Chapter XXIII. Extracts from Letters to Mrs. Medley--Notices in the Press--Resolutions--Letters from Rev. Canon Brigstocke, D. D., and from Rev. Canon Neales, M. A.--Extracts from Memorial Sermons

THE universal esteem with which the late Bishop was regarded found fitting expression in the letters of sympathy received by his bereaved widow, from which we are permitted to take the following extracts. A dignitary of the Canadian Church writes:

The work which your great and noble-hearted Bishop did for the Church not only in his own Diocese, but in the whole of Canada, will only now be fully appreciated when it is set forth, as no doubt it will be, in some worthy form by those who know it best.

For myself I was greatly attracted to the dear Bishop when I first met him, now nearly thirty years ago, and felt even in one evening's intercourse how much of sympathy and help and stimulus his Clergy must have in him in their studies as well as in their work.

I felt too at once the charm of his preaching--so simple and yet so eloquent and profound, so penetrating--and all beautified and perfected by the savor of piety which ever encompassed him as an atmosphere. I do not know that I ever heard preaching that moved me so deeply in the best sense. If his influence was thus felt by one who saw him so rarely what must it have been to those to whom he was for years and years their Father in God!

A clergyman, ordained by the Bishop, but who has been working in the States for many years, thus writes of him:

I was confirmed and ordained Deacon and Priest by the Bishop, and have always had the highest admiration for his ability and learning. There is nothing in his death to regret; it was a full life, full of days and of honours; he accomplished a great work and did it well. I well remember the opposition and difficulty he encountered in the earlier part of his episcopate, and how bravely he carried the banner of true and loyal churchmanship through it all. I shall remember him in every celebration as among the faithful departed.

This voices the feeling of many other clergymen working in the United States and in other parts of the Dominion. A layman writes:

I cannot, even at the Bishop's advanced age, hear of his demise without a keen pang of sorrow and a deep sense of irreparable loss. And if this be so to me, how much more to you, the privileged partner of all his labours, cares and joys; how much more to the bereaved Diocese, which was almost his own creation, and of which he was in the fullest sense a Father in God. Among his many high and noble qualities there seemed to be two especially godlike: First, his great patience and silence under attack and injury, of which in the earlier years of his episcopate he had so much to bear. He lived down all attacks, and so far as I can remember he answered none, at least in the public prints. Second, his great and unceasing benevolence: receiving nothing from the Diocese, he gave it everything, even to the half of his income, and much more. But while we mourn so great a loss, for him we can only rejoice, for, like a ripened ear of corn, full of years, full of honours, and laden with the loving prayers of thousands of his children, he dropped gently into the garner of his Lord. R. I. P.

Another layman says:

At length the long struggle is over, and our dear Bishop is in the rest of Paradise! How blessed a rest for him after the weary days and nights of the last few years. How often he must have longed to lay aside his armour; yet how patiently he waited his Master's time. And now the earthly tie is severed that for so long a time has bound the Diocese of Fredericton to its first Bishop, its most generous benefactor and truest friend. It is hard to realize, but we must all thank God for the noble life and bright example. Grant him, Lord, eternal rest.

Another friend writes:

The lesson of the Bishop's whole life seemed "patient continuance in well-doing." "For My sake thou hast laboured and hast not fainted." His devotional habits reveal the secret of his influence more than anything. Would that in this which seems the imitable part of his example one could in any way resemble him. He might have said, though he was too humble to do it, "Lord, how I love Thy law, all the day long is my study in it."

An old friend, Canon Townshend, now living in England, says:

When the dear Bishop was last in England he did me the honour to come down to see me; as we stood by the grave of our old Rector we read the following lines on his tomb:

"Solo in coelo quies
Et sine nube dies."

In that cloudless light our beloved Bishop now joins the song of the Redeemed, adoring with the holy Angels the Lord God omnipotent! How blessed a thought is this, it is yours, and it is mine. Thanks be to God!

The Colonel of one of the regiments at one time stationed in Fredericton says:

Shall I ever forget his bright, hearty services and his trenchant sermons in that beautiful Cathedral which he had raised and adorned in every possible way, neither shall I ever forget his kindness and geniality to my wife and myself.

