Evening Service.

In the evening there was an [unclear: overflow] congregation. The gallery and body of church were almost filled before the bel[unclear: ls] [unclear: menced] to ring out the summons to [unclear: wo] and the building was not only crowded [unclear: in] part before 6.30 p.m.—forms and chai[unclear: rs] brought in for the accommodation of [unclear: a] of persons, while others were conte[unclear: nt] standing room, and remained on the[unclear: ir] throughout the service,—but hundred of [unclear: pe] were unable to gain admission. The [unclear: pulp] occupied by the Rev. J. Chisholm, of [unclear: Mi] who preached from the text Hebrews [unclear: xiii] 8 (revised version): "Remember them [unclear: that] the rule over you," and the words follow[unclear: ing] said:—The death of Dr Stuart will [unclear: be] felt in Dunedin. He was wont to speak [unclear: of] in Scott's phrase, as "Mine own own town" He worked loyally to advan[unclear: ce] highest interests. There is hardly an [unclear: institution] that does not owe something to his [unclear: cou] and energy. But the shadow of his loss [unclear: w] like an eclipse over the whole province, [unclear: daing] many a home. His name is a [unclear: hou] word among us—it is linked by [unclear: bri] baptism to many a fireside. Along wi[unclear: th] tear that gathers in the eye at thought [unclear: of] death, there will start up memories [unclear: of] little mannerism or quaint utterance, and sto[unclear: ry] of how he acted at toe christening [unclear: or] he said at the wedding will be told an[unclear: ew] weeping and with laughter. He stood in [unclear: ev] pulpit of our order from the Waitaki [unclear: to] Bluff, and there are reminiscences [unclear: of] hearty word spoken or some timely [unclear: s] ungrudgingly rendered in every congregation. His [unclear: plaided] form seemed always to remi[unclear: nd] of the breezy hillsides, the pine woods, [unclear: and] heather of his native land. His sunny [unclear: face], cheery manner, his forceful talk, [unclear: bore] them a kind of inspiration. Drooping [unclear: sp] seemed to rally in his presence. All [unclear: lim] of energy stiffened when he was by into [unclear: cour] and hope. He was page 37

[unclear: One] who never turned his back, but marched breast forwards;
Never doubted clouds would break;
[unclear: ver] dreamed though right was worsted wrong would triumph;
[unclear: ld] we fall to rise, are buffeted to fight better, Sleep to wake.

Long before the first step was taken to establish a second Presbyterian Church in Dunedin, God was preparing a man to be its first minister. The requirements set down for the guidance of [unclear: those] at Home who were asked to select a [unclear: ister] for the new charge were briefly these: He was be a man with a fresh, genial natu[unclear: re] attract the young; a liberal-minded man, with sympathies, easy of access to all [unclear: ses] a man in vigorous health, not too [unclear: young] with a varied experience of human [unclear: affairs] These very requirements were being get ready during all the years that young Stuart [unclear: d] amid the often adverse and always conditions, which helped to develop [unclear: ust] and valiant and many-sided [unclear: personality]. The providence and grace of the church's [unclear: ble] head worked marvellously together, and when the call came the man was ready. We re to see for a little how the needed equipment was provided and how it came to be [unclear: supplied]. He was born at a small village call[unclear: ed] in the Highlands of Perthshire. His [unclear: er], a staid, God-fearing man, and much [unclear: suspected] by his neighbours, was a stonemason [unclear: trade]. His mother was a tall, spare woman, with an earnest face and a tender look in her [unclear: eye]. Both had to toil hard and stint themselves in order to make a small income over the [unclear: needs] of 11 children. It was a pious home. Family worship was never missed. Those who have had no experience of this element in [unclear: Feetish] piety may read of it in the "Cottar's Saturday Night." Burns has given us there a [unclear: ture] which has all his vividness—the rich [unclear: r] the varied movement, the pathetic in-[unclear: t]-of real life. There was the singing [unclear: of] Psalm, the reading of a lesson from the sacred page, the prayer that winged the soul to loftiest [unclear: outlook]

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,

Which makes her loved, revered abroad.

