History of the Restoration Movement


Don Carlos Janes

1877-1944

Memorials To Don Carlos Janes

In Memoriam

Debt To D.C. Janes Goes Unpaid

Stanford Chambers

Financially I think I kept my books with Brother Janes balanced and up to date. But that debt of love I owed him I fear not so. At least I could have been more expressive of a love and an appreciation which I really did feel. He told me he loved me much oftener than I told him I loved him. In speaking to others and writing them he in honor preferred me more often than I in honor preferred him. I perhaps felt that I would have plenty of time to catch up, but I didn’t. He is gone! I must now look to the Lord Jesus to tell this faithful servant of His that I really did love him, and to make up to him my unpaid debt. Perhaps, however, my Lord will leave that for me to do when I see my brother again—in the morning.

____________________

Louisville, Kentucky, January 20, 1944.

Telegram: Don Carlos Janes passed on today. Burial here Saturday afternoon.E.L. Jorgenson.

The above telegram has just reached our office and we hasten to pass the same on to the readers of the Firm Foundation. We regret to learn of the passing of Brother Janes. Our deepest sympathy goes to all the bereaved. May the blessings of comfort and tender mercies fall upon them to the end that they may be strengthened in this trying hour. —G.H.P.S., in Firm Foundation.

DON CARLOS JANES

R.H. Boll

If “those that labor among you” are to be esteemed “exceeding highly for their works sake,” surely our Brother Don Carlos Janes was worthy of the highest esteem and love in the Lord. Unremittingly, indefatigably, for many years, he literally gave himself to the world of the Lord, in that most important of all its features—the work of missions. No man ever did more—perhaps no one ever did so much—to push the enterprise of foreign missions. He sought after men and women who were willing to carry the glad tidings; he appealed for funds and collected funds and financed their going forth and their return; he corresponded with missionaries abroad and helpers and givers at home, he counseled and helped and encouraged, exhorted and pleaded with the workers abroad and stirred the hearts of brethren in the home land, that he might make and keep them mission-conscious, and that with such zeal and earnestness that some of his critics and opposers) of who he had not a few—how could it be otherwise if one really and earnestly presses the work of the Lord?)—called him the “One Missionary Society.” This is what he was, in so far as his labor is concerned: it is his badge of honor. But he did it for neither gain nor glory, and indeed he got neither. But early and late he labored and toiled at his task. His life-moto—for many years inscribed at the bottom of his letters—was (1 Cor. 15:58.” And few men ever exemplified a scripture text more faithfully than Don Carlos Janes did 1 Cor. 15:58. He was stricken while at his work. A few days only of illness, during which he suffered with an intense pain in his head, which he bore patiently and quietly as long as consciousness lasted; then fell asleep in Jesus and entered into his rest. That was in the early hours of Thursday, January 20; and on Saturday following the funeral services—at which Brother Friend read and spoke, and Brother O.D. Bixler prayed; Bro. Jorgenson and the writer made a few brief remarks; and after this many preaching brethren voiced brief tributes also. Brother Janes had some time before his death written out instructions for his funeral, and his directions were so good and so beautiful that we want to share them with all the readers of Word And Work.

We loved Brother Janes, and we did not know how much we loved him till he had left us. “Strange we never prize the music till the sweet-voiced bird has flown.” Many of us failed to express our love and appreciation of this humble servant of the Lord to him as we should have during his life-time; but our love follows him now and the memory of his faithful labors will not be lost. One of his slogans which he constantly sought to realize in his life, would. I think, be his best epitaph: Here list “Greater Things for God—Janes.”

“He Being Dead Yet Speaketh”
“Greater Things From God”
Don Carlos Janes
1046 Dudley Avenue
Louisville, Kentucky
January 26, 1942

To Ethel M. Sevedge, my faithful secretary, and to Elmer Leon and Irene Doty Jorgenson, my chosen administrators:

The following kin folk should be notified of my demise, if the Lord shall so tarry as to give occasion for burial:

(Names of relative are here given.”)

Call John W. Manning and Sons, funeral directors. Let the casket cost as little as possible for simple decency.