Lord Chief Justice Coleridge says:

It gave me a pang to hear of the death of my dear, old, honoured friend who has for fifty years been by me most truly and deeply honoured and beloved.....He has been so intensely taken up with the duties that lay around his feet that he has not been known in England so well or so widely as he deserved, but Mr. Gladstone once said to me he thought "his was the wisest head that wore a mitre." His goodness, his accomplishments, his noble simplicity, I have seldom known approached in the experience of what is now a long life. [In his life of Keble, Lord Coleridge gives a letter dated at Hursley Vicarage, 6th October, 1853, in which Keble writes: "I do wish to know whether you have any objection to appropriating the proceeds of the next edition of the 'Lyra' to Fredericton, for I very much wish to do something for dear Medley, and hardly know how to do it any other way."]

Another correspondent in England writes:

How many delightful memories you have to sustain you amidst the daily trial? Every spot, every spiritual theme, even every cross will recall him in some way to you. How you must miss his melodious voice at the Cathedral,2 his gentle, thoughtful, reverent manner, and the look of absorption in the worship, his hands folded in prayer, as they now are "in peace," his face radiant with delight, so quiet and intense in the Psalms and music, his manly, clear utterance, so full of faith in Divine truths and so pregnant with learning, and clothed in simple, terse, comprehensive English, his quiet tread along the aisle, or by the altar, with such an absence of self-consciousness, and the unexaggerated reading of Holy Scripture, devout, yet marked with true and subtle perception of the inner meaning and spirit of it all. "Truly a Prince, and a great man is fallen in Israel."

Commenting on this, Lord Coleridge remarks: "I am unable to say what answer I returned as to the 'Lyra,' nor is it material; but I would not omit the question, because it is a testimony to a dear friend, one of the most sound, and zealous, and able of our Colonial Bishops, which it will give him a pleasure he well deserves to see recorded."

The Bishop had a very melodious voice, and his reading was simply perfect. The late Principal of Education frequently said it was the greatest treat to hear the Metropolitan read the 15th of 1 Corinthians--the Burial chapter. It was a perfect piece of eloquence, every accent, every tone giving the full sense and beauty of that wonderful chapter. His reading of the daily lessons was looked forward to by many as a commentary on the chapter, and throwing new light on every verse.

Rev. H. W. Tucker, Secretary of the S.P.G. writes:

I heard of the death of the great and famous first Bishop of Fredericton with much sorrow. The Bishop's life and work has been familiar to me from my boyhood, and I shall always honour his memory as I honoured his life.

In conveying a resolution of sympathy from the Standing Committee of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge the Rev. W. Osborn Allen, Secretary, says:

The Bishop of Fredericton had been a member of the Society since 1828 and one of the Vice-Presidents since his consecration in 1845. We have therefore to mourn the death of one, who was not only a standard-bearer in the Church in Canada, but also one of our oldest members, and honoured Vice-Presidents. I find that in the ten years between 1880 and 1890, we helped him to build no less than twenty-eight Churches in his Diocese, our correspondence with him was always a pleasure, and we received from him many expressions of his gratitude. You alone can estimate the depth of your own loss, but it may be a comfort to you to know that the Metropolitan of Canada was honoured in England as a great figure, and a truly good man.

The Bishop of Bloemfontein writes from South Africa:

I feel I have lost a dear and revered friend, yet we cannot grudge him his rest after such a long, devoted and honoured life, and after passing through so many trials, so bravely borne. I would fain hope that in his place of rest he still remembers us who are struggling here, as we are permitted to remember him, and all other faithful departed, in our prayers.

Extracts could be made from more than five hundred letters received within the first three months of his death, and from the public addresses, but the above will suffice to show the universal love and veneration with which he was regarded.

It was remarked that on no previous occasion on the death of any public man was the press in the province so unanimous in notices of regret, und in expressions of regard.

