METHODIST CHURCH

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 180, 27 April 1929, Page 11

METHODIST CHURCH

REV. T. R. RICHARDS MINISTER FOR TARANAKI STREET In the last twenty-one years the Rev. T. R. Richards, who succeeds the Rev. C. Eaton as minister of Wesley Church, Taranaki Street, has laboured in only three circuits, a striking tribute to the affection and esteem in which be was held by his parishioners (writes E.C.W.). It is to be emphasised, also, that Mrs. Richards shared her husband’s popularity, and that she at all times assisted him in his work. The'public farewell recently tendered them at New Plymouth (when ministers from all denominations were present) was the occasion of one of the largest gatherings of the kind seen there for many years. Tribute was paid to the high standard of Mr. Richards’s pulpit work and to his pastoral work, and Mrs. Richards was re-

ferred to as “a kind of unpaid curate to the congregation.” A representative of the “men in the street” who knew Mr. Richards, not so much as a minis-, ter but as a man, said, “None of us look on him in any sense as a ‘wowser.’ He is a man of courage and sincerity, and a Christian gentleman. In the Rotary Club, of which he was padre, on the Unemployment Committee and the Relief Committee he has done work for the good of the community, of which his own congregation probably knows nothing and among people who are not in any way connected with his church. The departure of Mr. Richards from New Plymouth is a matter of regret among the men in the street.” It is a tribute to Mr. Richards’s force of character and high qualities, as well as to the sterling worth of Mrs. Richards’s assistance, that in every circuit where he has ministered his'parishioners have been loath to let him go. Hfe has a charm of personality that captivates; a wise tact that is the product of a sympathetic understanding; a nature that at once earns confidence; and a sagacity for offering just that advice that is most helpful. He speaks ’ with calmness and sound judgment. He is. a master of the art of quotation—a rare art to-day even where quoting has tended to become a substitute for originality of thought; a substitute for even the effort of thinking. Such is the new minister of Wesley Church, Taranaki Street, one of the largest and most important Methodist Churches in New Zealand.