“It was on a foundation thus broad and solid that his commanding personality was built up, becoming a tower of strength to those who resigned themselves to his religious guidance, and attaching marvellously by its strength and sweetness converts to the religious principles which he held and advocated. How important a place he held at his best in the esteem of his neighbours those will remember who witnessed the universal demonstrations of sympathy when his life was in danger from Roman fever, and the whole town was quivering with anxiety lest they should lose one whom they could so ill spare. And though the wane of his physical powers and the inevitable changes of a watering-place population may have narrowed the circle of his influence towards the last, the striking demonstrations of respect which marked his funeral bore witness not only to the deep attachment of his own congregation, but also to the widespread conviction of his brother-clergy and of all the country-side that a shining light had been quenched, whose witness for God had penetrated far beyond the range of his personal ministrations. “Of the endeared relations between him and his congregation, who had looked up to him for spiritual direction for over forty years, only those within the magic circle of that pastoral connection could form an idea. The well-spring of personal affection which flowed forth from his loving heart towards the humblest of his flock was repaid by a personal devotion which might have proved injurious to a weaker character, less firmly rooted on the rock of truth. But there was an element of generous appreciation in a remark let fall at his funeral, that there was probably no more ‘personally conducted’ congregation in England than that of Trinity Church, Tunbridge Wells. “But on wider platforms Canon Hoare’s ascendency of character had been in his time not less conspicuous. In his own ruri-decanal meetings, in which he continued to take part up to within a few weeks of his death; in the diocesan conferences, at which only a year ago he bore his solemn and memorable testimony to the value of Church Schools; and at Church Congresses, where he was ever ready to step gallantly into the breach in defence of the principles of the Church which he thought to be assailed,—in these various fields of encounter the manliness of his advocacy, set off by his manifest sincerity, and by his charity towards those who differed from him, commended itself to the admiration even of those who remained unconvinced by his arguments.