REVIEW.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8886, 24 May 1892, Page 6

REVIEW.

Sermons, Addresses, and Essays by tiik Late Joseph Horn eh Fletcher, Wesley an Minister. Edited, with a biographical sketch, by his eldest son, Wesleyan Book Depot, Sydney. This volume, apart from its intrinsic merits, has special interest for New Zealand readers. The Rev. J. H. Fletcher spent twelve years in New Zealand, arid nine of these years in Auckland. He came to this colony in company with the late Rev. Alexander Reid, and these two noble men began their work together in the year 1841). Mr. Fletcher was sent out especially to take charge of the Wesley College, which was founded by Wesleyan ministers and missionaries, as an institution in which their children could receive a superior education, together with young people from the homes of the laity. There are some of our older residents who can still bear witness to the excellence of the education they received there, and the ability and zeal of the Principal of the College. l)r. Arnold, of Rugby, was Mr. Fletcher's model, and much of the tone and spirit which made the great head-master of Rugby famous throughout the world was felt in the humbler institution in Upper Queen-street. Then came the war, and the removal of the seat of Government from Auckland, and such a financial collapse in this part of New Zealand, that tho Wesleyan Church was unable to maintain such an establishment and Wesley College was closed. Mr. Fletcher had been removed in the meantime to New Plymouth, where lie laboured through some of the worst months of the Taranaki war. Most readers will regard the letters from Mr. Fletcher which describe the outbreak and progress of this war, as ho most interesting part of the biographical sketch. They tell of days when the little town of New Plymouth was barricaded; when the Wesleyan Church was used as a stockade with "six loopholes at each end and when a sergeant's wife, who with others had taken up her abode in the church was confined there in Mr. Fletcher's pew on a certain Wednesday night. With murderous Maories surrounding them by land, and no escape except by sea, the 1000 children and 500 women who were crowded into ho little town, were felt to bo in no small peril. Some were shipped to Auckland and others to Nelson, but many refused to leave. Mr. Fletcher writes : " The families will not go, and tho military authorities have had to give way a little. One poor woman, anxious about her husband, refused to come to the boat, and was fetched by the soldiers, but the Militia were just on the edge of mutiny. Captain K. was ordered to go at the head of a party of soldiers and fetch her, but lie refused and was put under arrest, and is now a great man in popular estimation in consequence. Yesterday the provincial authorities waited on the General to protest against the employment of force, consequently the Airedale sailed last night with less than half*her complement. Tho boatmen would not put any of the women into the boats against their will, nor the bluejackets either, so there were only the soldiers for it, and they liked not their job at all?" From New Plymouth Mr. Fletcher was removed to Brisbane, and after four years of good service in Queensland he was appointed principal of IS'cwington College, in Sydney, in the duties of which etiice, together with that of theological tutor, he found his life's work. lie died on June 110, IS9U, to be followed so soon by his early comrade and life-long friendthe Rev. Alexander Reid.

This volume contains, besides the biographical sketch, 32 sermons, addresses, and essays. These sermons show that the

preacher was one of the brightest ornaments of lie Australasian pulpits. He was not an orator, lie had neither the physical nor the mental qualitioat ion tor the sustained and impassioned utterance which is expected from a speaker of the first rank. In the power to move and sway a crowd lie could not be compared to the Rev. A. Reid. Dyspeptic as Curly 10, and sensitive and shy as a woman, it mibt have cost him a great effort, to face the crowd from pulpit or platform. Yet we have rarely beard any preacher who could so instruct and delight an audience. Not a commonplace sentence fell from his lips. In the power of lighting up his subject with fresh and telling illustrations he could hold

his own with the best-known preachers of his day. His sermons were sure

to contain some lumps of truth flung out. with 110 attempt at oratorical grace, but which would be remembered for a lifetime.

This is one of the tots by which the fit.it preachers can be distinguished from those who are merely <jood. We do not wonder that New Zealand Methodists have never .ceased through these 30 years to mourn his removal, or to complain that they were never compensated for such a loss. A few quotations, selected almost at random, will best show the preacher's power. 11 We have heard, in modern times, the strange announcement of a gospel of Atheism. One would think that a gospel of pestilence, preached by an A postdate of skeletons to the starving remnant of a besieged city, could hardly be a more hideous spectre than

a gospel whose tidings are that Our Father in Heaven is dead, and that all His children are orphans !" Lower down in the same cage the eye catches the following : "It may be that scepticism in our time has attained unprecedented dimensions. But scepticism is like smoke—a little goes a very long way and soon attains very great dimensions, though the softest breath of heaven can chase it away." From the same address we take the follow-

ing:— Even Calvinism now, for the most part, lies like a massive boulder in the bed

of a river, never seen except in very dry weather." Addressing young ministers, in an ordination charge, he said :—" You may, for 25 minutes, bo lively, natural, and instructive, and make your hearers think of a bird singing in the morning with ix breastful of sunrise music. Rut if

you hold on for an hour, they may be reminded of an empty waggon rumbling down an endless hill." Those who knew

the preacher will be glad to have this volume to help them to recall the music of a voice that is still, and others who did not

know him will be glad to come in contact, through these pages, with one of the finest and most cultivated thinkers who has instructed the colonists of this generation. We wish that the printing and binding had been more worthy of the real merits of the book. The portrait leaves little to be desired.

Copies may be had of Mr. J. Edson, Queen-street.