The following is an extract from the letter of a correspondent in the Church Times:

It may be well said of Bishop Medley what Dr. Maclear has embodied in his able monograph on St. Augustine's college, viz., that he brought home to himself and to his clergy the great fact of the spiritual and catholic character of the English Church, that it holds entire and uncorrupt the inspired Word of God; it retains and uses the three creeds which it has inherited from the earliest times; it has ill the works of its own famous teachers a rich store of accurate and philosophical divinity; and it has ever been the foremost in its witness to the cardinal truths of the incarnation and sacrifice of the Son of God.

It would take volumes to tell of our dear Bishop's goodness to "all sorts and conditions of men." By the poor around his home, whether in England or in Fredericton, he can never be forgotten; the sacredness of his personal share of sorrow and pain cannot be more than named here; to his great generosity to his clergy their churches, their homes, and, most of all, their libraries, bear abundant witness; to his full knowledge and great skill in administration, to his strong and definite church principles, his diocese and every parish and mission within it afford plentiful testimony.

His last illness, his death, the carrying of his body into his beloved cathedral by his clergy, the watch all through the night, the crowded church, the thronged Eucharists on the day of his burial; all told of a great burst of love and respect and veneration which his life in its truth, its simplicity, its unfailing courage, its deep and loving humility, has called forth from all who knew him as a great Bishop of the Church of God.

This short remembrance would indeed be incomplete if it did not contain some tribute to our dear Bishop's wife. She, as his unfailing companion and help-meet, has done more than can ever be known here for the Church and for our Bishop; as she is still here, as all hope and pray for years to come, more cannot be said than this, that the Diocese turns to her with an expression of sympathy deep and true, because its love for the Bishop was deep und true.

The following notice is from another English paper:

In after years the good Bishop often related some of the amusing memories of his first experiences in the colony. From the first he set a fine example of simplicity and domestic life, so needful above all in a land where wealth confers the chief distinction, and where ostentation too often passes for the hall-mark of social pre-eminence. He was enabled to lay broadly and deeply the foundations of the Anglican Church in the Province to which he was appointed. Many spots in New Brunswick which were spiritually "waste places" on his arrival are now centres of spiritual enlightenment. As a preacher Dr. Medley's style was never wearisome or diffuse. He was a master of English, and he never talked over the heads of his people, but used pure strong Saxon that went straight to the head and heart. His services in the cause of church music, church architecture, and the better and more reverential performance of public worship are well known. In every sphere of life throughout New Brunswick his name will long be held in hallowed remembrance, while many in more distant places will bear witness to his piety, his singleness of aim, and his personal worth.

At the meeting of the Provincial Synod, held, at Montreal, the following resolution was adopted by a standing vote:

That the Lower House of the Synod of the Province of Canada do place on record their grateful sense of the treasure possessed by the Church in Canada in the life and labours of the venerable and venerated Metropolitan, the Most Rev. J. Medley, Bishop of Fredericton, from the creation of that Diocese in 1845 down to this year of grace 1892. Forty-seven years' service in the sacred and laborious office of a Bishop of the Church of God marked by such unceasing and devoted labours and distinguished by such soundness of judgment and ripeness of learning cannot be summed up in any brief statement. The history of this ecclesiastical Province and of the Church in the Diocese of Fredericton is the memorial of the most reverend Father in God, for whose entrance into rest we bless God while we mourn our own loss.

That the Prolocutor be requested to convey a copy of this resolution to the Synod of the Diocese of Fredericton and to Mrs. Medley, with the earnest assurance of the heartfelt sympathy of the Lower House of the Provincial Synod.

Letter from the Rector of Trinity church, St. John:

ST. JOHN, January 10, 1893.

My Dear Canon Ketchum:

In complying with your kind request, that I should furnish some personal reminiscences of our late beloved Bishop, I must confess that I naturally feel a good deal of difficulty in making a selection from those that crowd on the memory, through the lengthened period, of nearly twenty years, that it was my privilege to work under and with him.

