On Sundays it was touching to see the venerable old man ascending the pulpit, giving out his text, and then preaching with all his old fire and vigour. The accuracy with which he quoted his texts made it hard to believe that the preacher was blind. The same accuracy was remarkable in another way. There were few things in which Canon Hoare took more interest than in helping the younger clergy. All through his career his Greek Testament readings have been sources of great blessing and help. In the last few years of his life, since his blindness, he revived these readings, going rapidly through a book or group of passages dealing with a subject. There are several now in Tunbridge Wells who remember gratefully and lovingly those early half-hours once a week; they can see him in his study-chair, surrounded by six or eight of the junior clergy with pencils and note-books—the mortal eyes sightless, but the eyes of his understanding being opened, and from his lips pouring forth a stream of words almost too rapid to take down, as he sketched forth the scheme, say, of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and then going into the details chapter after chapter, pointing out the notes of exegesis and different readings, and the light thrown by the Revised Version on each. It was at this time, as the first birthday after his blindness drew near, that several members of his loving congregation subscribed together and purchased a splendid gold repeater watch, striking the hours, quarters, and half-quarters, as a birthday present for their old Vicar. The following letter, written with the aid of the typewriter which he had also learned to use after the loss of his eyesight, shows how much he appreciated this further proof of their affection:— “TRINITY VICARAGE, _June_ 5_th_, 1889. “MY DEAR MRS. PERKINS,—I hear that you have been the one chosen by your friends to convey to me the beautiful gift which I received this morning, so to you I must send my answer, and ask you to be so very kind as to assure all the dear people who have taken a share in it of the very great pleasure that their gift has given me. It was so kind of you all to think of me, and to mark by a birthday offering your loving interest in my welfare. But, as for your sending me such a beautiful present, I never for one moment thought of such a thing. You have, however, selected a most useful and valuable form for your kindness. “For many years I have been dependent on a repeater for securing, day by day, the sacred morning hours before breakfast; and many an hour has been secured to the study of God’s most holy Word through the use of an old repeater left to me (as a legacy) by the dear uncle who gave me my title to my first curacy.