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IN MEMORIAM.-HENRY RICHARD.

HIS FUNERAL SERMON, BY DR. R. W. Dale.

THE late esteemed Honorary Secretary of the Peace Society, HENRY RICHARD, Esq., M.P., died suddenly, on Monday night, August 20th, 1888, at Treborth, near Bangor, and was buried, at Abney Park Cemetery, London, on August 24th. The following impressive Funeral Sermon was delivered, on that occasion, in Abney Chapel, by his friend, the Rev. Dr. R. W. DALE, of Birmingham.

THE SERMON.

"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord."-REV. xiv. 13. If we are persuaded that neither death nor life, nor things present nor things to come, shall be able to separate us, in that life of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, it is well that our brother there is dead, for he did the will of Christ, and was in Christ's safe keeping; and to depart and be with Christ is far better. He has fought the good fight, he has finished the course, he has kept the faith, he has received the crown of righteousness, he sees the face of God. It may be that the day has suddenly become dark and the ground heavy, and that no ray of the brightness into which he has passed can break through. He that knoweth our friend will not be angry, nor will He chide, if the heart which has lost all its treasure, and has been bruised and broken by this deed, refuses for a time to be comforted. And yet for those to whom he was most dear, and whose sorrow this morning is worst, there is strength, even if, as yet, there is little consolation, in the knowledge that he inherits glory and honour and immortality.

For nearly sixty years our friend and brother lived in this great city, but he died, as it was fitting he should die, among his own people, within the sound of the waters and within sight of the mountains of the land of his birth. It was fitting, I say, that he should die there, for he loved Wales with a passionate affection, and through all the labours, and excitements, and travels of his long public life he was under the power of the influences which surrounded him in the home of his childhood.

The traditions of that great time in the history of his country, when men of genius, inspired with Christ's faith, travelled over Wales with almost unexampled power and success, never left his mind. Wherever they preached, the people gathered and listened to them. From distant towns and hamlets, from scattered farms and lonely villages, from

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the valleys and hillsides, thousands and tens of thousands of men and women and children were shaken by their words, as trees are shaken by the storm. There was a terror of the judgment to come. There were bitter tears of sorrow for sins they had committed. There was joy in the divine love, breaking out into cries of thanksgiving and rapturous song. Nor was all this a mere passing excitement. In the course of two generations, Wales was rescued from irreligion, and its people became filled with intense and fervid piety. Mr. Richard's father was one of the most eminent and devoted of these first teachers of truth. During his childhood and youth, he was surrounded with the men who had brought about these great reforms. He remembered their great deeds. He recalled the fire and pathos of their eloquence. He knew how wonderful their work was. To the last he loved to speak of it, and we, who knew and loved him, are here this morning to say that the faith of those early days remained with him. The strength of his truthful integrity was the central element of his being, He left Wales with a patriotic fervour which seems to characterise the children of the mountains. He loved the sons and daughters of Wales, and his love for his country was not for its native heroism, or the hereditary qualities of his race. It was not these things which filled his imagination, nor was it even a love for the genius of which he himself has been an illustration. He remembered the divine fire which glowed in the hearts of her great preachers, the divine fire which had gone out from their words, the simple faith, the patient industry, the joy in God which they had created among the people. This, then, was the origin of that which he maintained—that the Christian Church is a divine establishment, that her strength was derived from the inspiration of God, that she belonged to a religion which lay far above the control and support of Court or Parliament. The true Church of Christ in Wales, he knew, had been created by the great religious movement whose force was still unspent in his childhood. It was amongst his people-it was owing to that Church and not to the Church which represented the supremacy of a foreign race, that the glory of God had dwelt in the Principality. It was through their ministers, who had been consecrated by the hands of the Eternal. It was they who did great deeds, by which Wales was drawn to the feet of Christ. Among them all sorts and conditions of men found divine consolation, and, in their perplexities, divine guidance. No wonder, therefore, that he maintained that the free Evangelical Church of Wales was a national creation, and was the true National Church of its country, and that he resisted the claims of the ecclesiastical establishment which had been founded by authority.