From my first introduction to the Bishop in October, 1873, when I arrived from England to undertake my present duties, to the last time he was with me in Trinity Church in July, 1892, I received from him nothing but the greatest consideration and much personal kindness. As I was frequently associated with him in Diocesan work, it is almost needless to say that much occurred that called out diversity of opinion, and sometimes constrained me to take a line to which he did not altogether agree, but I never heard a reproving or unkind word. In one matter it was my painful duty to differ from him so much as even to record my vote in the Synod against a work which he had approved, but his charity did not fail, and no disturbance of his uniform kindness ever took place.

The first special mark of his favour I received in 1876, when the Bishop appointed me one of the honorary Canons of the Cathedral, and asked me at the same time to be one of the trustees of the building and its furniture. In 1888 he still further honored me by asking me to be his commissary during a lengthened absence from the Diocese, while he went to attend the conference of Bishops at Lambeth.

In thinking over his life and work, no one, I should say, could fail to admire his attachment to his clergy and devotion to his Diocese generally. To the younger clergy especially he was indeed a father in God, and felt for them the warmest sympathy in their endeavour to grapple with the difficulties of their often widely extended and arduous missions. His frequent gifts of money and books, as well as his kind hospitality so freely bestowed on them all, leave no doubt that he bore with them the burden of ministerial labor, and held them in remembrance in his thoughts and prayers. The Bishop's attachment to his Diocese is the more worthy of notice, as the history of the Colonial Episcopate furnishes, alas! so many instances of Episcopal resignations, and return to the mother land. I do not believe that our dear Bishop ever entertained such an idea. It is well known that when he went to England for a visit, I think it was the last one, he stated that the happiest day he spent away was the one on which he put his foot on the steamer to return. O si sic omnes! The Church would then have a chance of taking far deeper root in the land, and growing and expanding as we desire.

I must further say that in nothing did the Bishop's saintliness of life appear to me more conspicuous than in his simple habits and unaffected piety. The fashion of this world was not his guide, and it was easy to see how much he disliked ostentatious display. He even doubted the use of public meetings, because as he once said to me, people so often say on platforms such nonsense and speak so insincerely. Very closely did he follow the steps of the Master who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and whose voice was not heard in the streets.

I have mentioned above the time when I first met Bishop Medley; I must tell of the last scene. It was my privilege to be in Fredericton during his closing hours. The day before he died, as he lay quite unconscious of what was going on around him, I knelt with several others around his bed in supplication for Divine blessing and help in the parting strife. The next morning I was in his room at any early hour to know how he was. Apparently he was much the same. I knelt by his bedside and said the "Nunc Dimittis," and then took a farewell look. That was the closing scene. In less than an hour, the dear Bishop had entered into rest. The life of eighty-seven years, and the episcopate of forty-seven were ended. It was a calm sunset after a life of long and glorious work.

I shall trespass no more on valuable space. I feel it a privilege to have been allowed to make this brief contribution to the memoir. Yours very sincerely,

F. H. J. BRIGSTOCKE,
Rector of Trinity Church.

P. S.--I herewith enclose a copy of the resolution passed by the Vestry of Trinity Church in memory of our late Bishop.

"We, the Rector, Church Wardens, and Vestry of Trinity Church, place on record our deep sense of the loss which the Church, in this Diocese has sustained by the death of its Bishop, the Right Reverend John Medley, D. D., which took place on September 9th, 1892, and the expression of our high esteem for his life and work.

We regard with much veneration his long episcopate of forty-seven years, and admire his abundant labours, his single-mindedness, and untiring devotion to the work of his Diocese.

By his great attainments, and high standard of Christian living, we readily recognize his eminent fitness for the office of a Bishop, and how richly he adorned it by his saintly life. As comparatively few have attained his years in the Episcopal office, so we believe that few will be found who have more faithfully performed the sacred duties attached to it.

We offer our respectful sympathy to Mrs. Medley in her bereavement.

Further Resolved, That the Vestry Clerk transmit a copy of the above resolution to Mrs. Medley."

Letter from the Rural Dean of Woodstock:

WOODSTOCK, Feb. 14, 1893.

