Book Review: Death in the Home, by B. M. Palmer

When the apostle Paul speaks of his great sufferings, at the beginning of his second epistle to the Corinthians, he finds purpose in the realization that God is using them for the consolation of many other saints who are also deeply afflicted. If he had not been afflicted, the consolation of Christ could not have abounded to others. No matter how much truth he knew, it was the experience of sorrow that fitted him to put it to a practical use in binding up the sorrows of the saints. This basic truth – that God often brings his chosen saints through immense sorrows, in order to pour out his consolation through them to others who suffer – is more aptly expressed in the meditations of the nineteenth-century minister B. M. Palmer than any other modern work I’m aware of. Not just anyone, no matter how theologically astute or exegetical adept he may be, could have written this book. It took someone like Palmer, who suffered much but was enabled to triumph by grace. Through his deep afflictions, he has composed something weighty and enduring, that may prove to be of inestimable value to any suffering saint to whom nothing else has sufficed to lift the veil of sorrow from his battered heart. I am certain there are many Christians currently in that condition. I trust that God in his merciful providence may lead some of them to this book.

So what exactly is Death in the Home? It is a series of seven meditative accounts composed on the remembrance of the death of five of Palmer’s six children, his mother, and his wife. From the death of his firstborn and only son, when he was two years old, to the deaths of four of his five daughters, just as they were entering adulthood, and continuing on through the deaths of his saintly mother, who was very dear to him, and his beloved wife, whose sudden death was perhaps the most difficult of all, Palmer was led by his faithful God through a lifetime of deep sorrows.

In these accounts, the reader will learn much both from the subjects of the accounts, all of whom died in a manner worthy of the gospel, and displayed the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit to the very end; and also, from Palmer himself, who by grace responds, not without sorrow, but with hope and joy that is deeper than the deepest of sorrows. The reader will learn what it means to live well and to die well, and not just in abstract terms, but in the nitty-gritty of stark reality.

If nothing else, these accounts cannot fail to impress upon the reader the brevity of earthly life, the eternal weight of unseen things, and the seriousness of living faithfully and well as long as the race is laid out before us. There are few things in life more conducive to sober reflection on the importance of eternity than sitting at the deathbed of a beloved family member – especially if that person is cut off in his or her prime. And there are few things more needful to contemporary, blithe Christianity than soberness in the face of eternity. As Solomon has taught us, it is better to go to the house of mourning than the house of feasting. And whoever you are, I think I can say with confidence that this house of mourning will be a rich and abiding corrective to the trivial and myopic spirit of the age.

The writing style of this book is poetically rich and elaborate. Some persons may balk at this – it is, again, contrary to the spirit of the age to formulate writings which are elaborately and elegantly composed. It is often seen as a mark of insincerity, in a time when plain and unadorned speech is touted everywhere as a great virtue. But the greatest sorrows of humankind cry out for a weightier expression than the colloquial can bear. Are David’s psalms of lament or Jeremiah’s lamentations less sincere for the intricacy with which they were constructed? No; but because the struggles were so real and so deep, they demanded nothing less than poetic expression. Palmer, who has experienced sorrow as deep as anyone’s, has recognized this truth by an unerring instinct. And any reader who has felt the same pangs that Palmer felt will immediately appreciate the appropriateness of the formal language he employed.

Palmer was loath to publish these reflections, and only did so, at the end of his life, “from the simple desire of comforting those who mourn”. Praise God that he was moved upon to do so! May the Spirit of Consolation use them to administer the healing balm of the gospel to the broken and despairing.

Available at Monergism Books.

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