THE LATE MR BULLER.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1932, 22 November 1884, Page 2

THE LATE MR BULLER.

On Sunday evening last at S. Paul's church, Cambridge the Rev. H. R. Dewsbury delivered an impressive sermon on " Life's Problem solved," It was preached with reference to the death of the Rev. James Buller, an ex-President of the Wesleyan Conference. In the course of bis sermon the preacher said that for \ nearly half a century Mr Buller had been connected more or less intimately with almost every social and religious movement in the colony. He was one ofj the earliest of that noble bind of men, who ( exposing themselves to all the perils of a missionary's life, and to 'all the privations of a missionary's loneliness, sought to dispel the heathen darkness from the land in which we live. He took no unimportant part in moulding the character of the Method'ißt Church in New Zealand, and in recognition of his eminent service, was elevated on two occasions through the confidence of his brethren to the position of pieaident of the Conference. He was wise in counsel, skillful in debate. Few men were better kni.ir n, non« more sincerely loved ih m Father Buller. The preacher was not there to utter words of eulogy, but it was # not to much to say that their present position of prosperity as a church in the colony arising from the elasticity of their system, and its power of adapting itself to the exigencies of colonial life was largely dueito Mr Buller's far-sighted wisdom, and to the important part he took in framing .the Wesleyan ecclesiastical constitution. Ahnost within the, year four; leaders in the church had fallen. -It inu,ns seem , a inysterioua Fnw49Qffi *!S!Mf W* P*rtiwtor juncture

God should see fit to remove such men. The General Conference now holding its sessions in ChriitchiU'ch was discussing questions- vital to the church's well-being, and the loss of such men at such a juncture, when the wisdom of their counsels and the soundness of their judgment would have gone far to guide the chinch through the perils that beset it, was a public calamity.