JOHNSTON, Robinson, Rev., B.A. (1852-1925)
Assembly memorial minute 1925
The Rev. ROBINSON JOHNSTON, B.A., was born in County Armagh in 1852, and was ever recognised as an excellent type of the North of Ireland minister. A graduate of Queen’s University, he went to New Zealand in 1880, and, after some time spent in the service of the Church there, he came to Victoria, and was settled at Shepparton.
Three years of good pioneering work were put in there, after which he was translated to Lake Rowan, in the Presbytery of Beechworth. In this quiet parish he lived and wrought for the long term of twenty-seven years—till, indeed, failing health compelled him, in 1916, to retire.
Only those who know the district can have an adequate idea of the measure of the influence he exercised upon those to whom he ministered. Of a quiet and retiring disposition, Mr. Johnston was not intimately known to many, even of his ministerial brethren. But by those who had the privilege of being closely acquainted with him, he was recognised as a man of shrewd, but withal most kindly judgment, of wide intellectual interests, of good scholarship, of high devotion to duty, and of deep but unobtrusive piety.
Mr. Johnston’s memory will long be cherished in the Lake Rowan parish as that of the wise teacher, the kind friend, and the faithful pastor.
The sincere sympathy of the General Assembly goes out to the widow, who ministered so lovingly to him during years of weakness, and to the son and daughter.
Gender
- Male