BROUGHTON.

To Mr. Doddridge.

June 1st, 1727.My very dear and valuable Friend,—I am extremely obliged to you for your kind and consolatory epistle, and also for your kind services last Lord's-day; but am very sorry that my clerk should abscond. I suppose it was to give a specimen of his high orthodoxy, and for fear his tender conscience should be defiled with some of good old Mr. Baxter's divinity. Now this man, who is so much afraid for himself, has lately put a son apprentice in London, where he frequently hears swearing in the family, and is obliged to go to church, and has not liberty so much as to come and hear me now I am in town. But I always observed that the most highly orthodox, are remarkably defective in some branch or other of the Christian character. This is the man, too, who was so much offended because Mr. Brock was not excommunicated for going to church, who has now obliged his own child to attend it for seven years! I hope my very good friend Doddridge will take no notice of his conduct, nor in the least slight his friends at Kettering upon that account. There are not many such as he, though I cannot say but there is more than one; but were they generally of his mind, I would preach the Gospel to the wild Indians before I would serve them. You have a great many sincere friends in Kettering that love you well, and are always pleased with your good services; and I may without compliment say, when I am there, that you have one who esteems you according to your desert, and that, in my opinion, is beyond any man of your standing I ever knew.

June 1st, 1727.

My very dear and valuable Friend,—I am extremely obliged to you for your kind and consolatory epistle, and also for your kind services last Lord's-day; but am very sorry that my clerk should abscond. I suppose it was to give a specimen of his high orthodoxy, and for fear his tender conscience should be defiled with some of good old Mr. Baxter's divinity. Now this man, who is so much afraid for himself, has lately put a son apprentice in London, where he frequently hears swearing in the family, and is obliged to go to church, and has not liberty so much as to come and hear me now I am in town. But I always observed that the most highly orthodox, are remarkably defective in some branch or other of the Christian character. This is the man, too, who was so much offended because Mr. Brock was not excommunicated for going to church, who has now obliged his own child to attend it for seven years! I hope my very good friend Doddridge will take no notice of his conduct, nor in the least slight his friends at Kettering upon that account. There are not many such as he, though I cannot say but there is more than one; but were they generally of his mind, I would preach the Gospel to the wild Indians before I would serve them. You have a great many sincere friends in Kettering that love you well, and are always pleased with your good services; and I may without compliment say, when I am there, that you have one who esteems you according to your desert, and that, in my opinion, is beyond any man of your standing I ever knew.

After the death of Mr. Saunders the Church wished to have Mr. Wood, afterwards Dr. Wood, of Norwich, to be their pastor, but he declined acceding to their request. Mr. Benjamin Boyce, then a student at Northampton, under Dr. Doddridge, was invited on probation; and on May 7, 1740, he was ordained.Of the ordination service Mr. Boyce gives the following account:—

Mr. Julius Saunders, of Denton, introduced the solemnity with a very serious and suitable prayer; after which Mr. Floyd more fully engaged in prayer, with great copiousness of expression, and I hope with great fervency. Mr. Simson preached a very plain and evangelical sermon from 2 Cor. iv. 7—"We have this treasure in earthen vessels," &c. Mr. Goodrich read the invitation of the Church, to which the deacons present expressed their consent in the name of the Church by lifting up their hands, with which I declared my determination to comply. The same person received my confession of faith, which I publicly read; and after asking me several questions usual upon such an occasion, prayed over me. Dr. Doddridge gave me a very affectionate and important charge, which I desire never to forget; and to the people, a very free and affectionate exhortation. The whole solemnity was concluded by Mr. Dorsley in prayer.Oh that God would make his strength perfect in my weakness, and his grace in my unworthiness! Oh that a double portion of his blessed Spirit may be poured upon me, who am so weak an instrument! and that such grace may be given me, who am less than the least of all saints, that I may "preach the unsearchable riches of Christ," and may be owned of him in my sincere desires and mean endeavours, if it is agreeable to the purpose of his grace, to fit and prepare many souls, that are either brought home or are yet strangers to him, by faith and holiness, for the complete enjoyment of "the inheritance of the saints in light." Thus may the Church of God be daily increased and edified, till all its pastors and all its members shall meet together to ascribe glory and grace to Him that sits on the throne and the Lamb for ever. Amen.

