It may be permitted to advert to some of those personal qualifications, which combined with Mr. Venn's official opportunities to make him what he was. He was endowed with a singularly calm judgment united to no ordinary warmth of heart and patient resolve, and these gifts of nature were refined and strengthened by Divine Grace. To people to whom the subject is unfamiliar, the position of Chief Secretary of such a Society may appear of little importance; but it brings its holder into contact, if he only rises to the occasion, with almost every question involving either the doctrine and discipline of the Church at home and abroad, or the civilisation and moral—nay, often material—progress of the world. Through a long life which was one ‘self-denying ordinance,’ this wise man chose the substance rather than the show of power; and many who with him are gone to their rest, and others who still remain, could testify to his wonderful, though always unobtrusive, influence, which swayed and bent most men to his will, as the steady set of the Atlantic gale bends and sways the trees on our westerly shores. It is not too much to say that in many an Episcopal palace and Government office his word was one of no little weight, though it would be premature and in some cases a violation of confidence to dwell on details.