Horace M. Conaway

REV. HORACE M. CONAWAY, D.D.

The Rev. Horace M. Conaway, D.D., was born near Scio in Harrison county, Ohio, April 2, 1860, and died in Fredonia. N. Y., December 17, 1922, after an illness lasting several months. Funeral services were held in Fredonia Church, and his body rests in beautiful Forest Hill Cemetery.
Doctor Conaway was well trained intellectually, and his attainments were recognized and honored by reputable schools of higher learning- Graduate of Scio College in 1888, master of arts from Ohio University;
doctor of philosophy from Columbia University, and doctor of divinity from Allegheny College (1906).

He was admitted to the East Ohio Conference in 1888 and transferred to the Erie Conference in 1898, where he spent twenty-one years of his ministry. These years were spent in the service of Sheffield; First Church New Castle; Cattaraugus; First Church Warren; Ridgway, and Fredonia, N.Y.

For eighteen years Doctor Conaway was the chairman of the Board of Examiners of his Conference, a position for which he was exceptionally well timed.

During the thirty-two years of his service he greatly magnified the work of the ministry, He had no doubts about his call and experienced high joy in preaching the Word. His services were sought for educational work, but the call to the pastorate was too clear, and the joy too great, for him to be beguiled by the allurements of any other vocation. The work of the ministry drew his powers to the utmost fullness and kept him so well balanced in his views and judgments that he was never guilty of any aberrations or fanaticism. His was a well ordered intelligence. He was not known during the twenty-one years he was a member of Erie Conference to engage in any discussion that he did not add something that enabled men more clearly to understand the question at issue.

He was a strong preacher. He mastered the subjects he presented, and expressed himself clearly, using chaste, beautiful language. He was unusually versatile and enriched all he said or wrote from his well stored mind. As a pastor he was faithful, understanding, sympathetic, wise; hence helpful in the delicate ministry of consolation he excelled. The sick were remembered and cheered, the sorrowing comforted, the troubled strengthened and the doubting taught. His sympathies were broad. His holiness was swept by the thrills of others' pains because he had bad his own Gethsemane and Calvary. Because of these experiences his counsels and faith were helpful to the sorrowing and the afflicted. Hic training had been in the university of life under the Master Conforter, and he had been an apt learner.

Doctor Conaway was modest, humble, but when his mind was settled on any course of action he was immovable. He had settled his course and proceeded calmly on his way.

Charles Kingsley was asked the secret of his winsome life. His modest reply was, "I had a friend." The same might be said of Horace Conaway. To Him he was loyal always and everywhere. Not only was he a man of deep and intelligent religious convictions, but he was also an exemplar of his Lord. He was always true to him in the essentials of faith and practice. his intellectual modesty and clean life commended him to discerning men as soon as they met him. An aged scholar of wide acquaintance said to an official of this man's church after learning to know him well, "There is a man too per cent. pure gold." Those who knew him would indorse this judgment.

He exhibited a keen sense of righteousness and justice in his relations with men and communities. He was hospitable to all causes and furthered them by his personal support. Were the shields of unrighteousness to be examined there would he found many deep dents made by this man. He was not boisterous in his attacks on evil, but permanently effective. As a friend he was faithful as gravitation. He retained his friends because he was worthy. Doctor Conaway was a good minister of Jesus Christ. He opened the Word he interpreted his Lord to others.

By F. S. Yeach, Memoirs of Deceased Preachers, Erie Conference Journal and Yearbook, 1923, pages 826-827.