The last visit of our dear Bishop to our Deanery was made early in September, 1890. On Tuesday, the 9th, he came by train to Woodstock to start the next day for New Denmark, but in the night he was taken so ill that Dr. Smith was called in under whose skilful treatment the Bishop soon rallied and recovered so rapidly that by noon he determined to proceed on his journey. He would not if possible disappoint the Danes who were expecting him, and in whom he had always felt the very deepest interest.

I accompanied him by train to Grand Falls, whence we drove to New Denmark a distance of eight miles, the nest day. The service at New Denmark was of a most interesting character, twenty persons were confirmed, and ninety-eight received the Holy Communion out of a congregation of about two hundred. It was pleasing to see the deep affection and respect of the Danes for the Bishop, as they gathered around him after the service to have him shake hands with them, and to speak a word of kind encouragement to them.

Service was held that evening at Grand Falls and the next day the Bishop returned to Woodstock, still feeling the effects of his late sharp attack of illness. On Sunday, September 14th, he administered Confirmation at St. Luke's Church, Woodstock, and in the evening preached. The next day he returned to Fredericton. This visit of our dear Bishop was a cause of great joy to us all though we were forced to feel that it was likely to be, as it proved, the last visit that he was to make us.

To express in few words the view which his life and character present to our minds, and the place he ever held in our hearts, would be impossible. As for me personally, the earliest recollections of my childhood are associated with him as friend and Bishop, and through all the years of my life and ministry his wise and loving character has ever been a deep and powerfully inspiring influence.

In our Parish he always seemed to take an especial interest,--as was shown by his ever kind intercourse, his wise guidance, his constant gifts in aid of the Church, and his fullest sympathy whenever any sorrow or trial befell us, either personally, or as a Parish.

And the Clergy of our Deanery have placed these few words on record. "To us his Clergy, he was at all times a wise, patient and loving Father in God, and the memory of his teaching and the example of his life will serve to encourage us in all our future labour in the Church of Christ."

The following extracts are from sermons preached the Sunday after the funeral of the Bishop, in prominent churches in the City of St. John, by clergymen of different schools of thought.

From a sermon at the Mission Chapel of St. John Baptist, St. John, by the Rev. Pelham Williams, S. T. D., Priest in charge, from the text Psalm lxxviii. 73, the following passages are taken:

While there is a hush in the air and a shadow over the Diocese, men are saying to each other, "That was a great career which found its earthly close last Friday." That was a great heart, which beats no more; and a great brain, which has been bright, and clear, and busy for many a long year with the grandest themes and interests; and a great will-power, which pressed right on, right through, right over the most real hindrances and difficulties; and a great wisdom, which knew how to deal with knotty problems and perplexing facts; and a great courage, which never quailed or failed; and a great patience which could wait, and wait, until the storm should pass, and the turmoil should cease; and a great firmness which could not and would not yield one inch of holy ground, or Catholic truth, or lofty principle, or steadfast conviction; and a great perseverance, which could renew, in the fitting time and way, some hindered purpose, or baffled effort; and a great energy, which kept vigorous nerves in an old manhood, until its work was done.

One would gladly turn to those pictures in the long life-story, which would give us the sturdy boyhood; the diligent student at Oxford; the Curate serving in the rural life in Devon; the young Priest toiling in Cornwall; the Vicar and Prebendary under the strong Bishop of Exeter; then himself a Bishop, crossing the seas to serve and rule, in colonial life, a diocese not too ready to understand and appreciate, and uphold him; and then, at last, the Metropolitan, honored, trusted, revered, wielding all his power for the welfare of the Church; ruling with gentle and gracious dignity, enforcing respect, winning admiration; true to his work, true to his God, and true to the hope set before him.

Yet the sermon space is ever brief; and we may be content just here and now, to ask what gave to Bishop Medley, that vigorous, inflexible devotion to duty, at any and every cost, which made him the hero and the saint, and which fairly won for him, ere he fell asleep, the title of the Brave and Wise Bishop?