Oh that God would make his strength perfect in my weakness, and his grace in my unworthiness! Oh that a double portion of his blessed Spirit may be poured upon me, who am so weak an instrument! and that such grace may be given me, who am less than the least of all saints, that I may "preach the unsearchable riches of Christ," and may be owned of him in my sincere desires and mean endeavours, if it is agreeable to the purpose of his grace, to fit and prepare many souls, that are either brought home or are yet strangers to him, by faith and holiness, for the complete enjoyment of "the inheritance of the saints in light." Thus may the Church of God be daily increased and edified, till all its pastors and all its members shall meet together to ascribe glory and grace to Him that sits on the throne and the Lamb for ever. Amen.

Mr. Boyce continued his ministry for 30 years over this people. During that period 161 members were added to the Church, and at his death the Church numbered 120 members. He died October24th, 1770, aged 54 years. "Mr. Boyce was a native of Coventry, educated for the ministry at Northampton; in size rather under the middle stature. He was a close student, a practical and experimental preacher."

The Meeting House was new roofed soon after the commencement of his ministry, which indicates that it could not have been done well at the first, as it had only been built about 18 years. Several new pews were made over the stairs leading to the galleries, and where forms had before been set; which pews were immediately filled, and continued so, as did all the others, until his death. He was buried in the aisle before the pulpit, where his wife also, and mother, and two children were interred; and a handsome stone, with a suitable inscription, was placed in the front of the desk. "He lived much beloved, and died much lamented." Robert Hall observes, "that Mr. Boyce sustained the pastoral office for a long series of years with the highest reputation and success; and his death was deplored as an irreparable calamity, leaving it very improbable that a successor could be speedily found capable of uniting the suffrages of a people whose confidence and esteem he had so long exclusively enjoyed. Such is the imperfection of the present state, that the possession of a more than ordinary portion of felicity is the usual forerunner of a correspondent degree of privation and distress; and the removal of a pastor who has long been the object of veneration generally places a Church in a critical situation, exposed to feuds and dissensions arising out of the necessity of a new choice." This appeared in the case of Mr. Boyce's immediate successor.

Mr. Addington, of Harborough, delivered the funeral oration at the interment of Mr. Boyce, and Mr. Gregson,of Rowell, preached the funeral sermon, from 1 Thess. iv. 13, 14. In the closing part of that sermon we find the following statements in the account given of Mr. Boyce:—