In his early life, he supposed he had been called by God, as his father had been, to the ministry of the Gospel. There is no reason for us to suppose that he mistook his vocation. For some years he maintained a vigorous and successful pastorate, in this city, on the south side of the

Thames.

In 1848 he accepted the Secretaryship of the Peace Society. Three years later, he retired from the ministry that he might devote himself altogether to the great work with which he was then occupied.

That year, 1848, as older men amongst us remember, was a time of almost boundless hope. It seemed as if the world was passing victoriously out of its prolonged troubles into a glorious age. All the nations of Europe were springing to their feet and seeking for light, and air, and freedom. Ancient religions were broken, and it seemed as if a new gospel were being founded for the human race, which gospel was contained in the words, "Liberty, equality, fraternity!" They listened with wonder and delight, but most of them knew that the fair promises of the new time could never be fulfilled, except under the power of the old faith, which made all men free, all men equal, all men brothers, by making them sons of God. But it was a time when young men were sure a new glory had dawned on mankind, and when even all men were almost ready to say with Simeon, "Lord, now lettest Thon Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation."

There is little doubt that Henry Richard entered upon this new era with enthusiasm and hope, but what was with other men a passing hope, was with him a fire of God which burnt to the end, for he had deep and intense faith in this -that the world belonged to Christ-Christ had redeemed it-Christ is its true Lord. There was no waiting for the advent of the King. He knew that Christ had come and received authority over all flesh, was the true King of the human race, that His reign had begun, that He was the Prince of Peace. War, therefore, we see, was an act of rebellion against Supreme Authority, a crime, just as murder, or thieving, or adultery, was. He took the words of Christ as they stood, and told us to resist the evil, and for him, Christ's sworn servant as he was from his youth up, it seems to have been the first of his thoughts to get the will of Christ done on earth as it is done in Heaven. That the differences of nations should be settled only by the shock of arms, was an offence against the laws of God.

The only method of settling disputes, according to him, to be recognised by the Supreme Power, was by Arbitration. There was something in the temper of the time, when he became Secretary of the Peace Society, which seemed to render this ideal possible, but his courage and the enthusiasm he bestowed on the work, to the end, were not derived from the temper of the time, but from his fellowship with Christ. He pursued his end alone, after the hope of 1848 had failed. The persistency with which he pursued that end was admirable.

He had a considerable measure of success in securing the adoption of his principles in the TREATY OF PARIS; he carried a vote in its favour in the BRITISH HOUSE OF COMMONS; he obtained the practical recognition of Peace principles in the GENEVA ARBITRATION over the "Alabama claims. The audacity of his faith, therefore, achieved great victories for him.

In the year 1863 he entered the House of Commons. He was something more than a politician. He never walked in the crooked paths of time and change. He dreamed of a perfect state. Perhaps he found it hard to make suffi

cient allowance for the difficulty of realising an ideal justice in human laws and human administration. I suppose that the holding of office never crossed his mind. He was Christ's servant in the House of Commons, just as he had been Christ's servant in the ministry, and Christ's servant in striving to win the hearts of men away from revenge and crime. Although he believed it was no part of the State to maintain the authority of the Christian Gospel, he also believed that it was just, and an individual duty, to cause its strength to penetrate the legislation and the life of the State. To the last he was a Radical of that early type which has almost disappeared. He believed in trusting the people in the management of their public business, and he was, therefore, in favour of the extension of the Franchise, to the utmost limit of local and municipal government. He thought it much better for people to make mistakes in the conduct of their own affairs, than that they should be saved from mistakes by the perpetual interference of a central Government.

He cared for the ethical as well as the moral development of the State. He cared for the development of the national character, to be generous and self-reliant, and, therefore, he never wholly liked the interference of Government in education. In accepting that interference as a necessity, it was his conviction that as soon as Education was recognised as one of the chief rights of the people, and one which touched them more closely than the building of bridges or the making of roads, then education should be under the control of public representative authorities.