I. First, there was the clearest vision, in that strong and active mind, of the Catholic Church, as "the Church of the Living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." For him, who holds that verity, with an intense grasp, it is wonderful how much else is clear, in all the realms of faith and duty. Vagueness goes. Light comes, more and more. The Christ is not an absent Lord, but present with his priesthood, in His mysteries of the altar, under the veil of the written word, through His appointed means of grace, by His angels leading His people, and sending His Spirit of Truth into a world of ignorance, and darkness and error. The Church of God, militant here, guarding, defending, proclaiming, upholding the truth of God, cherishing that truth as her most sacred trust; living for it, glorying in it, and faithful to it above all things; it is just this when fully and fairly apprehended, which ennobles and intensifies a churchman's life. And it is this, my beloved, which is the prime element of power in the episcopate. There is the semblance of power indeed, which comes with some brilliant gifts, and exquisite culture, and charm of oratory, and skill in organizing, and perilous toleration; and with that so-called "breadth of view," which is only broad because it is neither deep nor high, and with that "charity," which at last gives away as much of the truth as it firmly retains.

Our Bishop, now at rest, was grandly restful while he wrought, because he held the Catholic Faith, which upheld him. In wearied and troubled moments there comes to us a "great calm," when we say the Creed very slowly. After a second or third repetition, very often the clouds vanish. When we have come to see again, with keen and patient glance, the Church, as the very ark of God, the sense of peace and security is renewed; and when we behold her, as the pillar and ground of the truth, then we know that all is safe and well, where that truth abides, which the Church keeps and maintains, for the saving of our souls.

II. If one word of St. Paul could be chosen, as symbolizing Bishop Medley's Episcopate, it might well be this,--"I magnify mine office." Never from that day when he first put on his robes to the day when last, with trembling hand, he took them off, did he ever seem to forget, or allow any one else to forget, that he was a Bishop in the Church of God. Whatever else he might be--courteous gentleman, ripe and accurate scholar, gracious host, skilful architect or musician, thoughtful counsellor, in all, but above all, the grandeur of his office lost nothing in his conscious estimate of its sacred dignity and its holy responsibilities. It is a cruel mistake, when men choose to think that this savors, in a devout servant of God, of aught, which destroys humility. Far from it. The humblest heart may recognize, with ever deeper lowliness, before God, the height of a great trust, which must not be imperilled, in our keeping. So, he magnified, that is, made great,--never himself--but always that office, which had come to him, from the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls.

While his personal life was noteworthy for rare simplicity in all which pertained to fashion and style, he did not disdain, here and there, the symbols and tokens of his vocation, as the Bishop of a diocese, as the Metropolitan Bishop of a province, as the successor of the Apostles. Yet, it was never the outward claim as separated from the interior reality, but it was the harmonious recognition and exercise of power, which had come to him, and which must be made visible and forcible, for the sake of the highest ends and the very noblest results. Nor is it easy, at once, to measure the influence of such attitude and character upon the Episcopate of the whole province--upon the Episcopate of the future.

Extracts from a sermon by the Rev. J. deSoyres, M. A., rector of St. Mark's parish, St. John, from the text 2 Tim. iv. 7, "I have finished my course."

Many of you have heard that one whose life from any point of view was noble and memorable, has "finished his course." Already from the columns of the press words of generous acknowledgment--of merited recognition--have gone forth. Praise almost unmingled and yet truth; for there are lives where the old and abused maxim, nil nisi bonum mortuis, can be exchanged for the better rendering, nil nisi verum.

But we can do more than echo the words of praise that are on the lips of all, irrespective of creed and party. At the end of a course so long and so eventful, we can judge--we can anticipate posterity itself, for many of us are the posterity of that generation which gave birth to John Medley, Bishop of Fredericton.

The preacher then alludes to what is called the "Oxford movement," with which it is well known the Bishop was in sympathy. He then proceeds:

But the people of his Diocese knew him in other respects than as a staunch upholder of one school of thought in the Church of England. They knew him, and I know that all respected and were proud of him as the many-sided man--the man whose entrusted talents had not been few, and had been richly increased; the man who in many, if not all intellectual qualities, stood above those who met him or opposed him. .........

