OBITUARY

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 288, 5 September 1928, Page 12

OBITUARY

REV W. GRAY DIXON LOSS TO PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH Dominion Special Service. Dunedin, September 1. The Presbyterian Church Ims sutler ed a severe loss in the death this morn ••■ of Dr. William Gray Dixon, minis ter emeritus of the Roslyn Presbyter i; . Chitrcli and an ex-Moderator of the General Assembly ol New Zealand. A minister field in digit esteem throughout the Church for Ins zeal, fidelity, spiritual discernment, and Christian worth, as well as for his abil itv as a preacher, a writer, and a scholar, as a public champion for civic righteousness and Presbyterianism,, he laid the Church under special obligations. and his 44 years’ ministry in Australia and New Zealand had entitl ed him to the honour of Doctor of Divinity conferred upon him by the Edinburgh University as recently as two months ttgo. In spite ol Ins years (64) and his long life of service, his sudden death soon after boarding the train at Burke’s, on his way to the meeting of the Dunedin Presbytery this morning, will , come as a shock to his friends all over the Dominion. Seven yeai. ago he retired from active ministry at Roslyn on account of his health. Mr. Dixon was boru at Paisley in 1854, and was the son of a Free Kirk minister. He received his early education at the Neilson Institution in his home town, and later went to the Ayr Academy, at which school he was dux in 1871. After a distinguished record at the Glasgow University, where ho graduated M.A. in 1876, he was appointed Professor of English at the Imperial College-of Engineering at Tokio. He held that post for four years, dur-

ing which time he was first president of the original Christian Association there and successively recording secretary and life member of the Asiatic Society of Japan. In 1880 he returned to Scotland and entered New College, Edinburgh, to prepare himself for tlie Free Kirk ministry. He obtained his exit from that institution with first-class honours, and in 1884 was licensed as a minister of the Presbyterian Church. During his college career he published “The Land of the Morning,” an instructive account of Japan and the Japanese. His first charge was that of Fitzroy (Australia), to which lie went after a year as assistant in Scots Church, Melbourne. In 1894 he was granted the degree of M.A. by the Melbourne University, and in the same year was appointed examiner in apologetics at Ormond Theological College iij that city. This position he held until in 1900 he came to New Zealand to take over the charge of St. David’s in Auckland, where lie remained for 10 years. While in the northern city he was president of the Auckland Ministers’ Association and editor of the Church publication, “The Burning Book.” In 1910 he accepted a call to the Roslyn Church, and while in Dunedin he was elected to the moderatorship of the General Assembly. He spent the greater part of his retirement at his home at St. Leonard’s, lie is survived by bis widow; there is no family.