The name of Septimus Lloyd Chase will be cherished longer, and have a warmer place in the memories of all Churchmen who remember Melbourne in its early days, than that of many a man of more brilliant parts or popular gifts.

The record of his ministry is not one of notable utterances or conspicuous achievements, any more than that of his life is one of the striking incidents or picturesque vicissitudes, yet was the effect of his teaching upon those who came under his influence out of all proportion to his learning or eloquence or intellectual force.

The reputation which he already had when he came out 45 years ago, a man young in years, but with judgement and experience far beyond his years, to work under Bishop Perry in the new Diocese of Melbourne, was one which every true minister would most covet for his own - that of saintliness of life.

Everything changed with him and with the colony before he had been many months in Melbourne. Having come out, as he thought, to a quiet, half-missionary ministry in a thinly-populated pastoral district, he found himself, almost from the first, in the centre of the flux and fever of the goldfield discovery. For the few settlers and their families to whom he expected to minister, he was called in succession to the incumbency of three city churches, involving the charge at different times of the wealthiest, the busiest, and the poorest parts of the population of the metropolis.

But the man himself never changed. The old savour of personal holiness and unworldliness clung to him through all, giving him such influence with Churchmen of all schools and classes that, although he had little or no turn for public life, or for what may be called the politics of the Church, and had no pretence to be a debater, the Church Assembly, that always has an unerring instinct for a good man, chose him again and again, while his health lasted, among its foremost men to a place on the Bishop's Council, the Cathedral Chapter, and the Bishopric Election Board.

But though Canon Chase took but little part, under any of the three Bishops to whom he acted as chaplain, in the burning questions which agitated the Church and divided the Assembly, it must not be supposed that he was content to do nothing more than his parochial work - heavy as that was - and his light diocesan duties.

Full of zeal, as a man so faithful and devoted was sure to be, for the conversion of the heathen to Christ, from his first arrival on these shores he found the public work which his soul loved in the furtherance and direction of missions having this object in view. First, or rather first and last, the neglected native races of this colony found in him their truest protector and best friend. Nor was he less sincere or persevering in his efforts to make Churchmen take a right view of their responsibilities for the large Asiatic population settled in our cities and goldfields. No one we can name has been doing more for many years in a quiet and inconspicuous way for the promotion of the evangelistic work among the Aborigines and the Chinese in Victoria than the reverend clergyman whose loss we now mourn.

It has been good for the Church in Melbourne to have had with them all these years the teachings of so pure a life, the influence of so gentle and sweet a spirit. The foundations of a Church may be laid strong and deep even without the aid of great learning, or eloquent discourse, or splendid genius; but alas for the Church when her sons or ministers shall be rich in all these shining qualities, but the saintly life be wanting! Of all the men in God's furniture for this vocation, that is the part that endures when all else fails.

They have heaped the earth high above the venerable form we loved so well, but his words, his example, his memory, his faithful and loving spirit are not interred with him, but are living still - his words, with those to whom they were so faithfully preached; his example, with his brethren, old and young, to encourage and sustain them; his memory, with the Church, which, always next to his Master, he loved and laboured for; and his spirit - oh! we doubt it not - in Paradise with his Saviour, there to rest till the Lord, when He comes to His own, shall bring him with Him.