But two gifts were especially his. Powers which, if not indispensable for a minister of God, are invaluable helps--the one for the work of rightly dividing the word of truth, the other as the means of making its teachings clear, intelligible, and felt by the heart. I mean scholarship and eloquence.

And another great gift he possessed was utterance, both by voice and writing. Not his the popular eloquence which is advertised and sent to market; not his the power, and far less the inclination, to startle or puzzle and excite to laughter in sacred places, or to the vulgar admiration which demands a coarse sustenance. But his was that true eloquence which depends upon accurate thought and exquisite fitness of language, pulsating with true feeling, like the gentle rise and fall of billows on a summer sea. And when that true eloquence is aided by the inflections of a voice like his, by an utterance simple, distinct, earnest and coming from the heart, it is a power for God.

Mr. deSoyres illustrates what he has said by several quotations from the volume of sermons the Bishop published in 1845, and concludes as follows:

With Christ his loved Master rests our good Bishop and Pastor. He has bequeathed an example to all of us, not in this opinion or that practice, but in the scheme of his whole life. He has left to Canada an example of a type which, whether in the mother country or the colonies, tends sadly to diminish--that of the gentleman who needs no lavish surroundings to prove his position and maintain his dignity, who is equal to himself in all circumstances ......

He has left us the example of a citizen who was an honour to his adopted country, avoiding no duty, grudging no obligation, but knowing that it was in the due performance of his own work that he best proved his citizenship. Rarely he offered counsel; more often it was asked of him, and then he gave the ripe fruit of a keen intelligence and wide knowledge of the world, and a profound sense of what was due to a country's and a city's honour. And to us his subordinates, his spiritual children, especially, he has left an example most precious and yet most exacting. Though he never concealed his own firm and strong convictions, no one could have been, in his later days, as I knew him, more tolerant of legitimate difference, more courteous to adverse opinions within the limits of our Church.

What that example was in munificent generosity, in anxious care for his subordinates, in encouragement to young ministers, in scrupulous performance of duty, that is known to us all. May it be ours to follow in his footsteps! May his constant prayers for this, his beloved Diocese, be heard! May the good providence of God help us at the present time, assist the present Bishop, the successor of an historical episcopate, the inheritor of difficult responsibilities!"

In addition to what is here so impressively said, the following words of the preacher are subjoined, which were written during the Bishop's lifetime:

Let us think of the Cathedral placed by the river side forever afterwards his monument and his work. Of that moment when it seemed that it would never be finished, and how prayer was raised, and confidence survived, and then the generous and unknown contribution made all things possible once more.

What daring scribe will venture to dwell with needless emphasis on what all who read this journal know as the living and acted sermon of a life-time, that embodiment of the Christian and gentleman, blended so that each aspect is the necessary supplement of the other.

Who will dare to repeat the genial stories which the good Bishop (not seldom at his own expense) loves to relate, and relates so well, of amusing experiences in his travels, and of the records of intercourse with many minds, of which none left him unimproved or uncheered by courtesy or friendly word?

Who will speak of that perfect example of simplicity and domestic life, so needful above all in a land where wealth confers the chief distinction, and where ostentation too often passes for the hall-mark of social pre-eminence.

But of these things we need not write, because they are known. The people of this province know now, if they knew it not at first, and learned it but tardily, that they have among them one who in any century, and in any environment, could have stood in the foremost rank, not as a scholar, although his knowledge far outstrips many possessors of showy academical diplomas; not as an orator, though to listen to his preaching is the supremest luxury to a trained literary taste, and not one of his clergy even distantly approaches him; not even as an organizer, for the business faculty does not thrive perhaps in Devonshire; but in that mysterious result which men call character, which transcends all that men can do in what they are.

No figure at the recent Pan-Anglican Congress excited such attention as that of good Bishop Medley, who (had he wished it) might have preached in every Cathedral pulpit, and been spokesman at each banquet. Around him scholars of European reputation like Lightfoot and Stubbs, preachers like Magee and Boyd-Carpenter, yielded willing deference. And we believe that none can have read without emotion the notice of that service in the little village church of Lullington, where the Bishop and all his sons met together for a last meeting, perhaps.

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