MEMORIAL SERVICE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20057, 14 March 1935, Page 12

MEMORIAL SERVICE

LATE mSS AUDREY BARKER A service in memory of Miss Audrey Barker, who met her death by drowning while bathing at Kai Iwi Beach, Wanganui, on February 1?. was held at St. Aidan’s Church, Kakahu, on Sunday. The large congregation, comprising neighbours and friends, was a tribute to the esteem in which Miss Barker was held, and to the deep sympathy felt for Mr and Mrs W. P. D. Barker in their loss. The service was conducted by the Rev. Canon J. F. Coursey, who took as his text Psalm 23. v.4—“Yea. though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff comfort me.” The vicar said that the popular conception of death was pagan and superstitious. and tended to rob them of faith and hope. The tragedy of the Christian Church was that it allowed itself to be influenced by non-Chris-tian thoughts of death. “For me to live is Christ, to die is gain,” said St. Paul, and he had meant every word he said. “It is the darkness which surrounds death which makes it terrible,” continued the preacher. “The Christian hope penetrates that darkness and gives us light. After all, death may easily be more beautiful than life; it certainly is not a calamity if viewed from a Christian standpoint. What is death? It is a pause in life; it is not a continuous state, but an event when we shed the body of the flesh for spiritual raiment. It is a common and beautiful figure that speaks of death as a falling asleep, to rise again refreshed. And as each night we drop the burdens and cares of yesterday and awake refreshed, so in the deeper sleep of death shall we be prepared for the great work which lies ahead. Robertson Nieoll’s verse gives this thought:— “Well to sleep, but best to waken “With the surcease from the strife, j “Then smooth-browed, and rested | “Rise to wonder, love, and life.” I “The one whom we remember toj day.” Canon Coursey concluded, “pass- | ed from life to death without weari- ! ness of waiting, or without the awful pains of parting. Surely we think of her, not as a lifeless body, but smoothbrowed, bright-eyed, and rested in the arms of a loving Saviour.”