AFTEE LONG SEEVICE

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 89, 12 October 1932, Page 8

AFTEE LONG SEEVICE

REV. J. MCCAW RETIRING

After nearly twenty-four years of active ministry .at Knox Church, Lower Hutt, the Eev. James McCaw will retire at the end of the year. His resignation was accepted last evening by the Wellington Presbytery. Mr. McCaw is the senior minister of the Lower Hutt churches, and has always been looked upon as a.leader in interchurch activities ana public affairs. During the many years that he has ministered in Lower Hutt, Mr. MeCaw has endeared himself to the hearts of the people, and those of other denominations besides his own will regret that he has decided to lay aside active work.

Mr. MeCaw came from Scotland with his parents and eight other members of the family, landing in Wellington in September, 1880. The family moved south to ' Milton, where most of the members engaged in farming -pursuits. In 1891, Mr. McCaw, who had done a considerable amount of local preaching, felt the calT to enter the ministry of the church, and he undertook home mission work in Oteramika and Forest Hill, near InvercargilL In 1898 he removed with his wife and family to Pahiatua, where, after a course of extra study, he was ordained to tho full status of the ministry. His parish* extended from the Palmerston track on the west coast to Ohongo on the east coast, and from Eketahuna in the south to the Ngawataruru bridge m the north. In 1905 he accepted a call to Martinborough, where he remained until 1909, when he was called to Knox Church, Lower Hutt. H*e will have been minister there for nearly twenty-four years when he retires at the end of the year. He has been forty-two years in, - the service of his church, and for the past thirty-four years has been connected with the Wellington. Presbytery. For many years he served on the Presbyterian' Orphanage Board, the Scots College Board, the Church Extension Committee, and the Beneficiary Committee of the Church. He was also a member of the chaplaincy during the war period. \ Mrs. McCaw has been an able assistant to her husband in his work. For many years" she has conducted the senior girls' Bible classes, and has been president of all the women's work in the Church. For some considerable time she was president of the Plunket Society, Lower Hutt.

It is not Mr. McCaw's intention to accept another fixed charge after his retirement, and his future movements are as yet undecided.,