His last considerable public work was in maintaining that principle, in the ROYAL COMMISSION, which closed its labours only a few days before his death.

The relations between himself and his Constituents were honourable alike to them and to him. They recognised his integrity, and had boundless faith in him. They knew his zeal in their service, and from the time he first became Member for Merthyr, his seat was never in serious danger, and in late years no one dared to think of disturbing him. He was more than Member for Merthyr; he was Member for Wales, and for many years he was the authoritative representative, in the House of Commons, of English as well as Welsh Nonconformity.

Of his private life, during the last two or three years, I have seen much. I can only say he was singularly gentle, kindly, affectionate, and unselfish. He loved warmly, and he was warmly loved. I have been witness, during that period, of the unfaltering resoluteness and fidelity with which, in private, he has discharged his public duties.

When I first joined him on the Royal Commission, or almost immediately afterwards, he knew he was suffering from the perilous disease by which his life was at last ended. He never ascended the steps of Whitehall, into the room where the Commission sat, without knowing there was some peril to his life in attempting to do it. I remember well, the very last time he addressed the Commission, at any length, during the final consideration of the Report, how obvious was the physical distress that came upon him while he was speaking, but he had to deliver his conscience, and at all peril he did so.

In public he was courteous, but he had the fortitude of granite rocks. granite rocks. He had a large knowledge of all subjects on which he ever attempted to influence public opinion. He was sagacious, shrewd, and persistent in the maintenance of his convictions. He had at his command a manly and serious eloquence, and when standing before a popular audience, he spoke in vigorous words of passion

and fire.

Beneath all his public life there was the religion of his childhood, which remained with him, although I don't mean to say he was altogether untroubled by the controversies of the last thirty years, which other duties prevented him from following up and investigating. But whatever else fierce winds and rising waters may have shaken, his central faith was undisturbed. He built upon a rock, and that rock was Christ. Again and again, since I have been associated with him, in that public work I have just referred to, our conversation has wandered away, at night, from the business in which we had been engaged during the day, and from the political questions of the day, and he and I were of one mind on those deeper and more sacred subjects which were housed within our hearts.

And to the representatives of Wales, whom I see in this congregation, I will venture to say there rested upon him always the most intense and perfect solicitude for deepening the growth of that religious life which has been the chief glory of his people. He knew that the true strength. of the Nonconformist churches of Wales lay, not in their political power, but in their fellowship with Christ.

Now he is not lost to us for ever. He has passed from earth into the company of the immortals, who live in power and blessedness, because they live in God. They are like the stars, "by day withdrawn from mortal eye, but, not extinct, they hold their way, in glory through the sky." May the grace be given to us, who knew and loved him, so to follow in his steps, that, when the dark gates unclose for us to pass through, we, in our turn, may enter into the blessedness of the Eternal. Amen.

THE PRESS ON MR. HENRY RICHARD'S DEATH.

THE journals of all shades of opinion, throughout the Kingdom, have united in bearing testimony to the estimable character and valuable services of our late honoured friend. It would fill many copies of the HERALD to reproduce these, but a few representative selections will be of interest to our readers. The leading article in the Times, in particular, is a specially interesting and important acknowledgment of the national influence of Mr. Richard, and of the estimate in which he was universally held.

THE "TIMES" (LEADER.)

The death of Mr. Henry Richard is an event which will be keenly felt by the Liberals and Nonconformists of Wales, and by Nonconformists generally. He had reached a ripe age, and there had of late been signs that his strength was failing; but the actual end came very suddenly. He was apparently well on Monday evening, but before midnight he was dead. Mr. Richard was the type of the more agreeable and amiable kind of political Dissenter. As became so prominent and consistent a member of the Peace Society, he never made enemies. He was free from the personal acrimony which is the mark of so many of his political friends, and from which, it must be said, few of the speakers on Nonconformist platforms are exempt. His opponents may not have rated his intellectual powers very highly, but they appreciated the gentleness of his character, and the manner in which he summed up in himself all the dominant features of the Welsh people. Mr. Richard used familiarly to be called "the Member for Wales;" and if there had been occasion, in the days of his prime, to form a distinctively Welsh party, there is no doubt that he would have led it. He was an ardent Welsh patriot, and his services in that direction were of old date. The present generation has forgotten the Rebecca Riots of 1843; but Mr. Richard's contemporaries have not forgotten them, or the courageous part which was taken by the young Nonconformist minister, as he then was, in

