“The Record” Friday, July 13th.
Canon Hoare.
“The death of Canon Hoare removes from the front rank of Evangelical Churchmen a conspicuous and commanding figure. He took his degree in 1834—Fifth Wrangler. He was ordained deacon in 1837, [273] the year, it will be remembered, of the Queen’s accession. His jubilee coincided with that of the Sovereign whom he so truly honoured; and it is neither fanciful nor fulsome to say that he held a kind of sovereign rank amongst the Evangelical clergy. One of their kings is dead. It happens sometimes to all parties to lose a man who was much more to them than to the Church at large. We do not deny that this was the case with Canon Hoare. In spite of his conspicuousness, he was not naturally the sort of man who loves to be conspicuous. He grew to greatness amongst his fellows by the influence of character alone. His abilities were considerable; his training was excellent; his family traditions were of the best that the eighteenth century in its ripe benevolence handed on to the young religious energy of the nineteenth. That bright benevolence and beneficence shone in his face, unmingled with the eagerness of the combatant or the push and pressure of the ambitious candidate for leadership. His attitude to the Church of England at large was one of admiring loyalty, but he had no self-seeking thoughts. He dwelt, and loved to dwell, among his own people. He took his share, an honourable share, in the struggles of his own times; but the part which he took was, when it led him to scenes of controversy, always a strange and unwelcome work. But none the less, perhaps all the more for that, he did it well. The nephew of Joseph John Gurney and of Elizabeth Fry was not without a strong element of what is sturdy and staunch. That side of his character found useful expression when, at the Church Congress at Derby in 1882, he was suddenly called upon to meet the suggestion of Lord Halifax that the Bishops should allow the alternative use at the Holy Communion office in the Prayer-Book of 1549. Then, in his own name and in the name of the Evangelical party, he spoke his apologia. . . . That scene illustrates the man; and though a good deal has happened since, and the Lambeth Judgment must not be forgotten, yet that interpretation of the signs of the times remains the only reasonable reading of them, and the alternative—the Reformers or Rome—is still the only possible alternative if England is to remain a Christian country. And yet, as we have said, this was an incident.
“His work, his real work, was of another kind. Perhaps no other position in England would have suited him quite as well as the post he held at Tunbridge Wells. He made Tunbridge Wells the Canterbury of West Kent, and he was the unofficial primate. For forty years this watering-place, the once fashionable and frivolous resort of people half whose complaints were due to the too easy conditions of their life, has come more and more to be the home of people whose leading purpose is to find out how to do most for the Kingdom of God, and have found there that a plain English clergyman was for the most part at the back of all its missionary energies. ‘I am but one of yourselves, a presbyter,’ said Newman in his first tract. So, in his last tract, might Canon Hoare have said. For forty fruitful years the overshadowing influence of a good man’s life has been a kind of visible sign of a yet higher overshadowing. Prayers and alms have marked the life of the place, and, whatever the future may have in store, there has been peace and truth in Tunbridge Wells in Canon Hoare’s days. Outside his own parish, his next most influential place was, no doubt, the Committee-room of the Church Missionary Society. There was a time, indeed, when week by week two able men came up to Salisbury Square, each in his own way exercising a powerful influence upon the Cabinet deliberations. One was the pen more than the voice, the other the voice more than the pen, of missionary counsel. But those were the days of Henry Venn, and in his days counsellors for the most part found themselves anticipated. But when those days had passed away, and the increasing missionary activity of the Church brought new conditions, new problems, new agencies, new methods into view, then came a time in which counsellors who had within them a living spring of energy, readiness of mind, elasticity, hopefulness, breadth of view, a firm belief in the future as well as a firm grip upon the past, were invaluable, and such a man was Canon Hoare. Things new and old were in him, as they always are in the men who by the force of character become guides of their fellows. The man of routine, the mere pedant, the mere deprecator of mistakes, asks always for a precedent. He does well to ask for it; it is a finger-post to him. The man of wisdom makes precedents, founding them on principles of which he is sure. In such a man the inner sight is clear, the eye is single. When he speaks there is the ring of authority in what he says, the highest expression of the common sense of men.
