IN MEMORIAM.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 10264, 6 February 1899, Page 5

IN MEMORIAM.

REV. DR. BERRY AND REV. W. J. HABENS.

At Trinity Congregational Church last evening the Rev. Sidney J. Baker, in announcing that a memorial service would be held on Sunday, the 19th inst., tor the late Rev. W. J. Habens, said it was not often there devolved upon one the sad duty, as it did that day, to make mention from the pulpit of the death of two of their Congregational ministers. One, Dr. Berry, was personally known to them from his visit to this colony some eight or nine years since, and who, then in impaired health, spoke 1o them at the sacrament service. In his sndden and tragic death the Congregational ministry in Great Britain, and throughout the world, had lost one of its brightest ornaments and most influential personalities. Dr. Berry was one of the most lbveable men it had been his privilege to know. Never spariDg himself to render service to his brethren it was to be feared that his wholehearted response to the claims being continually madeupon him, and thedesiretoassist the churches to the uttermost of his ability, hadbeen the means of sapping the vigour of a constitution that at no time was very robust. Dr. Berry would be missed by his loving and devoted people at Wolverhampton. But by none would he be more missed than by- the younger men in the Congregational ministry of to-day, of whom he was the acknowledged leader. Of the Rev. W. J. Habens, called to his rest on Friday night last, Mr Baker eaid he felt it was at that moment difficult to speak, in the building which was erected mainly through his exertions, and in a city where his ministry was begun thirty-five years since. It was the day of small things when, on January lOth, 1864, Mr and Mrs Habens arrived in this city. Yet from his labours had grown this and the sister church at Lin wood, a monument to the patience, organising tact, and conspicuous ability of those early years of pioneering. It was in the conscientious belief that he was called to an extended ministry, such as the work of primary school education presented, which led Mr Habens in 1877 to accept the position of InspectorGeneral of Schools. And now after twentytwo years , service in the Department of Education, with a life crowded with hard and assiduous labours, painstaking, conscientious, with a high sense of duty, and with loyal devotion to his Church, he had passed peacefully away to rest. The congregation signified standing that a telegram of sympathy and condolence be forwarded to Mrs. Habens.