It is utterly against my wishes that there be the usual large array of flowers. Let the rule be, “No flowers,” to which I am willing for an exception in the case of the Highland church of Christ, which may, if it so desires, place a single, simple design upon the casket.

If the funeral service is held, I desire that it be in a church or other place with sufficient seating accommodations to make everybody comfortable. I do not want people walking about my body on tiptoe nor speaking in subdued tones. Assuredly I want no subdued singing, but good songs of triumph, triumphantly sung. I have loved “I will sing of my Redeemer” and have usually tried to sing when that hymn was announced. I have loved it particularly for its sentiment.

It will be agreeable and harmonious with my wishes for my good, long-time friends. Brother E. L. Jorgenson and Brother D. H. Friend, to arrange the funeral service, and they will be meeting my wishes as much in setting forth my faults as in anything else they may wish to say.

It is advised that Johman-Van Hoven, monument dealers, place a marker on my grave in Rest Haven Cemetery of similar form and design as that they supplied for my beloved wife, lettered: Don Carlos Janes 1877-19—‘ and in the lower margin the words “At home,” corresponding with the words “With Christ” on her marker. The combined reading, “At home — with Christ” expresses my full faith and hope as to our presence. “Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift.” 2 Cor. 9:15.

My thanks, as well as I can express them, go to those who may carry out these requests.

For those who have unkindly criticized my work, particularly as it relates to missionary endeavor and matters of prophetic teaching, I have no unkind feelings, and have not in the past carried evil thoughts toward them. May they know that only very rarely have criticisms wounded my heart and it always fully recovered from the thrust. I would that all who have dwelt evilly with the Bible doctrine and steadfast faith of the apostolic church for three hundred years, would take notice of the existence of the belief in the imminent, personal, permillennial coming to the earth of Jesus Christ to reign in royal splendor where once He suffered a shameful and painful death at the hands of His enemies, not only in the days of the apostles and down to the alleged conversion of Constantine, but on down to and in the Reformation, and onward to and in the Nineteenth Century Restoration Movement of Barton W. Stone and Alexander Campbell along with Walter Scott, who, next after his father (Thos. Campbell) aided Alexander Campbell—along with Dr. Barclay and others, down to Dr. Brents and the beloved and energetic James A. Harding, and on down to the present hour; that as good, worthy, able, and honorable men as ever graced the primitive church in ancient times, or the Restoration Movement in modern times, were believers in the pre-millennial coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. May those who have sinned in their treatment of this ancient and scriptural doctrine of the “blessed hope” repent while opportunity is given.

If any final word from me on the day of my burial could have weight with any soul anywhere, it is that all men everywhere may hear the gospel and scripturally prepare to meet their Maker in peace. Let the saints live in saintly fashion remembering the warning given to Moses: “See . . . that thou make all things according to the pattern.”

These lines have been written in the full realization that instead of “going the way of all the earth,” the usual ways of mankind, that it may be special way of the Rapture

No grave with its hunger, no worm, no corruption;
No weary night watches, no languishing pain!
No death-dew, no struggle, no gasping, no dying,
No shroud and no hearse and no funeral train!

No grave with its hunger, no worm, no corruption;
With death and her sorrows no part and no share!
“Caught up” in an instant, from wrath and destruction’
In rapture “caught up” to the Lord in the air!
(From Grace Canfield Halliday.)

1 Cor. 15:58

“For we know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” —2 Cor. 5:1.

DON CARLOS JANES

“He that doeth the will of God abideth forever.”

“He that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die. Believest thou this?”

Shaded lines, crepe on the door, the passing funeral cortege, the tolling bell, the open grave, the costly obelisk and the lowly markers in the silent city of the death—these all say to us, “Make read”! For whether our Lord comes, or whether He calls, “we know not the day nor the hour.”

Early in the morning of Thursday, January 20, Brother Janes fell asleep in Jesus. He had suffered with colds and headaches for a month or more, but he continued active until we took him to the hospital for the last week. When he desired to come home, we brought him to my house, where he passed away in my own bed, conscious almost to the last. Highland Church was packed with devoted friends for the memorial service, including twenty-five or thirty minsters, twenty of who took part.

