A PARABLE FOR THE YOUNG.

EDITH THORPE was a timid child, who had been carefully guarded ever since her birth by a loving father and mother. She had seen only the sights of city life, and those always with one of her parents by her side. She was familiar with the jingle of the bells on the tram-horses as they ran past the end of the quiet street of small houses where she lived. She knew the grumbling noise of an omnibus, and was accustomed to its boxlike shape as it rolled along the busy streets. Once or twice her father had taken her with him when he went a short journey on the strange railway in London called the Underground Railway. Like many a city-bred child, she knew nothing of the freedom enjoyed by country-bred children, who roam about lanes and footpaths and meadows. But one sweet spring it was decided to send her along with her mother, who was not very strong, to enjoy the country for a fortnight. Everything was new and wonderful to her: green hedges instead of high brick houses; soft grass to walk on instead of hard pavement; lambs in the fields instead of dusty, frowsy cats in the backyard; birds of all sorts in the trees and hedges, instead of the few chirping sparrows that did their little best to enliven her London life. The sense of freedom was delightful, and she began to use it by very short trips from the door of the cottage where they were staying. On the third or fourth day she ventured to the far side of the village, and came upon a sight which greatly frightened her. Through the open door of a low shop, which had also an open window, she saw a bright fire blazing, which leaped and roared as a great man blew wind into it out of a large pair of bellows. She also saw him now and again turn a piece of hot iron in the fire. It was a strange place, and the blacksmith, with his leather apron, his strong arms, his black face and hands, and his shaggy hair, looked almost terrible in her eyes. Presently he seized a large hammer in his right hand, and, taking the iron out of the fire, laid it on an anvil, and struck it a blow which made the sparks fly right and left.

Edith ran home terrified. But the next day, in the evening, she met the same man with a little child in his arms, which he carried very tenderly, and now and again bent down his head to kiss. She began to think that he must be a kind man, although he had seemed so strong and so terrible.

In a day or two she found herself again at the blacksmith's shop, and this time there were some little girls like herself, who had called in on their way from school. They stood all in a group where the blacksmith had put them out of the way of the

sparks, and when he saw Edith's little face peep in at the door, he offered to place her among them; and she consented, and went in. His love had conquered her fear of his power, and while she remained in the village the blacksmith and she were the best of friends. What fun it was now to hear the big bellows blow, to watch the hot sparks fly, and to see the blacksmith turn a piece of iron into any shape he liked!

Edith became a reader of her Bible, and some of the things in it puzzled her, while other things made her afraid. When she read that God removes the mountains and shakes the earth out of its place, and makes its pillars tremble, and spreads out the heavens (as she had seen the stars spread out at night when it became dark), and does great and wonderful things past finding out, she trembled as she did when she first saw the blacksmith. What made her more afraid was that God was so near to her, and yet she could not see Him. This verse had a strong hold upon her mind: 'He goeth by me, and I see Him not; He passeth on also, but I perceive Him not.' At last another part of the Bible began to be favourite reading with her: the stories about Jesus and what He did when He was on earth. One day she read about His taking the children up in His arms and blessing them, and then she thought of the blacksmith and his little child: next she thought that Jesus was the Son of God, and by Him all things had been made. These thoughts continued with her a long time, and gradually subdued her fear of God. At last she made a great discovery, which turned her into one of the brightest and happiest of Christian children. She read in St. John xiv. 9, 'He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father;' and in the tenth verse, 'The Father that dwelleth in Me, HE doeth the works.' From which she learned that the Great God who shakes the earth had carried little children in His arms, and so she trembled before Him no more. On the contrary, she sought His shelter, as she had sought the kind blacksmith's when she visited his wonderful shop. She had no fear of God's power, because she trusted in His love; and I want all readers of my little parable to feel as she felt.

J. P. GLEDSTONE.

WHEN Queen Elizabeth rode through London, on her way from the Tower to be crowned at Westminster Abbey, at one stage of her progress a beautiful boy, intended to represent Truth, was let down from a triumphal arch, and presented her with a copy of the Bible. This was received by the Queen with a most engaging gracefulness of deportment; she placed it in her bosom, and declared,that of all the endearing proofs of attachment which she had that day met with from her loving subjects, this gift she considered as the most precious, as it was to her, of all others, the most acceptable.'

MEMOIRS OF EXTINCT LONDON

CHAPELS.

I. HOXTON ACADEMY CHAPEL.

I PURPOSE in these papers to call to mind some few of the old London chapels which have ceased to be, but which many of my readers with myself will remember in the days of their active congregational life. It will be observed, therefore, that we shall have nothing to do with those ancient meeting-houses, such as Bury Street and Pinners Hall and the like, which no living man can so remember, and which therefore no man could now write memoirs of, seeing a memoir, whether of person or place, is a reminiscence of what the writer himself knew and in which he took a living interest. It may be further observed that the chapels I have in my mind, and which I speak of as extinct, are so only as chapels, i.e. as meeting-places of churches and congregations. In most cases the bricks and mortar still stand, while that which gave these buildings their normal interest for the living communities of Christian people formerly assembling in them have 'transmigrated,' for better or for worse, to other habitations. It is of former things' concerning these chapels, and those who peopled them, of which I write.

