DEATH OF NOTED BISHOP.

Taihape Daily Times, 19 February 1919, Page 6

DEATH OF NOTED BISHOP.

ONE OF QUEEN VICTORIA’S FAVOURITE PREACHERS

We regret to record the death of Dr. Boyd Carpenter, formerly Bishop of Eipon, and since 1911 Canon of Westminister. Death waj due to pneumonia. Born in Liverpool in 1841 he received his early education at the Royal Institution School, Liverpool; he went to Cambridge where he soon began to bo known for his erudition and in 1804 he won the Senior Optime. As curate of All Saints’, Maidstone, from IS (it to 1860, he began his ministry. His next appointment was at Clapham, and thereafter his clerical duties were largely performed within the Metropolitan area, till he attained to the bishopie of Eipon in 1884. As a preacher Bishop Boyd Carpenter was one of the most eloquent men on the episcopal bench. In his prime he had la rapid flow of limpid English which frequently carried him- along . at the rate of 170 to 200 words a... minute. Only an expert stenographer.could attempt to follow the Bishop’s, sermons and addresses, which as ia rule were delivered without notes. Someone asked him once whether he felt nervous on the many occasions when he preached before Royalty. This referred more particularly -to J his sermons during the life of Queen j Victoria. "I never address the Queen '.at all,” the Bishop replied. ”1 know there will be present the Queen, the Princess, the Royal house-, hold, and the servants, down to the scullei'y-maid and I preach to the scullery-maid. ” Whether the Bishop preached to the Queen or the scullery maid, the story is told that the Queen - asked the Bishop to lengthen his sermons, notwithstanding her aversion j to long discourses. A record is pro- j served of the sermon he delivered \ in 1902, when the Kaiser was visit- >

ing King Edward, at Sandringham. King and Kaiser sat side by side, and listened intently to the discourse, whose main arguments were directed

to blending that was then thought to bo proceeding between the British and the German races. Between theB’isliop and the Kaiser there existed' at one time a warm friendship. The* Kaiser became acquainted with the Bishop at the Court of 'his grandmother, Queen Victoria, and since that time until the war they remained, on the Kaiser's confession in .1911, in close personal relations with one another. Dr. Boyd Carpenter was in attendance on the Empress Frederick when she lay dying, ami during that period Kaiser and Bishop wore thrown much together. During the Bishop’s presence with the Empress Frederick when she was only waiting for the end she asked him to read the English burial service over her after her death, and this task he faithfuly carried out. This close relationship with the German Royal Family caused him to be appointed a Knight of the Order of the Royal Crown of Prussia. He was also friendly with Browning, Bailey, | the author of “Fcstus,” and a host of writers and thinkers like _Glad-,-( stone and Liddon.