The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1881-10-04 00:00:00

THE MOULE MEMORIAL COFFEE TAVERN.

LATINO THE FOUNDATION STONE.

That the late Vicar and his wife are still held in
loving remembrance by those among whom they lived
and died, was evidenced by the throng who assembled
at the laying of the foundation stone of the new
memorial Coffee Tavern. A more fitting monument
to the late Vicar'. work and worth it would be
Impossible to find, and we are sure there could be none
which would hays found more favour in his eyes. The
good effected in the perish of Fordington by the Vicar
end his family it would be impossible to estimate in
the few remarks which we are here enabled to make;
but long after the building which is being erected near
the church, where Me. Moule for so many years
preached the pure and simple Gospel of his Master,
has pawed away, will his g xid and useful work remain
an undying monument of the Christian faith of a good
men. Strenuous effort.s have been made by Colonel
OldSeld and other friends to raise the necessary fund.,
and there is now every prospect of a handsome build-
ing being provided for tee use of the parish.
Previous to the ceremony of laying the foundation
'tone, Divine service was held in the perish church.
The Vicar, the Rey. A. A. Leonard, who has given his
heartiest support from the very commenoement of the
movement, read the s wvioe. Appropriate hymns for
the occasion were sung.
The preacher was an old and int:mate friend of the
late Vicar, the Rev. Canon Reginald Smith. He took
for his text "Other foundation can no man lay than
that ie laid, which is Jesus Christ" (I Cu. id., 11).
The actual commencement of the work for which we
have been tasking preparations during the past months
recalls, he said, the feelings which led to a coffee
tavern for Fordington. They arose from the termie-
Won of the ever memorable life and ministry of the
let, Vicar. A golden sentence has been preserved of
one who was a valued friend of Bishop George ?Soule.
I mean Mr. Wright, the late admirable secretary of
the Church Missionary Society, lie gave his valuable
;terrines gratuitously to the estate/don of our Lord's
Kink,dom among the heathen. His sudden death by
drowning was lameeted over all England and over our
wide mission fields abroad. The sentence WU " God's
messurs of life is love." May not that well be
called a golden sentence? Measured by days, months,
and years, the life of Mr. Wright was not a long one ;
measured by the higher standard it was long indeed.
The life of James, the brother of John, from the time of
his call to the ministry of Christ, was short, so was
that of Stephen the Martyr; but who could say that
either of their lives was short if be believes that Goo's
measure of life is love? The same question may be
a...16(14mM,, asked concerning the late Vicar of Ford-
ID n and his precious wife. Measured by the ordin-
ire
- --d their life was not brief; each of them bad
V years the three score and ten allotted
MAD, but iT love, love to God in Christ and constant
self sacrificing labours for the benefit of their fellow
creatures, be the true measure, then theire was like
the life of Methuselah. Concerning each of them it
may be truly said that when the eye saw them then
it blessed them, and when the ear heard them then it
gave wieners to them, because they delivered the poor
that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none
to help him, the blessing of Him who was ready to
came upon them, and they used the widow's
perish ca
to sing for joy. The estimate formed of stephen's
worth was shown by the mourniog at his death.
Even so it was when Mary and Henry Motile left
the people whom they had loved so well. Everyone
knew that death to them was gain, yet th. y lamented.
Such Is the natural expression of our best and purest
that had his. all we who mourned
= ti
dm fallen far short ol our Christian duty.