I begin with Hoxton Academy Chapel, partly because it is the last of these chapels which has ceased to be, and whose extinction will therefore be fresh in the minds of those acquainted with it; and partly because it so happens that I was connected with this chapel in the days of my youth, and was therefore more closely identified with its former congregational life than with any other. I start with that which seems most natural to me.

ORIGIN AND EARLY YEARS.

When I began to attend the chapel it was in the midst of its days, as well as in the fulness of its strength; for it came into existence in the closing years of the last century, and its doors have only just been shut. There were old people there in my young days who could talk of its beginning; of its founder, Squire Wilson,' and of good Mr. Kemp, the founder of the Sunday school (said by many both then and now to have been the first established in London), and of the glory of its former days. The facts concerning the rise of Hoxton Academy Chapel are these. When young Mr. Thomas Wilson became successor to his deceased father as treasurer of Hoxton Academy for the training of young men for the Dissenting Ministry, he began to

cast about in his mind as to how the college might become a blessing to the neighbourhood around. In one corner of the very limited grounds of the institution stood some outbuildings, which it occurred to Mr. Wilson might be adapted to the purposes of a chapel, and forthwith the thing was done. This place was opened for public worship in October, 1796, the Rev. W. Jay, of Bath, being the preacher on the occasion. Mr. Simpson, the tutor of the college, ministered on Sundays, and the students on Thursday evenings. The enterprise seems to have been a success from the beginning. In a few years the congregation had so greatly increased, and the interest in hearing the Gospel had become so marked, that Mr. Wilson was led to form the purpose of erecting a new and large building; and soon he gave directions for the taking down of the little chapel and the erection at his own expense of a larger one on its site. On the 24th April, 1800, the new chapel was opened, the Rev. Joseph Slatterie, of Chatham, being the preacher. All this may be seen by reference to the Evangelical Magazine for 1800, p. 218. It is almost amusing in these days, when thousands and even tens of thousands are expended on the erection of a single chapel, to find that the original cost of Hoxton Academy Chapel amounted to the enormous sum of £850! The building seems to have caused some astonishment for its size, as probably also for its cost, for there were certain Sanballats and Tobiahs of the time who shook their heads, and said, 'it would never be filled.' But Mr. Wilson's bold conception was amply justified, for not only did the building speedily fill, but within six years of its opening two enlargements were effected, and still the place was too strait. Nothing succeeds like success,' as the French proverb hath it; and this probably accounts not a little for the success of Hoxton Academy Chapel. The daring of the enterprise, and its rapid success, taken, of course, with the able and effective preaching that might always be heard there, secured a crowded congregation. It was Mr. Wilson's first venture in chapelbuilding, and it served to encourage him to repeat the experiment in other parts of the metropolis, the result of which was these other large chapels, which by his sole effort were erected at Pentonville, Paddington, Regent Street, etc.

METHODS AND MINISTRATIONS.

A word must be said as to the ministrations. Mr. Wilson provided for the chapel at Hoxton. The whole affair was of course too large to be a mere appendage of the Academy. The tutor had, indeed, relinquished his ministrations before the large chapel was erected. The course pursued by Mr. Wilson was to obtain the very best ministerial supplies' from the provinces,

and here from time to time might be heard John Angell James, James Parsons, Joseph Slatterie, John Leifchild (then of Bristol), Sibree of Frome, Dr. Bogue, and other noted men of the day. Occasionally also the more prominent of the students of the adjacent college officiated, and Thomas Spencer, the young preaching genius who so early rose to fame, but who so early also met his death by drowning in the Mersey, frequently ministered, and gained no little of his notoriety by his juvenile efforts in the chapel at Hoxton.

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS.

These things for the most part I found living in the memories of others; now I come to recall my own. I very well remember being taken there for the first time, one Sunday evening, by a young friend. Had I not been taken I should certainly never have dreamed of finding a chapel there. Through some narrow streets into the not much wider one of Hoxton Old Town we wended our way, and then, turning sharply by the side of a public-house, there were a pair of iron gates opening upon a long stoned yard, at the end of which, just past the College House, stood the chapel. Entering the doors, there was a considerable space filled with people who were waiting to be let in at the doors of the aisles and galleries when the seatholders had taken their places, or left them free for worshippers who could not be seated till worship was over, and the hymn before sermon was being sung. Sometimes, however, the doorkeepers kindly let some few strangers pass in early, and I suppose my companion and I were so favoured, for I remember taking a seat in the gallery at the early part of the service. I little dreamed then, small boy as I was, that my future religious life would be so closely associated with that chapel, much less that I should ever come to write the story of it. I need not stay to describe how the young boy, taken there that night, was drawn there again from time to time, till at length he became a regular attendant; and while yet a youth, a member of the Church, leaving it only for college and another college chapel, returning occasionally to occupy the pulpit before which he had so often sat, as a lad, to hear the preaching that had helped to fortify his determination to be a preacher also. All this is matter for personal reminiscence; there are matters of greater interest to others about the Hoxton Academy Chapel of those times.

THE CHAPEL AND ITS SERVICES.

Large, overwhelmingly large, the place seemed in my young eyes; and indeed it covered a considerable area, which was filled with pews and green seats' (i.e. pews lined with green baize),