Rev. W. J. Chambers

Death in 80th Year

JN his eightieth year, the Rev.

William J. Chambers, of the Methodist Mission, well-known in both New Britain and Fiji, died in Australia on Octooer 4. He is sur vived by a widow and five sons.

The following tribute is condensed from an article by the Rev. J. W.

Burton in the Missionary Review.”

HEAVY burdens were put upon the broad shoulders of William Cham bers, both at the home base and on the mission field; but he carried them uncomplainingly and with dignity. Pos sibly he deserved better of the Church he so faithfully served than any reward that came to him; not that he himself would have thought thus, for he was too engrossed in his task to think of the award.

Mr. Chambers went to New Britain in 1893, where he laboured for nine years.

Those were days when things were still very primitive in that field, and Mr. and Mrs. Chambers knew hardship and privation.

In 1908, he was appointed to Rewa, Fiji, where for six years he carried out strenuous tasks in that large and im portant circuit. 111-hdalth forced his re turn to Australia, and he spent two years in the Eaglehawk Circuit in Victoria then a most difficult place. But 1916 saw him back in Fiji, and for three years he had charge of Bau, when, his health having improved, he offered for service in New Britain again, and as Chairman of the district did much to guide and develop the general work of the field.

After five years of hard toil, Mr. Cham bers returned to Australia and spent five years in the Lewisham and Campsie Cir cuits. However, the missionary passion still burned, and after two years as over seas deputation he went back to Fiji as a supernumerary, and again took charge of the Rewa Circuit. Thus he gave thirty-three years of service to the Board of Missions, and left his mark upon two important districts—New Guinea and Fiji.

IT might be sufficient to say that he was essentially a good man—healthy minded and wholesome in thought and sneech. He was not particularly “pious” as that word is usually under stood; but of his devotion to his Church there was no shadow of doubt. His tone of snirit was ethical rather than emotional.

He reverenced his conscience as his King, and quietly but resolutely shaped his conduct according to his convictions. We can only suggest some of the outstanding wavs in which that goodness revealed itself.

He had a noble quality of unswerving rectitude, of limpid sincerity, and of un comnromising honesty, This made him stable, and induced men to rely on him in times of difficulty and of trouble.

He was a “frank man without con straint.” While he was pastor of the Euronean Church at Rabaul—a church which he built—he won, as perhaps no other did, the confidence and regard of traders, planters, and Government of ficials. Said the Administrator of that day to this writer: “Chambers is the most honest man I have ever known—l would trust him with anything.”