WEALTHY RECLUSE
TRUSTEES’ LONG JOB &S The strange life of a wealthy recluse is recalled’by the news that the Acthingtou trustees appointed 30 years ago to administer the £1,000,000 fortune left for missions by Robert Arlington, are now busy winding- up. The last affairs of the funds (states the ‘ Manchester (Jlu&rdian). For, according tq the scheme>apisrpved by the High Court after" ArthifigtonV death, the whole fortune had'-Tb'- be dispOsed.of in 25 years, and -this .period,- with a slight extension allowed on account of the war years, ends on June 20. Robert Arthihgton spent most, of his life in one room in a big honse just- °uT side. Leeds, where he lived on about, half a crown a week and “did” for himself while the considerable fortune, left him by his father kept growing—apparently without his knowing it.-’ He gave large sums away, but when he died in 1900 at the age of 77 he left nearly £1.000,000.
For 50 years he had only one interest. He conld have no ease, be said, until every tribe in every land had been given an opportunity of hearing the Gospel, He seems nevefc to have 'b6iijK a ntissionary;himself, 'nnd he, v n&ver visited' any iniesiflh ; more aboutv missionary methods-than any: other the missionary magazines, -tcjiicihr with mission' secretaries, often'-■'to*tneiir embarrassment, and corresponded with missionaries in Africa. China, India, and other parts of the world. One of his dreams was that there should be a chain of mission stations across equatorial Africa from coast ter coast. 1 ' ,Hq got the Baptist Missionary Society tot push in from the west up the Congo and the London Missionary Society to advance from the east; so that they should meet in the heart of the continent. He gave thoj Baptist Missionary Society a steamer for' the river work and gave both societies large sums to further the new work. Thanks largely to Arthington’s money,-( there is to-day a complete chain of misr siion stations, none more than 100 miles' from the next, across Central Africa fromcoast to coast. i
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Otago Daily Times, Issue 22822, 5 March 1936, Page 4
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342WEALTHY RECLUSE Otago Daily Times, Issue 22822, 5 March 1936, Page 4
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