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Schroeder, Samuel Henry

1/5/1879

SAMUEL HENRY SCHROEDER 1846-1879
Samuel Henry Schroeder was born in the City of New Orleans, Dec. 5, 1846. His father, Henry, and his mother, Martha Elizabeth Schroeder, were godly people, walking like Zacharias and Elizabeth in the commandments and ordinances of the Lord. Samuel was like Samuel of old, a child of prayer, a child consecrated to the Lord. Like the Holy child Jesus, he was early found in the temple of the Lord, hearing and learning the way of salvation. It was comparatively a slight transition in his 19th year to ratify and confirm the promise and vow of repentance, faith and obedience, contained in the baptismal covenant. His iniquities were forgiven, and his spiritual disease was healed, he had the clearest proof that his spiritual health had been fully restored, but his consciousness of it, as in the case of physical restoration to health, was gradually yet clearly attained. He was an active and successful Sunday School worker and steward in the Church. In due time he was called to a higher and wider field of labor. In his 15th year he felt that he was called to God, and moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon him the office and work of the ministry. The Quarterly Conference of Moreau Street Church, in whose Sunday School he had been a pupil and a teacher, licensed him to preach the gospel. This was in 1871. He was received on trial in the Louisiana Annual Conference at its session in January, 1872, and appointed to Atlanta, Evergreen and Big Cane; then to Harrisonburg and Sicily Island; to Opelousas for two years; then to Moreau Street in New Orleans; and at the Opelousas Conference in December, 1877, was granted, because of ill health, a supernumerary relation. He was seven years a member of the Louisiana Annual Conference. His last pastoral labor was in supplying the place vacated by the death of our beloved and lamented Brother Foster. In the Moreau Street Church he preached his first and his last sermon. He was a scholar of fair and accurate attainments, studious and fond of books. As a theologian, he was Wesleyan and well read in our standards. His mind was clear, well balanced and analytical. As a preacher he was instructive, spiritual and useful. His manners and address were dignified, refined and pleasing. He made many friends, and, so far as we are advised, no enemies. He was most diligent and cheerfully helpful in every good work. He was an improving and developing man and his friends and the Church justly anticipated large and gracious results from his ministerial career. But how uncertain, how vain indeed, are all human anticipations! Astronomically we can calculate when the sun shall reach its zenith and when it shall sink behind the darkened West, but of ourselves and others we know not what a day may bring forth. A few brief days ago this heroic young soldier of the cross was accoutered in his armor, reporting for duty, and pressing to the front. He was attacked on Saturday, the 4th of January, and after 18 short hours he ceased to struggle, to suffer, and to live among men, only as he lives embalmed in our memories. Living as we do in a world full of sing and ignorance, the sudden removal of such a man and such minister is a mystery past finding out, a mystery, which the revelations of eternity can alone explain. This sudden call says to us, “Work while it is called today, for the night cometh when no man can work.” It says to us, “Be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh.” On his dying bed our sainted brother said to his sorrowing mother that Christ was unspeakably precious and had been more so to him than ever in the last months of his life. He was ready and ripe for the garner of God. Like his Lord, his deathless spirit rose from the tomb of the body, early on the first day of the week, and ascended to realize the fruition of his best and brightest hopes. He entered his rest the 5th of January 1879.
Source: Journal Louisiana Conference Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1879

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