FIFTY YEARS’ SERVICE IN MINISTRY

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27150, 21 September 1953, Page 3

FIFTY YEARS’ SERVICE IN MINISTRY

TRIBUTE TO VERY REV. P. B. H/GGITT At St. Mary’s Anglican Church. Merivale. last evening, the vicar (the Vert. Archdeacon W. W. Averill) congratulated the Very Rev. P. B. Haggitt on having completed 50 years’ service in the ministry, and paid a tribute to his work as a vicar, as Archdeacon of Christchurch, and as Dean of Nelson. Dean Haggitt was vicar of Merival’e for 17 years, and it was in his day that the new St. Mary’s was built. In his sermon. Dean Haggitt paid a tribute to Archdeacon Averill’s father. Archbishop Averill. After the last broadcast from St. Mary’s, he had telephoned his appreciation and sent a message to the Archbishop: “Tell your father his mantle is wonderfully preserved and fits his son beautifully.” He knew something, the Dean said, of that mantle, for he was assistantcurate at St. Michael’s Church, Christchurch, when the Archbishop was .vicar. The qualities that stood out most prominently in his memory of his first trainer were “sincerity, devotion to work, solidity of character, sympathy, sanctified common sense, practical wisdom with humour, dignity, no extremes, and no ceremonial fussiness ” Those qualities the Archbishop had in good measure and they made for efficiency, said Dean Haggitt. The result was universal respect and a full church.