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New Zealand Herald, Issue 6568, 5 December 1882, Page 4

The death roll of the year which Is now hastening to a close, will include the names of some of the most distinguished ornaments of the Church. The latest addition to the mourjiful list is aunounced in one of our cablegrams this morning, conveying the sad intelligence of the death of His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury. Although the news doear.ot fall upon the world with the suddenness of an unexpected calamity, it will cause widespread sorrow and regret wherever the life and character of the deceased Primate are known. His sweet disposition, and catholicity of spirit, his unassuming ways and deep earnestness, his freedom from the bigotry and prejudices of narrow-minded sectarianism, and his readiness to tolerate independence of thought had secured for him a position in the religious world such as few occupants of the Archiepiscopal Chair ever before acquired. His mind \7as singularly free from cant, and ha ould be zealous without being fanatical. He advanced no extravagant claims on behalf of the Church of which he was so prominent a shining light. His Episcopalianism was never offensive, arrogant, or obtrusive. He was earnest without beinij dogmatical, and strove to conciliate rather than estrange by censure or unfriendly criticism. As a preacher he was not, perhaps, entitled to rank very high. His style though easy and graceful, and evincing the cultured mind of a scholarly divine, was lacking in those qualities which constitute true eloquence. He wag, however, a thoughtful and able writer, and his contributions to the literature of the day on ecclesiastical, educational, social, and kindred subjects, are both valuable and practical. His death i 3 a distinct loss to the Church of England, which, perhaps, never stood so much in need of men of his largeheartednes3, breadth of view, and lioerality of spirit, as she does at the present moment.