MEMORIAL SERVICE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 61, 18 November 1907, Page 2

MEMORIAL SERVICE.

o THE LATE MRS NIXON. In the Primitive Methodist Church • last night a memorial service to the lute Mrs Nixon was held, Rev. 0. E. jW'iird preaching to a very large congregation. The pulpit was draped in black. Special and appropriate hymns were sung, and the choir sang the anthem, '•Who are these?" The preacher took his text from Revelations XIV., v. 13, "And I heard a voice from Heaven say, write.blessed are the dead which die ill the Lord, from henceforth; yea, saitli the spirit that they may rest from their labors; and tiieir works do follow them. The rev. gentleman preached an eloquent sermon, full of sympathy, and delivered a Sketch of the life of Mrs. Nixon. She was the eldest daughter 'ol | the lato Mr. Henry Hirst, of Mount , Roskill, Auckland. She was born in 1853, at Barnley, Lancashire, England, and with her parents came to Auckland in 1855. She was educated at Wesley College, Auckland, under the Rev. J. HFletcher, at one time clergyman in New Plymouth, and a fine specimen of what Methodism could produce in those days. As a child she passed through the excitement and hardships incidental to the Maori war, and came into contact with the earlv missionaries and their families, (in her mother's side she had Quaker influence that helped Fo shape her character—quiet, practical, coinmnn- ' sense, unemotional, and straightforward, j Tier father was a Methodist. As a girl she attended the Wesleyan, Church.

Sunday School and Band of Hope. Upon her parents going to the Thames district, she commenced her life's work, using in God's work His special gift of a voice of much compass and peculiar beauty, full of tenderness, pathos, and power. This talent she gave in the work of the Church'and in every good cause. At that time, between the age of 20 and 25 years, she was one of the. leading singers in the musical city of Auckland. Tn 1881 she was happily married to the Rev. John Nixon by tho Rev. Joseph Long and Dr. William Morley. From the date of her marriage she manifested a keen interest in church work, helping to the utmost of her ability and strength and proving indeed a helpmate to her husband. At Ashburton, their first station, Mrs Nixon had a girls' Bibleclass, and many of her class were foremost workers in later years to carry prohibition in that town. In all the

subsequent stations, Dunedin City, Thorndon (Wellington), New Plymouth (1800-1805), Auckland, the Bluff, and then New Plymouth again, where they

labored for another seven years, Mrs Nixon did her share of the church work, but in the. last few years she had been

an invalid. All that science and love could do was done to lengthen out her valuable life, but all failed. All her

life she was a sincere follower of Christ and her religion gave her serenity and strength in Hfe's trials, patience and, perseverance in difficulty, courage, endurance, and fortitude in life's duties, and hope, assurance, and victory in death. As a woman she had been loved and admired by all who knew her; in her home, all that a wife and mother could be—"Her children rise up and ca,ll her blessed, her husband also praiseth her." She was a woman that all good women approached with confidence, an,l true men respected her.