Amid such influence gentle spirits are nurtur[unclear: ed] grow through the coming years to the nature of heroes. David Livingstone felt the spell of home piety all through his wanderings. That scene, photographed on the heart of the [unclear: civilised] world, of the worn-out traveller kneeling by his bedside at Ilala, in the heart of Africa, was but the end of a subtle chain whose [unclear: t] link was forged and fastened in the [unclear: home] Blantyre. When not long ago I climbed the circular stairs and stood in the little room where great missionary was born, and afterwards the epitaph which they have graven on the black marble in Westminster Abbey, I thanked God for the pleasant homes of Scotland with their frugal living, their simple pieties, and their sturdy virtues. What Dr Stuart became amongst us here was very much the ripe result of the seed that had been sown in the home of his childhood. He went to school for a while, but when nine years of age was sent to eke out the scanty resources of the household by herding cows. The farmer liked him, and wanted to engage him for another year, but the place was deemed unsuitable, and he returned to home and school again. There is one incident of these days which gives an insight into several things, and shows that the child was father to the man. He was won over, partly by the coaxing and partly by the threats of some older boys, to play truant and go to the woods to gather blackberries. On the way he was enjoined not to tell. He agreed to this, but "if I am asked," he said, "I must speak the truth." Some time after his father went to pay the school fees. The teacher inquired where the boys had been on such and such a day. The father could only reply that they had left home to go to school. When he got back the boy frankly confessed his fault, expressed sincere regret, and submitted with a good grace to the chastisement which, in loving solicitude for his future well-being, the father saw meet to inflict. After his own school days were over he began to teach others. He was wont about this time to carry a bottle of milk to school with the avowed purpose of making his dry bread more palatable at dinner time; but the milk usually found its way to the table of a poor widow near by, whose only son was disabled by asthma. You have all read with what patient valour he fought his way at Leven, and how, surmounting all obstacles, he passed with distinction through an ordinary arts curriculum at the University of St. Andrews. Here, during the long winters, his own earnings were eked out by a little box regularly sent from the old home with cakes and scones and eggs and butter, "smelling of flora and the country green." The colour that had faded through burning the midnight oil came sooner back to the pale cheeks of the student when he got away for a brief rest to his boyish haunts from the fact that he had used to good purpose the strength and courage which the home supplies invariably yielded. During the summer vacations he taught a school or travelled here and there as tutor, ever keeping his eye and ear open to what was lovely and of good report. In Edinburgh he came for a short time under the spell of Dr Chalmers, and drank deep draughts of inspiration from that greatest of modern Scotchmen—so massive in every noble quality. From the grey metropolis of the north he went to the sunnier south, and did good educational work at Windsor. Thence he passed to London, where he studied theology and kindred sub- page 38 jects, and so became fitted by scholarly attainments for the work of the Christian ministry—the goal which he had kept steadily in view from the beginning, and towards which all his past efforts had been persistently directed. Ere long he was settled in Falstone, where he was brought into contact with men of a primitive type: grave shepherds many of them, who had leisure to meditate on the deep things of God. I called when at Home on Dr Marcus Dods with a letter of introduction from your late minister. Dods, as some of you know, is a professor of high standing and one of the most trusted leaders in New Testament criticism at the present time. He hails from the borders, and knows the district on Tyneside where Stuart laboured. His face lit up at once with a fine, appreciative glow when he saw the familiar handwriting. He spoke in the heartiest terms of our common friend, and urged me, if it were possible, to visit Falstone. "Man," said he, "the very dogs go to kirk there. The young minister soon endeared himself to the people and commended the Gospel not only by is vigorous preaching but by his devoted life. He took a keen interest also in education—not only saw that there were schools for the children, but, what was even more characteristic, tried to remove all hindrances, whether of a physical or a moral kind, out of the way of children going to school. A friend told me the other day that when he was at Home he saw a wooden bridge which had been erected over the Tyne, chiefly by the efforts of Stuart, for the convenience of scholars. And every year since he came to Dunedin he has sent Home a pound to keep that bridge