Williams, Rev. Dr.

DEATH OF REV. DR. WILLIAMS.
After a Protracted Illness. A Life Devoted to
God's Service and the Growth of his
Kingdom on Earth.
TORONTO, Dec. 17. - The death of Rev. Dr. Williams, General Superintendent of the Methodist Church, which was very long expected, took place early this morning.
The biography of the deceased is written in raised letters upon the history of Canadian Methodism. From the time of his conversion during the troublous year, both ecclesiastically and civilly, of 1836, John A. Williams has been more and more a power in some branch of the Methodist Church in this country.
He was born in Wales in 1817, and spent his boyhood days among the crags and amid the keen mountain air of that rugged country.
The Globe says:- By the death of the reverend and venerable John A. Williams the Methodist Church loses a member who long held even greater influence and respect than is signified by the fact that he was twice elected to the highest position in the gift of his brethren. By the strength and sweetness of his character, by a peculiar, old-fashioned warmth of affectionate feeling in private and public address, by the sort of manners which the French call "The manners of a good heart," he had won extraordinary upon the affections of many people as well outside as within the Methodist denomination. To all he stood for many years as a heautiful survival from the early times when Methodists were but a small number in the land, ministered to by circuit-riding preachers of singular unselfishness, endurance, simplicity and piety. Notwithstanding this primitiveness of the venerable old man, he was never at a loss in conducting great public assemblies, but always signalised himself as a calm, cautious, shrewd and eminently sane mind. In presiding over Conference he was universally acknowledged to display pre-eminent tact and ability. No figure was more familiar than he to the religious people of this Province, and no death will be more generally and roughly regretted.
A sad incident in his illness was the death last week of Dr. Williams' daughter, Mrs. Boice, of Hamilton, who came to assist during her father's illness.