A Life of Service Ended

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22496, 2 September 1938, Page 10

A Life of Service Ended

THIRTY-SIX YEARS’ ACTIVE MINISTRY . IN CHRISTCHURCH

The death occurred last evening at his home, “Gloudesley,” Macmillan avenue, "Cashmere, of the Most Reverend Churchill Julius, for 36 years Bishop of Christchurch and for three years Primate of New Zealand. The Archbishop died peacefully not long after 9 p.m. With him was his daughter, Miss Ada Julius. He was in his ninety-first year.

Archbishop Julius had been confined to his room through the winter. His health began to fail seriously six weeks ago, when it was feared that his death was near. He rallied strongly later; but in the last few days he declined until the time of his death.

The funeral will take place on Saturday afternoon, a service at the Cathedral being followed by the burial at Linwood Cemetery. To-night sisters of the Community of the Sacred Name, which was founded by the Archbishop in Canterbury, will watch all night over his body where it will lie in the Cathedral.

LIFE AND WORK

“/ have never been a pessimist,” he said, looking back on his 90 years, “and I am not a pessimist now. Even though the things we have held valuable may be set aside, they will not die. It may be necessary to pass through such a dark time to make people come to value them again. I know that God’s purpose is there.” So he maintained the faith which inspired his long ii'fe’s work.

A Man of Truth And Sincerity

“Sometimes, you know, I am fearful,” he had said a moment before.

“Our civilisation may go the way of Greece and Rome. With them, the people who held fast to guiding principles became fewer, and had to get things done by the barbarians, and in the end the barbarians took control. The same thing may happen to us if we lose sight of guiding principles.” In spite of the hatreds breeding in Europe, in spite of the dark prospect, he said, it was something that people were now more aware of their fellowship in the world. Even his Church was not spared correction by the Archbishop, when he was convinced that correction was needed. “In the early days we did not mind if our Psalms were full of damnation,” he declared on a Sunday in 1932. “In 1932 our hymns are as flabby as the tail of a fish-full of pretty, sickly-sweet sentimentality, like the stuff we have just been singing.” And in the same sermon: “Indeed we use our church as a kind of opium den, in which a wife can forget her husband’s bad temper and a husband his wife’s long tongue. We are full of the things that do not matter a scrap to anyone. . . . We fail to reach the hearts of men with this puny type of worship. .*. .” . „ T “All the world was his diocese. In a sense this was really true of the Archbishop. No wiser, more courageous words could have been uttered than these, in the depth of the depression—Sunday. January. 1932. He said: •“In regard to the crisis, am I forbidden to say that it is God’s judgment? No. God is always with us and is behind all works. Of course, we might say. ‘God is judging us.’ Then we would cast round for the particular sin as a cause of the ‘visitation of wrath.’ Of course, we would never find our own sins. It would be the Labour Party, the Conservatives, and the Liberals in turn, but never our own fancied favourite. What happens? We accuse our fellow men. and we are doing that to-day. . , , . “And through all this trouble can be recognised the hand of God. Is it because we have played the fool or been extravagant? I do not know, but we are in this mess, and God meant us to be in it, and He meant us to fight a way through it. You can blame racing, blame drinking, blame the breaking of the Sabbath or non-attendance at church. I would still say I.do not

“ALL THE WORLD WAS HIS

DIOCESE”

No monument is needed to preserve for all time in Canterbury a memory, thankful and affectionate, of the life and work of Archbishop Julius. In the hearts of the people he built for himself a monument “more durable than brass.” And not only there, but in the less tangible life of the city as a community, the full influence of his work will never be measured. To thousands in the city he was known only by words publicly spoken, words of deep truth and sincerity, words with the authority of a man fitted as few have been for a sacred calling; words uttered with the force and persuasiveness of one of the most gifted orators New Zealand has ever heard. These thousands who knew and loved him, whether of his own Church or not. will feel their loss. Christian charity, tolerance, indignation at wrong, and greatness of spirit have lost a man who was their public and private exemplar. Those of his Church, who knew him as their Father in God. will realise perhaps best of . all what was gained by the Archbishop’s ministry, and what has been lost by his death. Among them chiefly will be preserved that lesser immortality, which must be insignificant besides the greater immortality which the Archbishop inspired them to pursue. They know his work of encouragement and inspiration through years of war and depression. His clergy know best his qualities as a leader of men—for a leader he was, and of the noblest kind. His work for the Church of England Hospital, in which he added his strength to that of the founder. Canon J. R. Wilford;

his foundation of the Community of the Sacred Name; his constant zeal as he went from parish to parish, giving the Church in Canterbury something of the power of the early Christian communities —all these marked him as one worthy (though he would in his humility be the last to think it) to be a Bishop of Christ’s Church. But as a citizen —there perhaps his greatness of heart and mind showed themselves most, or at least showed themselves more widely. Like St. Paul, he would have confessed himself with pride, “a citizen of no mean city.” The .people of Canterbury were all' to him his “little children.” “My little children.” he would often begin a public address or a sermon. And to them, of all classes, faiths and ranks, he was in his later years affectionately known—in the familiarity of love, not that of disrespect—as “the old Archbishop.” On October 15 last year, on his ninetieth birthday, “The Press” last bad the privilege of visiting the Archbishop in his retirement, and of giving what has now become his last message to the people he loved and served so well and faithfully. It was a message which seemed to have a hint of the prophetic—not the prophecy which reads the future, but that which xeada more deeply the meaning of life.

know.” War he condemned as, “of all follies the greatest.” Communism he regarded as despotism. National isolation and industrial strife could not provide “a way out.” In this way the Archbishop felt with the people the great crises of his lifetime. The problems of politics, of social distress, and all others which touched the people, he addressed himself to as a well-informed commentator. The highest office of the Church was not for him a cloister, nor a remote sphere from which pious utterances should be made in a language not that of the people: praver and Work were to him inseparable. Perhaps that was the secret of his broad humanity.

A Bishop of the Church of the Province of New Zealand, Primate of that Church, citizen, orator, guide, and counsellor to many; a man at the same time of humble heart and mind, with no trace of the pride which his great gifts must have tempted him to; a man of simple hobbies, a craftsman in his workshop where he made and mended clocks: a man of progressive spirit, knowing the world and its ways; a man of wit and kindly humour; never bound by convention, yet a splendid dignity and ceremony of his Church. Such, and much more was Archbishop Julius. ’