The Revd Lord Wriothesley Russell.

Auckland Star, Volume XVII, Issue 235, 6 October 1886, Page 3

The Revd Lord Wriothesley Russell.

The quotation below from tho Dean of Windsor's funeral sermon on the late clergyman will interest many of our readers.

Tho life of him whom forty eight hours ago we laid to rest in the quiet churchyard of Chenies was markedly characteristic, as it seom.3 to mo, of the peculiar features of the English people and the English Church. Nowhere else in the world, I think, could a Similar ministry to his havo been exorcised, and seldom, even in English history, can its precise conditions and facts have boen paralleled. Ho became Rector of Cbenies on 1529, and for fifty-six years threo successive generations in that country parish have turned instinctively and trustfully to the rectory for thn wisest counsel in evory difficulty, and for tho heartiest sympathy in every petty joy and sorrow, and for the brightest example in word and deed of what a Christian home should be. It is the custom to speak slightingly of tho condition of Church life in England when this century began, and there were scandals and laxities and misuse of opportunities on which we cannot look back without a sense of burning shame But there is another side, far too often forgotten or ignored. It was a time when there was spreading through the land an incense earnestness of purpose and an absorbing seriousness of life, which . , . , took shape and found expression in a hundred different forms Above all, it took shape in tho deep religious fervour of such m_n as William Wilberforce aud Charles Simeon, and the hundreds who followed in their path. No thoughtful mar. who has traced tho history, the magnificent and inspiring history, of our Church's life since then, pan fail to see that every manifold development of new energy and life witbin her borders has drawn its inspiration from what is rightly called the "Gospel teaching* of those enthusiastic and devoted men. We have every day to I hank God for their words and work, and all the more because in His good providence a building so diverse and so fair in form has since been built upon the strong walls which tbey set for us in God's name upon the immutable foundations laid long ago. The life which has just closed carries us right back into the heart of thoso earnest days when the " Evangelical Revival," as we call it, had made good its hold on the common parish life in Fngland. Lord Wriothesley Russell had been brought in his early days under the influence both of Charlos Simeon and of William Wilberforceand to their teaching he adhered con sißtently to the close No one could be in his -oresence for five minutes without seeing whence came the inspiration of his own industrious days, and few could fail to catch something of his quiet enthusiasm for the Lord his God.

The thoughts we have dwelt upon are j very simple, so simple that we are sometimes apt to pass them by ; but it is simple thoughts, the very simplest, which spring naturally from any reference to tho quiet, straightforward Christian character of him who was so long our Senior Canon here. He deliberately chose the life of a simple country clergyman, and adhered to it consistently, when other doors were open to him With characteristic humble-minded-nes3 he prefered, like the Shunammite of old, to "dwell among his own people." For more than fifty years he was scarcely ever, except for his weeks at Windsor, absent for more than a Sunday or two from his little parish church, and in all the variety of his helpfulness to young and old in Windsor, it was toChenies village green that his heart turned back. He used to note how he had seen the little church yard gradually filled, and how he could remember something of the occupant of almost every grave. A year ago it was made a little larger, he He 3 now, not in the great vault of bis family, but in tho simplest grave in the new half-acre of churchyard. Why? Because the villagers did not like to lay their dead in tho added bit, and he know that if he lay there it would cease to be looked down upon. This quiet simplicity of life was his from first to last, a simplicity which solved with child-like trust what might be perplexities to other people, and which enabled him, as many here know well, to preach the message of His Master's love with an honost earnestness direct to the hearts of men. Surely that simple faith, that Bimple life, are voiceful to us all.