THE REV.R.COFFEY,M.A.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIII, Issue 67, 20 March 1907, Page 2

THE REV. R. COFFEY, M.A.

The following appreciation of the late Rev. R. Coffey, signed "A.Y.T.," is taken from tho Rangitikei Advocate of Saturday las'fc:-^-"In the person of Richard Coffey, who died on -Thursday last, a striking and somewhat original figure has passed away from tho Diocese s of Wellington and the parish "6f S,t. ,• Mark's. • Mr. Coffey graduated " aR' Trinity -tiollege, Dublin, in 1865, and took a first class in Divinity in the ensuing year. It is possible there is something in the training of Dublin University that especially elicits character. Anyhow, of the Dublin men who have come to this diocese, all of them have had a distinctive character of thejr own, and two of them a very marked individuality indeed. One cannot assign them, so easily n« one can Cambridge or Oifbrd men to a particular school ot thought. Thcv belong more to themselves than to their school, and^ without being by design, assimilate a good deal from all - schools, ' but aro first"" ijjomeelves— a • virtue in it-i self. _ It may 'be v .they have not had 'so ■ dominating '& personality among, them, ! ns Cambridge in Simeon, or Oxford in Newman ; but one would hardly venture to say so to a Dublin man iriJi Archer Butter in one's mind. Mr. Coffey, after working at home, tonk work in the diocese of Dunedin, from 1868 to 1876. Thence ho cam« to Wellington and started the parochial district, subsequently the parish of St. Mark, where he has been at work for ™?£ thirty years; and, with the exception of the archdeacons, has served longer in the diocese tbnn, f a.ny other clergyman. He was quite an -'exceptional parish priest, and as long as numbers made it possible, took an equal, jnttrest in nil his parishioners, and -fetfept in* sickness gave himself specially to none. He was at tho head of everything, very determinedly so, and everything thiove under his hand. Foe, many years St. Mark's was tho best organised parish in the diocese, and in that" respect has no superior to this day. Ho almost lived entirely in and for St. Mark's. In the opinion of the writer of this notice, had Mr. Coffey been, offered a bishopric within the last fifteen years, he would nob have been able to have torn himself from St. Mark's ; and his people appreciated hut devotion to -them. In all nis work he has found exceptional help in his wife and sister. They, too, seemed to live for tho parish. Forx the last seven years Mr. Coffey lias had the help of two assistant curates in succession, who have entered into his work with heart and 6oul; the present Vicar of Greytown, arid 'Mr. Bartlett. It is some consolation to Mrs. and Miss Coffey's numerous friends that Mr. Bartlett, who is an inmate of the vicarage, will be able to render those nameless spiritual solicitudes of tho moment, that it would be beyond the power of others so effectually to do. Mr. Coffey was a quick and forcible speaker, with thiit Irish gift* of humour, which enabled him to say, alike in church and in svh^d, things which would havo given offence in the mouths of Englishmen. He was fearless alike in speech and'dee'd} and no man was less influenced by the passing opinions of the hojtr. From his first appearance in synod to the last, he had the car of his audience, and among the second order of clergy, no one, with the exception of a fellow countryman, and the possible exception of Mr. Still, at one I time Vicar of St. Paul's, so commanded attention. He had so kindly a heart, and was felt to havo, that the arrows of his rhetoric in debate, though at times exceedingly keen, were never envenomed, and eo' left no sense of bitterness behind them, and those that admired him most in his vigour und quickness in debate, were not unoften hie opponents. As long as the English Church had so striking a personage in . Wellington to represent h^r, she p£ver_ could become a negligible quantity, whatever opposition there might be to her tenets or her policy. Let us hope that his successor may have the lHce grip of the substance of his beliefs, and the same fearlessness in maintaining them. His vigour of character and gifts of eXprewsion are beyond most of us.