tarred and in good repair. While there the call to Knox Church found him. He had been attracted to colonial life. His vivid imagination loved to picture the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth Rock and the building amid the primeval forest of "villages which are now opulent cities, but which have through every change retained some trace of the character derived from their founders." He deemed it a rare privilege to live at the beginnings and have a hand in shaping the destinies of national life. He knew that in the old country other things besides freedom had broadened slowly down from precedent to precedent. Here he felt we were young, our affairs plastic, and much might be done to shape and guide national life to finer forms and better issues than had yet been reached in older lands. Thus he came amongst us well equipped for his great work, with the precise requirements which had been sketched by the foresight of those who may be justly regarded as the fathers of this congregation. Hew were his gifts and graces applied? As a member of his Bible class I can speak from experience of his work amongst the young. He was never tiresome, always fresh and stimulating. He got most of us to write short essays on prescribed [unclear: them] There was clear proof when these [unclear: were] back that they had been carefully read. [unclear: Th] was always a footnote with some word of [unclear: c] He marked the tiniest bud of promi[unclear: se], flooded it with the sunshine of his [unclear: approval]. The corner of Old Knox Church wh[unclear: ere] of young communicants sat one summer evening is sacred ground to me. It was [unclear: near] communion, and we were looking forw[unclear: ard] a certain tremulous desire to commemorate dying love of Jesus. The tones of our [unclear: bel] pastor grew more solemn and tender [unclear: as] the shades of night deepened. He seemed [unclear: to] us to the very foot of the cross. We [unclear: saw] Christ hanging in utter loneliness of sp[unclear: irt] unspeakable agony there. We heard [unclear: a] that seemed calmer than silence pleading us, and our inmost hearts made [unclear: gra] response, "God forbid that I should glo[unclear: ry] in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." loved, as you all know, to preach the [unclear: Gov] He had faith in its efficacy. It made [unclear: him] hopeful man he was. He could never [unclear: des] of even the worst, seeing that Christ's [unclear: him] had been shed to atone for sin, and [unclear: His] and glorified manhood, with its gene[unclear: ral] experience of earthly toil and temptation [unclear: and] and sorrow was now on the throne of [unclear: the] verse. He held his Presbyterianism in subordination to the Gospel, deeming it in according with the Word of God, fitted to give expression to the rights of the Christian people, [unclear: and] furnish effective means of bringing [unclear: the] searchable riches of Christ to bear on the [unclear: b] and lives of all. On one occasion he had [unclear: been] speaking with his usual enthusiasm about the blue banner, when Justice Richmond, [unclear: who] sitting beside him, said, "I like to see you waving it over me, so long as you keep it [unclear: wav] under the glorious banner of the [unclear: Gospel] "That," he replied, "is what I alw[unclear: ays]. He regarded the Presbyterian Church as regiment in that consecrated host which [unclear: no] can number. It had its own banner, [unclear: its] uniform, its own forms of drill and [unclear: discip] its own methods of carrying on the gre[unclear: at] fare against evil and bringing the wo[unclear: rld] subjection to Christ. His own experien[unclear: ce] his wide reading in church history [unclear: convi] him that the Presbyterian Church had [unclear: b] used by God to do a noble work in the old [unclear: wo] and the new. But he never dreamt of [unclear: unching] others because, forsooth, their banner different in shape or colour from his o[unclear: wn], because the kind of weapons they used, or their mode of handling these, did not meet with the approval. The one great end was to get [unclear: h] souls, in the name of Jesus Christ and through the power of His Holy Spirit into the death grapple with sin. He was jubilant th[unclear: en] he well knew on whose side the victory [unclear: would] lie. His many and valuable services in the cause of education were with the same intent page 39 He worked on the lines laid down by the [unclear: ottish] Reformers. He was never weary landing their enlightened zeal in seeking to [unclear: tablish] a school in every parish and a college In every notable town to lead up to the national universities. That was his model. His time and energy were freely given to adapt it to our new [unclear: conditions]. Ignorance he was sure could ne[unclear: ver] the mother of devotion. Every spark of truth and very shred of reality must help to reveal the highest, and beget in men's hearts a deeper [unclear: erence] and in their lives a more acceptable worship Knowledge, he felt, was the hand-Eden of religion, only she must know her place She is the second, not the first.