It should be known that he feared the Lord, like good Obadiah, greatly, from his youth. He gave himself up to the Church of Christ under the pastoral care of Mr. Simpson, of Coventry, when he was 16 years of age. He acquired a rich stock of useful and valuable knowledge from those who were admirably capable of imparting from their rich treasures. Thus furnished, he began the sacred work of the ministry before he was 21 years of age, and has told you, in the last letter he will ever write, "It was the determination with which I preached my first sermon among you, to know nothing comparatively, but Jesus Christ, and him crucified; and I trust it has been my sincere concern to continue in that resolution to the last, testifying repentance towards God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ." You are his witnesses, my dear brethren, how well, through divine grace, he abode by his determination, and you well know that the doctrines of the rich, free, and sovereign grace of God were his delight to study and to preach; and you must know how wisely and judiciously he stated them—with what caution, guarding against every extreme, and every abuse of those great and glorious truths. You cannot but know with what discreet zeal, with what plainness and fidelity, he published the grace of God in the ever-blessed and glorious Redeemer. Was not this the chief topic he delighted to insist upon? and particularly to show what holy, divine, and heavenly influence it ought to have upon the hearts and lives of men? and did he not do this in a very persuasive and pathetic manner? Did he not preach Christ Jesus the Lord, and constantly in his ministrations lay no other foundation than Christ Jesus, which God has laid in Zion, for your faith and hope to build and rest your eternal concerns upon? How has he declared in that very serious and affectionate epistle he sent you, "I know no other foundation that God has laid in Zion; and themore I survey the excellence of it, as given us in the Scriptures, the more I can say it is tried and precious. Nothing else will do to support the stress of our eternal hope, or indeed the pressure of painful afflictions. Blessed be God, here is support! here is consolation! it rejoices me to think that there are so many that can add the testimony of their experience to mine." The great God had blessed him with a happy temper and amiable carriage and behaviour. He knew how to weep with those that weep, and to rejoice with those that rejoice. He abhorred the mean conduct of too many in this degenerate world, the speaking evil of others; and was he not an example to believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity, and in prudence, for almost thirty-three years (which was almost double the number of the years of his predecessor), amongst you, the people of his charge? Oh how comfortable and delightful was the frame of his mind in this his last illness, which suddenly came on him, made rapid progress in extinguishing such a useful and precious light in this our Israel! On the last Saturday se'nnight, being the 20th of October, when he lay down upon his dying bed, he found great comfort from those words, in Romans viii., former part of the 34th verse: "Who is he that condemneth? it is Christ that died." He spake these words with tears of joy. His language was, "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth I desire beside thee." When he was asked how he did by one of his friends, he answered, "I am well, for the consolations of God are neither few nor small; God has not left me, nor will he leave me." When I asked him how it was with him with respect to a better world, his answer was, with great pleasure in his countenance, "I can cheerfully trust my good God." He seemed always, during the intervals of his wanderings, to be praying, and before he died was very sensible; and, as far as can be learned, he spent his last breath in committing you, his dear people, to God in prayer (in which he had an excellent gift), and then sweetly fell asleep in Jesus, after having finished his appointed work and service.

Mrs. Boyce died little more than six months afterthe death of her husband, and that shortly after giving birth to an infant. From her funeral sermon, preserved in manuscript among the records of the Church, we present the following extract:—

After having summoned the tender and happy husband from the amiable partner of his joys and cares, and left her in widowhood to mourn his absence for awhile, he calls her to follow him—takes her away from all her new-formed and pleasing connexions, and (affecting consideration!) takes her likewise from her new-born babe. Methinks I could now take the dear little forsaken stranger, and present it to you in my arms (in the arms of my affection I do)—hear it saying, in accents truly tender and striking, "Pity me, pity me, O my friends, all ye my late worthy father's friends, my dear mother's friends, for the hand of the Lord hath bereaved me; those who might have been the guides of my youth he has taken away." Say you not?—yes, I think I read the language in some of your countenances, and in your tears—"Though father and though mother, dear babe, have forsaken thee, the Lord take thee up."

Referring to the death of Mr. Boyce, the preacher observes—

Though, as a congregation, he has taken away from you an able, faithful, useful shepherd, who watched for your souls as one that must give an account—even under a trial and loss great as that is, it becomes you not to censure or complain. Our good friend who is now taken away manifested the happy influence of the Gospel hope in the composure of her spirit under that great loss which she lately sustained, and through the afflictions by which she was removed, thankfully embracing and sweetly relying upon the Redeemer's consolation to his disciples in John xiv. 2-4, "In my Father's house are many mansions," &c. Referring to him who has recently been taken away from her and from you, she said, with apparent pleasure, in her last illness, "I shall soon be with the good man in glory"; speaking in joyful terms of being taken to sing praises with the saints in glory, for ever and ever.