On every hand is the question, “Who will do his work?” No one will do his work! A hundred years of earnest labor, packed into less than three-score years and seven! No man can do another’s work; for after all, God heads up His work around great Christian personalities. Whenever they pass on, they “rest from their labors; for their works follow them.” But a man can so systematize his work; he can build on such sure foundations, that his work will be projected after him. His very live becomes an institution, as it were, he “being dead, yet speaketh.” This will be true of Brother Janes.

Before me lies a copy of the Last Will and Testament. It is a long and marvelous document, breathing from beginning to the end the spirit of Christ. I will try to satisfy your wonderment concerning it:

By its terms there is laid upon my wife (Irene) and me, the sacred task of administering Brother Janes’ affairs. We could wish that this had fallen into other and abler hands; but where we feel like saying, as Paul must have said of his thorn, “We cannot take on this new and heavy load; our lives are already over-full,” we hope to hear Him saying, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” We can only say, “Pray for us;” and you will help us more than you know if you will write me a brief letter at once, stating whether or not, in your judgment, Brother Janes was a sound and competent mind when he made the Will — April 1942! ! ! And-send us back a few of his own recent letters, please.” For, precisely as some have opposed Brother Janes’ great life-work *(I do not say without cause, in every case; for though he was always good, and always meant well, his judgment was not always perfect) — so it is unthinkable that, through unbelievers, the enemy of souls should fail to frustrate, if it were possible, the beautiful plans laid out in the Will.

1. The Missionary Office will continue. This simple, individual, voluntary service (to the churches who may choose to use it, and to the missionaries) will be carried on in the same office by the same helpers. For years, Brother Janes’ secretary, Sister Ethel Sevedge, has done the clerical work with great faithfulness, loyalty, and painstaking accuracy. She will receive and receipt gifts, and forward them, as heretofore without the deduction of a cent for service or postage. Her support has always been small, too small; and it is confidently hoped that those few friends who have, of their own choice, supported her in the task, will continue their loving interest. Sister Sevedge is so well established in the work, and with the banks, that for years she has written the missionary checks and drafts simply on his own signature, without any other. She is one of the most unselfish and loyal Christian women that I have ever known.

It will be understood, without saying, that all accumulated Trust Funds, such as the Mission Homes Building Fund, will be carefully distributed, according to an equitable plan worked out by Brother Janes himself, and devised in his Will.

2. The Janes Printing Company, under that or some other name, will be continued, Lord willing. The Will leaves the stock personally owned by Brother Janes to Brother Tona Covey who for fourteen years has faithfully carried on in the printing plant, and without whom the work would have been utterly impossible. It requires, however, that Brother Covey shall place the Free Tract and Literature Fund a sum of $2 per share, for the Janes stock: It may be that other stock-holders would be willing to surrender their shares also, at this figure, to Brother Covey or some other individual, in order that the management may be simplified. We shall be glad to know their mind about his at once. After all the administrator (already a busy minister) cannot, in addition, carry on everything that Brother was doing! How multiple were his interest, and how indefatigable his labors!

3. The Janes Estate — his own personal possessions — will be used entirely in Christian work (with the exception of a few small gifts to near relatives). By frugal, simple living, by natural business sagacity, and by dint of hard work, Brother Janes accumulated a small treasure of his own; yet not for himself, but that the work so dear to his heart might continue after him. These assets are all earmarked in the Will: For missions, for tent evangelism, and especially for the work of Christian publications. For years he had labored, traveled, and searched the great libraries of America, for the finest things of history in the line of Christian literature. For example, a complete and well-nigh perfect set of the “Millennial Harbinger” is upon his shelves. From these, and many other sources, there has been culled a mass of Christian testimony — especially on the line of the Lord’s Return. This material is now to be re-examined and smalled down to printable portions—through The Word And Work and other Christian journals, as well as through tracts, pamphlets, and possibly a book.

How true it is again, that other men have labored, and we have entered into their labors! And who is sufficient for these things!

Next month’s Missionary Messenger will be called, “The Janes Memorial Number.” We shall be glad to have written expressions from friends and brethren in the earliest possible mails. Again we say, “Pray for us.”

