ROLLAND, William Stothert, Rev. (1846-1920)
Assembly memorial minute 1920
The Rev. William Stothert Rolland was born at Edinburgh in 1846, into a home deeply stirred by the spiritual forces that led to the establishment of the Free Church of Scotland. In the year 1859 he accompanied his father to New Zealand, and grew up among pastoral pursuits in Central Otago.
In 1873 he came to Victoria where, under the influence of the Rev. Dr. A.J. Campbell, of Geelong, whose daughter, afterwards became his wife, he commenced his preparation for the office of the holy ministry. All the years of his ministry in the Presbyterian Church of Victoria were given to the congregation and parish of Prahran, where, from such small beginnings in 1882, he led the Church forward until, for devotion, for organisation and equipment, for deep and many-sided interest in the cause of the Kingdom, it came to be regarded as a model.
He gave his richest and best to his own people, in his thoughtful and tender leading of their public devotions, in his earnest, interesting and faithful handling of the Word of Life, and in that intimate pastoral relationship through which he ministered so effectively the priesthood of his Lord. The Church realised that the Rev. W.S. Rolland was a son who was worthy of the highest honour that it could put upon him.
In the year 1905 he was chosen as Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria, and between the years 1910 and 1912 he filled the high office of Moderator-General of the Presbyterian Church of Australia.
To the service of Christ and His Church he devoted untiringly the special gifts with which he was so richly endowed. He had marvellous alertness and energy; he would spare himself no labour in trying to secure whatever seemed to be needed in the Church, and for the service of the Kingdom. But wide horizons and big enterprises did not turn him away from the little details of parish life. He had the. artist's vision of the beauty, wonder, and worth of unconsidered things in Nature and in human life. His whole life of service leaves an impression of sureness and strength of conviction, joined to the buoyancy that belongs only to one who, through all the years, holds to the essentials of the child-heart.
The Rev. W.S. Rolland, while not a foremost ecclesiastic, was a great Churchman. He looked out over the wide fields of service, and claimed for his Lord a large sovereignty. He insisted upon the fact that neither individual nor congregational life can be sound and strong and progressive unless it relates itself lovingly to the wider cares of the Christian Church.
His interest in Foreign Missions, and his care for the needs of the sick and poor in our own city, which led him towards the founding of the Deaconess Institute, and made him, to the end of his life, its chief support; his warm and constant advocacy of the claims of the British and Foreign Bible Society upon the helpfulness and the prayers of the Church; his work among the children as Editor, for many years, of the Record, belonged to the very essence of his conception of what Christian life ought to be, and of what Christian service must aim at.
He was a faithful minister of Jesus Christ; he preached the truth he lived by; and, with all the passion of his heart, he believed in the Gospel of the Cross.
The Assembly conveys its earnest sympthy to his widow and family, and prays that God will comfort them in their loss.
Gender
- Male