A higher hand must make her mild,
If all be not in vain, and guide
Her footsteps, moving side by side
With Wisdom, like the younger child.

No one insisted more than he on the fact that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." He knew well that learning was but a [unclear: will-the-wisp] and life an utter failure apart from the "wisdom that cometh from above, which is first pure, then peacable, gentle and easy to be entrusted, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, without hypocrisy." Further, by his widespread activities in visiting the sick, in relieving the destitute, in comforting bereaved, in shedding the light of kindly sympathy into despairing hearts and darkened homes, in lifting the fallen and luring them into the paths of virtue, he was but seeking to bring the manifold grace of God to bear on the varied needs of humanity. The spring of his tireless philanthropy was in the Gospel. It was the love of Christ that constrained him. We regard [unclear: as] his highest claim to our reverence and love the fact that he was a faithful minister of Jesus Christ, Considering his manner of life let us imitate his faith. He believed in Jesus Christ, and gave himself in free, joyful surrender to do his bidding. It must have seemed sometimes a hopeless task to do all the work that was laid to his hand. How was he with his few loaves and fishes to feed such a multitude? He never wasted time or courted failure by idle questioning. He just set about doing what he could, giving he had, and his resources increased, and became wonderfully adequate to meet the demands that were upon him. He exemplified a mighty truth which our weak faith is apt to let slip: that the way to get more in the Kingdom of God is to use with diligence and fidelity what we already possess. "To him that hath shall be given, and he shall have [unclear: ouldantly]." Because of his faith in Jesus Christ he had faith in the possibilities of human nature. He did not stand aloof from his fellows in any exceptional or self-righteous mood and coolly criticise their failings. The [unclear: eer] of the cynic was never on his lips. He drew out what was best in men by trusting them to the utmost. And thus he exemplified another great truth of the Kingdom, "With what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again." His faith taught him that where sin abounded grace did much more abound. It gave him some insight into the dimensions of redeeming love and clothed him with a beautiful humility. He said to me when nearing the end, "The prayer that seems to suit me best is just the prayer of the publican, 'God be merciful to me a sinner.' The text that keeps repeating itself to my mind is this, 'Faithful is the saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.' Oh, Chisholm, I am content now to take the lowest place in His Kingdom, and would fain creep in to kiss His feet." He has gone. To the last he stood at his post. He would not lay down his weapons, or unclasp any part of the armour that had been dented in many a struggle. Time and Death alone unharnessed our Christian knight and laid him to sleep. And who will grudge him his repose? Grief is apt to be selfish, and bereaved hearts will continue to sigh for the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is still. Our loss we should remember is his gain; and we have much still related to him to be thankful for. His bodily presence is gone, but the stirring example of his Christ-like life, the radiant influence of his unselfish devotion to every good cause, remain. Let us imitate his faith, let us fight the good fight, that we too may lay hold on eternal life!

Into a murky chamber I beheld
Enter an armed warrior, bowed with eld,
With harness battered as in mortal fight,
Who to the twain there watching sadly said:
"A solitary man, I ride on quest
All unachieved, and with you fain would rest
A little space, for sore am I bestead."
Then rose the twain—the one with mournful face
Yet beautiful, the other gaunt and grey—
Said: "Take thy rest, hence none are turned away,
Hence none may pass;" then softly did unbrace
His armour, whispering, "Rest, thou weary one,
Here in this quiet house; thy quest is done."

Aye! and Time and Death in thus gently un-harnessing our Christian knight were but the messengers of Jesus Christ, in whose blessed presence his glorified spirit now suns itself, while his body, being still united to Christ, rests under His faithful watch and ward till the resurrection morn. What, in a word, then, is the great lesson of his life? It is this, verified by an ever-increasing cloud of witnesses, that all might, and varied power for well-doing, come to the man in whose heart Christ dwells by faith. Ah, brothers, amid the cross currents and surface billows, that are stirred by the passing winds and often buffet us, we may lose ourselves, and be drifted hither and thither, and tossed on the cruel rocks at last; but we page 40 may, all of us, if we will have it so, feel the ground-swell of divine grace, the deep current of eternal love, that sets steadily to the desired haven. It was to this he committed himself. It is present and available for all of us in such grand words as these: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday as to-day and for ever. He is able to make all grace abound unto you, that ye having always all sufficiency in everything may abound unto every good work.

The musical portion of the service, during which many of the congregation were deeply affected, again had special reference to the occasion. The preliminary voluntary, played by Mr Barth, was "Oh, rest in the Lord"; the anthem was "What are these" (Stainer); and the out-going voluntaries were Handel's "Dead March," during which the whole of the vast congregation remained standing, and Beethoven's "Funeral March." The collections for the day, which were in aid of the poor of the congregation, amounted £54 11s 3d.