E. L. Jorgenson

Source: Word And Work, Vol. 38, No. 2, February, 1944, p.41-47

Sister Janes

On the evening of August 7 Sister Janes, wife of our Brother Don Carlos Janes, after long and painful illness peacefully fell asleep in Jesus. For 37 years she had been the faithful companion and friend and helper of her husband in his abundant labors. ln her life and service to God there was an unvarying faithfulness. If "by their fruits ye shall know them," she was shown to be a true child of God, a daughter of the Lord God Almighty. Her pure faith and simple piety and her love toward the Lord Jesus Christ was manifest before all who knew her. In her long affiiction she endured great sufferings, patiently, even cheerfully, always thankful and praising God. Rather unusual and deeply impressive was the fact thnt at the funeral-service her husband rose up and bore testimony to her goodness and faithfulness, her zeal toward God and her earnest service through the years. No more literal application could the words in Proverbs find than with reference to Sister Janes:

"A woman that feareth Jehovah, she shall be praised.
Give her the fruit of her hands ;
And let her works praise her in the gates."


Sister Janes suffered greatly during the last 14 years of her life. But that is all post now and for ever forgotten. And the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed to usword in that crowning day.

-R. H. B., Word And Work, August, 1941, page. 204.

Missionary Messenger
A Journal Edited by D.C. Janes


Don Carlos Janes In His Office
Thanks to Larry Miles For Contributing - 7.2014


This is a signed page from Don Carlos Janes book titled, "Our World Tour."
This book was originally published in 1924 by W. B. Conkey of Chicago.
The statistics are interesting and I think they are still generally true. - Terry J. Gardner
Thanks to Terry J. Gardner for contributing - 12.2012

Directions To The Grave Of Don Carlos Janes

Don Carlos Janes is buried in the Resthaven Memorial Cemetery.

From the South: Travel I-65 toward Louisville, Kentucky. Take exit 125B East on I-265 (Louisville's outer loop). Go 7 miles and take Exit 17. Hwy 150/31E and head left (north). Go about 4 1/2 miles and the cemetery will be on your left. Enter cemetery at entrance south of the cemetery office gate (Entrance below). Go until the road dead ends and turn left. Heading down a divided road, continue as road moved to the right. When you notice that Section 5 is on your right and Section 11 is on your left. Look for a triangle with a white statue. Bear to the left of it and stop the car. Section 7 is straight ahead, and the grave is near the corner in space #295.

From the North: Head through Louisville on I-65 south and take I-264(inner loop) to the east at Exit. 131-A. Go about 5 miles and exit on Hwy 150/31E and head right (south). Go about 2.7 miles and the cemetery will be on your right. Enter cemetery at entrance south of the cemetery office gate (Entrance below). Go until the road dead ends and turn left. Heading down a divided road, continue as road moved to the right. When you notice that Section 5 is on your right and Section 11 is on your left. Look for a triangle with a white statue. Bear to the left of it and stop the car. Section 7 is straight ahead, and the grave is near the corner in space #295.

From I-64: Take Exit 12B on I-264(Inner Loop) and head west. Go about 3 miles to exit 16 and head south on Hwy. 150/31E. Go about 2. 7 miles and the cemetery will be on your right. The grave is located in Section 7. Enter cemetery at entrance south of the cemetery office gate (Entrance below). Go until the road dead ends and turn left. Heading down a divided road, continue as road moved to the right. When you notice that Section 5 is on your right and Section 11 is on your left. Look for a triangle with a white statue. Bear to the left of it and stop the car. Section 7 is straight ahead, and the grave is near the corner in space #295.

GPS Coordinates
38.179585,-85.633465
Grave Facing East
Accuracy to 17ft.

Resthaven Memorial Cemetery
4400 Bardstown Road
Louisville, KY 40218
Phone: (502) 491-5950


Myrtie L.
Wife of
Don Carlos Janes
1881-1941
With Christ


Don Carlos Janes
1877-1944
At Home

Photos of grave taken 05.16.2007
Webpage produced 02.16.2016

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