DIED AT HIS DESK

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 107, 2 November 1937, Page 9

DIED AT HIS DESK

CANON SHEPPARD

"A CHRIST-LIKE MAN"

LONDON, November 1.

Canon Sheppard died at his desk in the afternoon while writing a sermon. A manservant taking in tea thought he had fallen asleep. There were moving scenes when the news was announced at the evening services at St. Paul's Cathedral and St. Martin's Church. . •

Canon Sheppard lately took a prominent part in the Peace Pledge movement. The Rev. Pat McCormick, in a broadcast tribute, said he had never known so lovable and Christ-like a man.

A correspondent writes to "The Post": . _

The death of the Very Rev. H. R. h. Sheppard, CM., D.D., M.A., removes a striking personality from the Church and the world. He was familiarly and affectionately known throughout England and far beyond as "Dick Sheppard," and among his publications were "The Impatience of. a Parson" and, more recently, "We Say No!" "The Post's" obituary notice gives commendably full details of Canon Sheppard's notable and brilliant career, but the notice seems to stop.short at 1931. No mention is made of what is probably his crowning achievement (though Dick Sheppard himself would have described it more modestly).' I refer to his founding and chairmanship of the Peace Pledge Union, which has a membership of something like 150,000 men pledged never to participate in war. Canon Sheppard gave most of himself and all his great gifts to this work in recent years, and was actively engaged in it right up to the time of his death. The last "notice I had of him was his inclusion among the principal speakers at the "Great National Pacifist Convention" at Westminster on September 18, presided over by Mr. George Lansbury. Canon Sheppard was a noble Christian, a noble Englishman, and a noble "man of the world."