IN MEMORIAM

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 9, Issue 500, 27 January 1920, Page 2

IN MEMORIAM

MR< MONTEITH WRIGHT. in death~vTctorious. RICHER AND FULLER LIFE. "Though 1 speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal."—lst Corinth., 13 ch., Ist.

The vestry of the Pukekohe Methodist Church had to be depleted of its chairs on Sunday evening, in order that seats might be provided for the later arrivals of the great congregation which attended the memorial service conducted by the Rev. J. F. Martin, resident minister, in honour of the late Mr. Monteith Wright.

Depth of Soul.

"The late Mt. Monteith Wright," said the minister, in his simple, earnest, impressive, and inspiring manner, "had an irresistibly charming nature. Had a stranger come into Pukekohe on the day of his funeral he might have thought the community was paying tribute to a great leader of the people, so numerous and representative was the following. The reason of this great tribute was that the deceased person had a wondrous depth of soul, which touched the heart of the district. And none knew his in nermost soul better than I did, for although he was not a member of the Methodist Church, Mrs. Wright is, and he attended services here, and it was my privilege to be the confidant of what was enshrined in his soul."

Our Greatest Possession. Basing his discourse on the 131 h chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians, the preacher averred that a death such as the one being commemorated brought before us the eternal truth that death was; really our greatest privilege and possession. Death was but the dark portal of the brightest dawn vouchsafed to troubled humanity. There was not a cavern in the mysterious depths of the ocean, not a cave in the forest, not a street, a hovel or a palace in our places of habitation Where Death was not a visitor. Life, in all its amazing complexity, was shot with broad lanes of sorrow and suffering, to which death came as a blessed relief. Gazing on the face of the dead, with, its hallowed and beautiful repose, who would wish to recall a loved one to this world of strife and torment? No one having any real understanding of what life meant weuld wish to live for ever, because such an one would be gradually bereft of loved ones and friends, and would still have to shoulder the burdens of life in a world that had become to him a great overpowering loneliness. By references from Professor Drummond's "Natural Law In the Spiritual World," the minister, by parallel reasoning, adduced the conclusion that as matter might be traced from the solid to the liquid, shence to the invisible vapour, so our physical life was but a step in the ascension from the mundane,-the material, to the spiritual, celestial life. The stars in their courses might be shattered into cosmic dust and gaseous form, but the great moral and spiritual forces could never die, but rose in their splendour to the source from which they first emanated to infuse the heavenly breath of life into mortals here below.

Mountain Tops are Gleaming. Poor in spirit, indeed, was he who, like Pliny of pagan Rome, could sneer at "these poor people who imagined they were destined to enjoy immortality." How infinitely more noble and inspiring were the words of Mary Foster: "Though I pass through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the mountain tops are gleaming before me with the htjht of a radiant, heavenly dawn!" Death was but the threshold of the fuller life of Eternity, where all our talents and gifts would find a richer, fuller expression.

Harmonies appropriate to the memorial service were selected, including "In Immanuel's Land," "Peace. Perfect Peace," and "Lead Kindly Light." At the close of the Benediction, the organist (Miss Muriel Webb) played The Dead March, in Saul.