Death of the Rev. David M‘Kee.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 2, Issue 170, 19 October 1880, Page 2

Death of the Rev. David M‘Kee.

A feeling of intense sadness was experienced in the township last night when it became knownthat the Rev. David M‘Kee, after a brief illness, had expired at his residence in Christchurch. It is only a few weeks since the rev. gentleman visited Ashburton for the purpose of preaching the anniversary sermons of the Presbyterian Church, also giving a lecture in the Town Hall in connection with the same cause. Mr. M‘Kee came to this colony from Ireland only in January last. At Home he was pastor of Rutland Church, Dublin, and almost immediately on his arrival here he was called to the new charge at Sydenham. The deceased gentleman died of an attack of slow fever, at the comparatively early age of 42. A friend writing of him in the Times this morning says : —The sympathy felt by friends and neighbours was most touching. Yesterday morning it became known that all hope of recovery was gone, and in the course of the afternoon he breathed his last: He was 42 years of age. He leaves to the church of his adoption a wife and nine children and an aged mother, who accompanied him to New Zealand. It is very difficult for the writer to convey to bis readers anything like a realising idea of the affection with which Mr. M’Kee was regarded by his congregation and neighbors. He had the rare faculty of loving others, and showing his affection without any fussiness. Possessed of more than average talent, he was the very incarnation of quiet modesty.