ANNUAL REPORT. 315 



1913. 



"But it was not so much the numbers that testified to the 

 "ability and power of the preacher and the mark he had 

 "made in the community, as the attraction it proved to 

 "the more thouglitful and earnest, especially to young 

 "men and women. To them the preaching of Mr. Clarke 

 "most strongly appealed; and who that heard him can ever 

 "forget his New Year's sermons to the young, so winning 

 "and so wise; nor the privilege it was to attend his ex- 

 "pository Bible classes? Many have been the occasions on 

 "which Mr. Clarke has been selected to preach special 

 "sermons, and never has he failed to justify such selection. 

 "Notably was this the case when, at the request of the 

 "Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 "he preached before the members the annual sermon, 

 "taking for the subject of his discourse, 'From Man to 

 " 'Nature, and from Man to God.' " For 52 years Mr. 

 Clarke remained the pastor of his church. 



Honoured by all, and greatly l^eloved by those who knew 

 him best, Mr. Clarke's influence extended throughout the 

 community. Of his work outside his church, the most note- 

 worthy, perhaps, was in the Council of Education and in 

 the University of Tasmania, into which the Council of 

 Education was enlarged in 1890. Mr. Clarke was the first 

 Vice-Cnancellor of the "University, and in 1898 he succeed- 

 ed Sir Lambert Dobson as Chancellor. Until his retire- 

 ment in 1907, Mr. Clarke's venerable figure was to be seen 

 at Commemoration, and, in spite of his great age, he 

 delivered each year a Commemoration address. "The value 

 "of his services to the cause of education and to this Uni- 

 "versity is indeed great," said his successor in the Address 

 on Commemoration Dav, 1913, "and onlv those who try to 

 "follow in his footsteps, and emulate his splendid exam- 

 "ple, can justly appreciate the loss that we have sustained. 

 "In sadness we mourn for him, but we rejoice to know 

 "that, crowned with the majesty of years, he passed into 

 "the long silence, loved and revered by those for whom he 

 "laboured." 



Mr. Clarke was elected to the Society in 1852. He was 

 one of the miany members who withdrew during the de- 

 pression which followed the prosperity of the Gold Dig- 

 gings in Victoria. He was again elected in 1884, and re- 

 mained a member until 1908. He contributed a biographi- 

 cal note to the volume of papers by the late James 

 Backhouse Walker on the history of Tasmania, published 

 by the Society in 1903 under the title "Early Tasmania." 



Mr. Clarke married a daughter of Mr. Henry Hopkins. 