“Who shall estimate the value of such a career? Who shall gauge the loss to the commonwealth of the Church of one such counsellor? It is pleasant to think that, priceless as Canon Hoare was to his party, and thoroughly as he was in sympathy with its aims and sentiments, there is no deduction to be made for bitterness, for narrowness, for sour alienation from human interests. It was his privilege to touch the life of his times at many points: in the abundance of his interests he multiplied himself.
“Happy in his family, in the narrower and the wider sense of the word, happy in his friendships, happy in his opportunities, happy in his wide sympathies with humanity, his heart went out expansively to all who challenged his attention. The world became one wide field, to which he gave himself, his children, his substance, his time, his prayers. He was heart and soul an Evangelical. But we are greatly mistaken if the Church of England generally does not recognise in Canon Hoare one of her truest children, not the less for that which was part of his inheritance, the knowledge that Christ our Lord has other sheep, not of the fold in which he was so distinguished an under-shepherd.”
The Church Missionary Society.
The following minute, which was passed by the Committee of the above body at their first meeting after Canon Hoare’s death, records, as far as words can do so, the deep loss that the Society has sustained by this event:—
“In addition to the deaths of long-honoured and attached friends of the Society within the last few weeks, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, Canon Lord Forster, Lord Charles Russell, and Howard Gill, the Committee record with affectionate and thankful remembrance a life consecrated to the service of our Divine Master in the removal of their beloved brother Canon Edward Hoare.
“Trained in the days of the Evangelical revival at Cambridge under Simeon, Scholefield, and Carus, Edward Hoare commenced his ministry in 1836 as curate to the Rev. Francis Cunningham, at Pakefield, where he found the genial and warm sympathy of those who were at the time engaged in the religious movement, and where he gave early evidence of the bright living missionary spirit which was so prominent a feature of his ministry in his after-life at Richmond, Ramsgate, and, finally, at Tunbridge Wells; where, for forty-one years, he was by the grace of God ever at the front of all missionary work both at home and abroad. The remarkable position of influence which he attained was not from his gifts, which were considerable, but from his grace. The features of his character may be briefly summed up as they were known in his private life, in his parochial work, in the pulpit, on the platform, and in the Committee-room of the Church Missionary Society: godly simplicity and unflinching courage, clearness of judgment and expression, loving sympathy and consideration for others, unfailing diligence and soundness in the Faith, and supreme reverence for and delight in the Word of God. These gracious qualities made his counsels and co-operation wise, weighty, and practical. He was in the highest sense a faithful witness to the principles of the Reformation and the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, and a zealous, popular, and attractive advocate at all times of the work of his beloved Church Missionary Society.
“The Committee commend the members of his family, especially those who are in the Mission-field, to the very special prayers of the Church, in the hope that a double portion of his spirit may be imparted to his successors.”
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The beloved son in the Mission-field was the only one absent when the aged father was laid to rest. His visit with his wife and children, three and a half years before, had been an unspeakable joy in the old home. During Canon Hoare’s latter years all who knew him remember the interest and delight that he took in the work at Ningpo, and how continually his thoughts turned to those dear ones who had dedicated themselves to labour for God in China. Yet—who can tell?—perhaps when the River has been crossed time and distance have ceased to be, and the blessed dead, being with Christ, are nearer those who are in Christ than when they moved among us here on earth.
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“After this it was noised abroad that Mr. Valiant-for-truth was taken with a summons by the same post as the other, and had this for a token that the summons was true, ‘that his pitcher was broken at the fountain’ (Eccles. xii. 6). When he understood it he called for his friends and told them of it. Then said he: ‘I am going to my Father’s; and though with great difficulty I have got hither, yet now do I not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me to be a witness for me that I have fought His battles who now will be my rewarder.’
“When the day that he must go hence was come many accompanied him to the river-side, into which as he went down he said, ‘Death, where is thy sting?’ and as he went down deeper, he said, ‘Grave, where is thy victory?’
“So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him at the other side.”
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