you sell these schools
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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