The Death-bed Interview.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXXVII, Issue 11814, 7 January 1903, Page 2

The Death-bed Interview.

There is something quite American in the idea of intervieAving a man a feAV hours before his death, yet this was the experience of a London journalist avlio had an interview Avith the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes during the morning of the day on Avhich the latter died. It must be admitted in defence of the journalist that he had no more idea than any of Mr Hughes's friends that his death Avas so close at hand, though he feared that the end was not far away. On former occasions he had been the most admirable of .coirversationalists, and a splendid subject for an- interview, for he Avas a, journalist! himself to the finger tips, and knew just Avhat. Avould make good "sopv." But ~at this last interview lie Avas Aveary and weak-minded, and when (he newspaper nifi.n ■ lefli (lie house he -said (o> himself.

"That man's woik is finished." 'Before night Mi' Hughes had djed from an apoplectic seizure. In the course of his conversation with his iiiteiviewer he explained how lie came, to be the editor of the "Methodist Times.' 1 When he Avas a boy it used to be a. contest he said, between his father and himself as to who should read "The Times" Hist in the morning, and from boyhood upwards he had been a diligent reader of newspapers. He contributed articles, as a young minister, to church periodical?, and eighteen years ago he Avas persuaded "to take up the editorship of the "Methodist Times."' He continued to hold that position to the day of his death, seeing changes in the period, as he said, in tlin editorships jit' almost every Aveekly and da-ilv paper in London. In those last days of his life his mental attitude towards his opponents lost much of its bitterness, and it Avas this change Avhich most struck many of bis friends. Additional pathos Aras given to his death by the fact that lie had just moved to a neAV house at Haslemere, provided by bis friends, and he had great hopes that the changa Avould restore his health. He Avars pathetically anxious to be told that he Avas looking much better, and it is belieA^ed that his fear that his powers, mental jus avcll as physical, avoto declining—a fear Avhich Avas strengthened by an over-heard remark that he Avas1 "an extinct volcano" — helped to Avorry him into his grave. In him died a groat leader of British Nonconformity, and the Methodist Church largely owes to his untiling enei'f r' and devotion the position it occupies in the< -relicrious Avorhl to-dnv.