Butts County GaArchives Obituaries.....R. G.  Duke June 26 1881
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Don Bankston http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00024.html#0005864 March 13, 2004, 8:44 pm

Middle Ga. Argus – June 30, 1881
R. G. Duke

A shadow of gloom or’e spread this county on Sunday last upon the announcement 
of the death of one of our most aged and esteemed citizens, Mr. R. G. Duke, 
which occurred at his house in Jackson at 1 o’clock P.M. of that day (June 
26,1881), aged 68 years, after an illness of several months.  His long 
lingering upon the brink had to some extent prepared the family and large 
circle of friends for the shock, and also prepared his immortal spirit for its 
flight to the celestial home beyond the reach of mortal sight.

After a long spell of bodily suffering in the struggle with disease and 
tortured by a remorse of concienage (??) from a sense of neglect of duty in not 
devoting the days of his early manhood to the cause of God, the great love and 
money of a  (word missing) and exalted savior was revained (??) to him and 
death swallowed up in victory.
He had been for some time very much concerned about his condition, and in the 
most penitent feeling exclaimed: I would give everything in this world if I was 
just as good a Christian as Martha! (meaning his wife) I want to live my life 
over, to live for God.

And when he had realized that the great mediator who stands between a sin 
cursed world, and an offended God, and in answer to the pleading of a penitent 
heart could bear the sins of a long and sinful life, he exclaimed, in a spirit 
of resignation to the will of him who could be so merciful, “I will soon be 
with mother at rest, I only regret that I can’t stay to pray with and for the 
rising generation.”

How sad! That in the sublime moments when the portals of heaven had opened to 
him, and he could see the beaming countenance of a sainted mother beckoning him 
come, he should have to regret the lost opportunity of pointing others to 
the “lamb that taketh away the sins of the world,” but his dying prayer will 
not be lost.  It will not only be heard and treasured up in heaven, but it will 
be told by friends to friends and by the power of the press made known to 
friends abroad, and an impression made that will be as indelible as time.

Surely some of us will heed this admonition, and see that we do not lose the 
golden opportunity of working while we are young, surely some young man will 
appreciate his dying prayer in their behalf, surely some of our aged parents 
will take warning and see the importance of at ones beginning the most 
important work of this life, by preparing for the eventful moment of death.  If 
such should be the result, what nobler purpose could he have lived for?  And 
what better work would his loved ones had him perform?  While we bid him rest 
in peach, let us remember his dying prayer.




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