the defence of his country men from the sweeping charges commonly brought against them. One effect of the riots was to direct attention to the deplorable state of education in Wales, and a Royal Commission was sent down to report. They did their work in a spirit not too favourable to the native race; and it fell to Mr. Richard to defend his brethren, which he did in lectures and letters that attracted attention at the time. The Welsh never forgot this good service, and he was always a very popular man among them. In 1868 he carried the seat for Merthyr by a large majority, and he has been practically undisturbed in it ever since

But Mr. Henry Richard would not have been so complete a representative of the middle class of Welshmen, or so popular among them, had he not been so thoroughgoing a Nonconformist. The son of a Welsh Calvinistic Methodist minister, he was himself, to the end of the chapter, unchanged in his active Dissent. Educated at the Highbury Independent College, he became, at the outset of his manhood, minister of Marlborough Chapel in the Old Kent Road; and it was from that central, but not very prominent point, that he directed his first attacks upon Anglicanism and what he regarded as English prejudices. To the end, there was no more eager campaigner than he, in the ranks of the Liberation Society. When that Society made its periodical visit to Wales, he was one of the most prominent of its platform speakers; his Welsh speeches were enjoyed and appreciated by his audiences, who thought that a cause which Henry Richard supported was a sacred cause that was sure to triumph. After bis return to Parliament in 1868, in the Parliament which the Dissenters thought to be theirs par excellence, he was assiduous in his support of Mr. Gladstone's Irish Disestablishment measure, and equally assiduous in his opposition to Mr. Forster's " 25th Clause."

He never took a front rank as a speaker, and was hardly thought to be so representative a Dissenter as his friend Mr. Miall, or as the late Mr. Winterbotham; but his voice was heard pretty often, and his vote was always to be depended on by that party. It was, however, on another subject that he had most to say.

So long ago as 1848, he was appointed Secretary to the Peace Society, and for forty years his advocacy of the objects and aims of that Society was unresting. With Elihu Burritt, he worked hard and successfully, to collect a Peace Congress at Brussels in that year, the year when revolutionary disturbances were everywhere, and when ideas of international amity were very much in the air. Doubtless when the Exhibition of 1851 arose in Hyde Park, Mr. Richard fancied that his dreams were realised, and that the pacific programme of the Brussels Congress was already an accomplished fact. The Crimean War was a grievous blow to him, as to all other enthusiasts, and to those who were committed to the cause of peace and abstinence from blows upon any provocation. He was instrumental in getting added to the Treaty of Paris a clause which recommends that every State, before going to war, should try to settle its difficulties by arbitration; and much later, after he had entered the House of Commons, he actually carried a resolution in favour of arbitration. Perhaps that may be regarded as Mr. Richard's chief Parliamentary achievement, in a positive

sense.

THE "DAILY NEWS" (LONDON.)

The sudden death of Mr. Henry Richard, senior Member for Merthyr Tydfil, removes from the House of Commons one of its oldest and most respected inmates. Mr. Richard had represented Merthyr very nearly twenty years, having been first elected in November, 1868, when Mr. Gladstone swept the country, on the first appeal to Mr. Disraeli's household suffrage. Mr. Richard was younger by two years and a half than the great statesman among whose followers he was proud to rank himself. Mr. Richard, however, was a thoroughly independent politician, as he proved on many occasions, on none more conspicuously than when he voted in a small minority with Sir Wilfrid Lawson in protest against the bombardment of the forts of Alexandria. He also took a leading part in the Radical and Nonconformist revolt against what he regarded as the timid and illogical compromise by which Mr. Forster carried his Education Act in 1870. Mr. Richard was best known, and will be