In the month of April, 1771, an invitation was given to Mr. John Fuller to remain amongst them twelve months on trial, with a view to his becoming the pastor. At the expiration of that time a unanimous invitation was given to him. Mr. Fuller was ordained August 6th, 1772, when we find Messrs. Denny, Wright, King, Gregson, Dr. Ashworth, Addington, Hextal, and Dowley, were engaged. Mr. Fuller had been a member of the Church in Gravel Lane, London, under the pastoral care of the Rev. Noah Hill.

But in little more than two years from this time, dissatisfaction arose in the Church with the ministry of Mr. Fuller. It is stated, that "several persons proposed an assistant to Mr. Fuller, but the proposal was rejected by Mr. Fuller and his friends." The assistant proposed was a Mr. Richard Fuller, cousin to the pastor.

Under date of August 14th, 1774, we are informed "that a dissatisfaction having arisen in the minds of some of the Church members and subscribers with Mr. Fuller's preaching, and there being no prospect of peace and happiness, he this day declared his resigning his charge as minister and pastor; but supplied the congregation by others until Michaelmas, always behaving with a good temper and spirit, although his ministry was not by several approved." In our early days we have heard from some of the older members of the Church that the text of Mr. Fuller's farewell sermon was (Gen. xlv. 24) Joseph's counsel to his brethren, "See that ye fall not out by the way."

But after the removal of Mr. Fuller, great discord and confusion prevailed in the Church and congregation. The friends of the late pastor, who wereattached to his person and ministry, were greatly displeased with the conduct of those who had been the means of his removal. Many things were done and said which were very painful to both parties, created much ill feeling amongst themselves, and exposed them to the derision of the men of the world.

After some time they sent an invitation to Mr. Saunders, of Bedworth, who they understood was desirous to remove; but the invitation not being unanimous, it was declined.

Their attention was soon after directed to the Rev. T. N. Toller, who was a student in the academy at Daventry. Mr. Toller first preached to them as a supply, October 1st, 1775, when he was not quite twenty years of age. The first text was Acts xiii. 26: "Unto you is the word of this salvation sent." In the following April, two of the deacons went to Daventry to invite Mr. Toller to become their stated supply for three months; at the expiration of this time, he was again invited for nine months; after which he received an invitation to become their pastor, which invitation was cheerfully signed, June 15th, 1777, by 87 persons, as the call of the Church to the pastoral office. The ordination service was held May 28th, 1778, when Messrs. Gregson, of Rowell, Palmer, of Hackney, Addington, of Harborough, Robins, of Daventry (Mr. Toller's tutor), Toller, of London (uncle to the pastor), and Bull, of Newport, engaged in the services of the day.

Thus commenced the longest pastorate with which the Church had yet been favoured; for Mr. Toller continued to labour amongst them until February 26th, 1821, making forty-five years and five months from the time of his first preaching at Kettering until hisdeath. It was a ministry of much acceptance, extended influence, and great usefulness. It restored peace to a divided people; it preserved them in unbroken harmony through all its course; the congregation having often a crowded appearance, and the Church being generally in a prosperous state; not so much perhaps by the numbers added to the Church, as by the advancing piety, devotion, consistency, and intelligence of its members.

