ST. JOHN'S METHODIST CHURCH.

Colonist, Volume XLVIII, Issue 11668, 2 July 1906, Page 2 (Supplement)

ST. JOHN'S METHODIST CHURCH.

j At the morning service, the Rev. C. hi. Garland preached from the 2nd Corinthians, i chapter 18 verse. Referring to the death of the late Premier, he alluded to the work the late Mr Seddou had done for the good of humanity. He said the hand that held the reins of government only a week ago was now cold in death. Only God's will was eternal, and man must learn to say "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." The congregation remained standing while Miss Stevens played Chopin's Dead March. At the evening service, Mr Garland preached from Job, 14 chapter and 11 verse. Funeral hymns were sung at both services. The preacher, in referring to the late Mr Seddon, said : "He believed that every New Zealander recognised that in the death of the late Premier the Colony and Empire had lost a leader of no ordinary morit. The only adequate 'explanation of thw eminence the late | Premier attained, and the power he | wielded, was that he possessed int horently elements of true greatness. His alertness of mind, combined with his Imperial spirit, prompted him ro that swift and unexpected action at the moment of our Empire's embarrassment in South Africa, which made him the cynosure of Thrones and Parliaments, and earned him the gratitude of our present beloved King aud his Royal mother. In our own Colonial politics (which for criticism or laudation,that was not the time nor place) Mr Seddon's indomitable energy, his resistless will, bis bending of the whole man to the task in hand, have made him in these things a worthy model for the young New Zealander. A child of the people. Mr Sedaon's heart had ever remained with tbem during the successive steps of his exaltation, and remained with them loyal to the last. Mr Seddon loved them not in word only, but in deed and in truth, for the' legislation that will be long associated with his name is that which sought to give, and suceeded lin giving, enlarged opportunities, industrial, political, and educational, to the men, the women, and the children of this land:which honestly endeavored to distribute with some equity the burdens of life, and which succeeded in softening the j hard lot; of the aged poor. ' ? The congregation stood whilst Miss Stevens played Handel's Dead March in Saul.