THE REV. R. COFFEY, M.A.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXI, Issue 8765, 16 March 1907, Page 3

THE REV. R. COFFEY, M.A.

■ In the person of|Mr Richard Ooffey, who died Thursday last, a striking and somewhat original figure has • passed away from the Diocese of Wellington and the parish of St. Mark’s. .Mr Ooffey graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1865, and took a first class in Divinity in the ensuing year. It is possible there is something in the*training of Dublin University that especially elicits character. Anyhow of the Dublin men who have come to this Diocese, all of them have had a distinctive character of their own, and two of them a very marked individuality indeed. One cannot assign them so easily as one can Cambridge or Oxford men to a particular school of thought. They belong more to themselves than to their school, and without being eclectic by design, assimilate a good deal from all schools, but are first themselves—a virtue in itself. It may be they have not had so dominating a personality among them, as Cambridge in Simeon, or Oxford in Newman; but one would hardly venture to say so, to a Dublin man with Archer Butter in one’s mind, Mr Coffey, after working at home, took work in the Diocese of Dunedin from 1868:to 1876. Thence he came to Wellington and started the Parochial District, subsequently the Parish of St. Mark, where he has been at work for over thirty years; and, with the exception of the "Archdeacons, has served longer in the Diocese than any other clorygman. He was quite an exceptional parish priest, and as long as numbers made it possible, took an equal interest in all his parishioners, and except in sickness gave himself specially to none. He was at the head of everything, very determinedly so, and Overvthing throve under his hand. For many years St. Mark’s was the best organised parish in the Diocese and in that respect has no superior to this day. Ho almost lived entirely in and for St. Mark’s. In the opinion of the writer of this notice, had Mr Ooffey been offered s: a bishopric within the last fifteen years, lie would not have been able to have tom himself from St. Mark’s; and his people appreciated his devotion to them. In all his work ho lias found exceptional help in his wife and sister. They, too, seemed to live I for the parish. For the last seven years Mr Ooffey has had the help of two assistant curates in succession, ' who have entered into his work with heart and soul; the present 'Vicar of Greytown, and Mr Bartlett. It is some consolation to Mrs and Miss Coffey’s numerous friends that Mr Bartlett, who is au inmate of the Vicarage, will he able to render those nameless spiritual solicitudes of the moment, that it would be beyond the power of others so effectually to do Mr Ooffey was a quick and forcible speakor,| with that Irish gift of humour, which enabled him to say, c alike in Church and in Synod, things c which would have given offence in the months of Englishmen. Ho was , fearless alike in speech and deed ; and no man was less influenced by the - passing opinions of the hour. From ' his first appearance in Synod to the last, he had the ear of his audience, >- and among the second order of 1 clergy, no one, with the exception of a fellow countryman, and the pos- f sihle exception of Mr Still, at ono i time Vicar of St. Paul’s, so commanded attention. He had so kindly a heart, and was felt to have, that 8 the arrows of his rhetoric in debate, though at times exceedingly keen, wore never envenomed, and so left no souse of bitterness behind them, and ] those that admired him most in his vigour and quickness in debate, were not unoften his opponents. As , long as the English Church had so striking a personage in "Wellington to represent her, she never could be- f come a negligible quantity, whatever i opposition there might he to her tenets or her policy. Let ns hope that his successor may have the like grip of the substance of his beliefs, and the same fearlessness in maintaining them. His vigour of cliarac- T ter and gifts of expression are beyond * most of ns. J A.Y.T. a