The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-04-23 00:00:00

THE DUBLIN SYNOD.
SUDDEN DEATH OF A JUDGE.

The session of the General Synod was opened on
Tuesday under the presidency of the Lord Primate,
There was a large attendance of prelates, clergy, and
lay members. The primate, in taking the chair, ob-
served that dark days might be in store for the
Church and for the country, but amid all the uncer-
tainty and all the uneasiness that prevailed the
Church of Ireland had followed its course in quietness
and confidence. This year, under peculiar and happy
circumstances, through the vast domains of the
Empire over which the Sovereign presided they were
about to celebrate the glorious and happy termination
of the fiftieth year of a reign happily not yet ter-
minated, and he was sure he anticipated their feelings
when he made arrangements that that Church
should give some public expression of their loyalty
and devotion to their Sovereign. (Cheers.) He
would call upon his Grace the Archbishop of Dublin,
whose high position and honoured name would lend
dignity to what would in his hands be a graceful
homage, to propose that a loyal address be presented
from the Church of Ireland through the General
Synod of congratulation and loyalty in this auspicious
epoch, and he would call upon the nobleman whose
name in Ireland would ever be held in honour and
respect, and whose patriotism and social virtues he so
well represented, to second it. He need hardly say
that the nobleman he referred to was his Grace the
Duke of Abercorn. (Cheers.)
The Archbishop of Dublin then proposed the fol-
lowing resolution: "That an address expressive of
loyal devotion to the throne and person of her
Gracious Majesty the Queen be presented to her on
the occasion of this jubilee year of her happy reign
by the General Synod of the Church of Ireland, re-
presenting as it does upwards of 600,000 of Ler
Majesty's faithful subjects."
His Grace, in speaking to the resolution, observed
that, as regarded their loyal attachment to the throne,
he need not say that it was not based upon some
theoretical belief in the divine right of Kings and
Queens nor the forms of their government; no, it was
because they, as lovers of liberty and of their country,
believed that under that form of government which
, was represented to them by the throne of her gracious
Majesty they enjoyed a greater measure of civil and
religious liberty and national prosperity and happi-
ness than could be found under any Government
throughout the limits of the habitable globe. (Hear,
hear.)
The Duke of Abercorn, who was very cordially re-
ceived, in seconding the motion, said he thought it
I was right that the Church of Ireland should take the
first possible occasion to testify their loyalty and
attachment to the Crown, and he hoped similar reso-
lutions would , passed by other bodies, and thus have
a general expression of their feeling of loyal affection
towards the Queen. The Provost of Trinity College,
Dublin, supported the resolution, which was unani-
mously adopted, the assembly rising and cheering.
A very painful incident occurred before the close
of the proceedings. Mr. Gamble, Q.C., County Court
Judge of Armagh and Louth, was addressing the
Synod, of which he was an active member, on the
revision of the Church hymnal, and had only pro-
ceeded a few minutes when his voice faltered and he
immediately fell forward. He was caught by some
gentlemen, who conveyedihim into one of the passages
of the Synod-halLand medical aid was at once sent for,
but he expired in a few minutes. Mr. Gamble was
called to the Bar in 1851 and made a Queen's
Counsel in 1868; he was a M.A. of Dublin Uni-
versity and a justice of the peace for the King's
County, in which he had property, and also for the
county Louth and county Dublin.