LATE REV. A. WHYTE

Otago Witness, Issue 3430, 9 December 1919, Page 59

LATE REV. A. WHYTE

PRESBYTERY'S MEMORIAL MINUTE. The following memorial minute with reference to the passing of the Rev. Alexander "Whyte, of Port Chalmers, was unanmously adopted by the Dunedin Presbytery on the 2nd inst:: —"The Rev. Alexander Whyto, M.A., B.Sc, 8.D., F.L..5., called away in what - seemed the zenith of his manifold and indefatigable work for God, the Presbytery of Dunedin laments one of its most distinguished and brotherly members. After a brilliant academic career in Glasgow and Edinburgh, a career which brought him. the offer of more than one - professorship, hearing the call to the Holy ministry he came to New Zealand in 1888 and established the South Wairarapa and v .Carterton charge. Returning to Scotland ho was ordamed at Duntocher in 1890. and translated to North Kelvinside. Glasgow, in - 1894. Hero "he saw the erection of aliandsome church, but illness contracted in the course of his pastoral visitation necessitated his return to New Zealand in 1897. He was minister of St. Columba's, Havclook North, from 1898 to 1910, and thereafter until his decease of Port Chalmers. In both parishes he gave himself with absolute and heroic devotion, ffcr he had throughout to face serious limitations of health, to the work of the ministry. Very noteworthy was his devotion to tho young, involving a daily Bible class, which he» taught personally in the State school. This work he maintained for 20 years. A man of high enthusiasms and expansive visions , he has loft an enduring and ever-increasing monument of his ministrv in the system of Church colleges for girls and boys, which has been one of the outstanding manifestations of the progress of our New Zealand Church in recent years. In face of much opposition, which he met with, that beautiful combination of resoluteness, ance, courtesy, charity, and prayerfujness •which' led some to pronounce him the most Christ-like man they had ever known, ha succeeded, in the establishment of lona Gollejre. Havelock North.' and thereafter of Columba College?, Dunedin, and as convener of the General Assembly's Committee on college interests he had an advisory association with the other colleges that were successively established. Over the development of Columba Colleee he presided with rare administrative ability as well as characteristic dignity and grace. As churchman and patriot, he burned with a sacred crtkw which uttered itself in singular eloquence, of voice and pen. In fluency and felicity of utterance there were few to rival him in the dominion, and his forceful and graceful pen was placed unsparingly at the service of the Church. • His investigations into the early history of the Ch-irch in Otigo were embodied in a publicatioi which was widely circulated and much valued. His inborn _ chivalry found congenial expression in his _ work as chaplain to the forces. A unique presence .has vanished from among us—a presence whose beautv and value will become onlv the more clearly apparent as the years m-ove on, whose fragrance will linger lontr in the room of the Church's activities. His scholarship and culture, his attention to fnrm in mnniK" and speech and in tW worship of God. his energy and ardour, his so Ohristlikc meekness, self-sacrifice, and charity will ever ha remembered with foundest Admiration a*d thanksgiving. May He whom he followed so closelv he very rea? and near to his sorrowing -helDrnoof tkl *•— f-mi'v." mirnte wn«» .adopted m the customary manner by membr.rr, standing. * Si.ibsrquentlv a letter was read And received from the Methodist Ministers' Association expressing sympathy in the great loss the Dunedin Presbytery had sustained in i.hf loss of so prominent a member as Mr Whyte, and to his stroritr «d----vocacv of the cans© of union amonpr the churches. ' >■