There were 221 members added to the Church during the course of Mr. Toller's ministry. These members, we have no doubt, might have been greatly increased, had the methods adopted in some places for bringing forward candidates for the communion of the Church prevailed under the ministry of Mr. Toller. We should like to convey some idea to the mind of the reader of the nature of that ministry with which the congregation at Kettering were now favoured. It was in his stated services amongst his own people that the peculiar excellencies of Mr. Toller were developed. It was our privilege in early life to sit under that ministry, but we think we shall fail to present a correct view of the impression we have on our mind as to the distinguishing features, the peculiar beauties, of that ministry; and if we were to do this, the general reader would think it too highly coloured, as our first impressions of sacred things, our deepest and most lively emotions of a religious nature, in connexion with all that we may since have known or attained, appear to us to have been derived, under God, from the ministry of Mr. Toller. His person was above the middle stature; his appearance in the pulpit venerable and commanding; his voice deep and powerful; his manner all his own, and of such a characteras to chain the attention of the audience—always earnest, sometimes most fervent and impressive, rising to a high degree of impassioned eloquence when his assemblies were crowded, as on the afternoon of the Sabbath. His language was always clear, forcible, and plain, suited to the manner of his preaching; his sentiments most decidedly scriptural, evangelical, and practical, with a considerable portion of experimental piety. His ministry presented a full exhibition of the Christian temper. His discourses were distinguished by great conciseness yet fulness of matter, presenting often the most familiar but beautiful illustrations. Some of his most impressive sermons were formed entirely on the applicatory plan—some of them founded on Scripture inquiries, such as, "What think ye of Christ?" "Dost thou believe on the Son of God?" &c. During a very large portion of his ministry he delivered expository discourses on the morning of the Sabbath, which were distinguished by great beauty, variety, and richness of improving remarks. The afternoon sermon generally rose out of the morning exposition; not so frequently from a text taken from the paragraph expounded as a passage suggested by the main subject of exposition. But the prayers he offered in the stated services of the sanctuary were perhaps the most remarkable of the whole—the manner was so solemn; the tone so devotional; the adorations so sublime; the confessions so abasing; the petitions so full, fervent, and appropriate; the thanksgiving so expressive and exalted; the surrender so complete and unreserved; the whole placing us so much in the presence of God, leading us to feel what we were before him, what we needed from him, what provision was made for us, what we werereceiving, and what services we should render; often leading us on to the dying hour, and to the opening grandeurs of eternity. The value of such a ministry was apparent in the many cases of eminent piety that appeared amongst those that were trained up under it. Much of the Christian temper, the spirit of devotion, lively faith in the Redeemer, and the power of practical religion, were manifested in a considerable number of cases, considering the size of the place. There were "living epistles of Christ, known and read of all." We remember an eminently pious female member of the Church, of whom the pastor said, when improving her death, "He should esteem it an honour to be permitted to hold up her train in the heavenly world." While this showed the deep humility of the pastor, it showed the high estimate he had formed of the devoted member.

In the year 1799 Mr. Toller received invitations from the congregations at Carter Lane, London, and at Clapham, to become their minister, with an offer of great pecuniary advantages; but such was the attachment felt to him by his people at Kettering, as manifested in their great anxiety on the subject, and in the affectionate addresses presented to him on this occasion, that he gave a decided negative to these urgent and repeated solicitations.

In an address he delivered from the pulpit, in answer to those which he had received from his people, he bore a noble testimony to the kindness with which he had ever been treated by them; observing, "Twenty-four years ago I came to this place, under considerable and peculiar disadvantages, arising from extreme youth, inexperience, and the then critical and disjointed state of the congregation. I entered uponthe station with fear and trembling, and with scarce a peradventure of being able to give any general or lasting satisfaction. During this interval, I have gone through many trying afflictions, some of which you have known, and others, some of the most trying, you have never known. I have many faults to remember this day before God, much coldness of heart, many neglects of duty, and much unfruitfulness in my office; but I will do you the justice to say, that I have no injuries from you to enumerate, no personal ill behaviour from a single individual in all this time to complain of; and if you had all treated my great Master with a regard proportioned to that I have received from you, I should have been the happiest and most blessed minister on earth," &c.

He closed his days and his ministry together. Apoplectic seizures had weakened his frame, and at length had rendered him incapable of fulfilling all the duties of his office; while they indicated to him that his end was drawing nigh. In a letter written to his people, he intimated his wish to have an assistant. They invited the eldest son of their pastor, then preaching at Wem, in Shropshire, to become assistant to his father. This invitation he accepted; but before he entered on this new sphere of duty, the earthly career of his beloved and venerated father closed in death. "He preached on Lord's-day morning, February 25th, 1821, with much of his usual animation, from Isaiah lxiii. 7-13, and remarked at the close of the discourse what encouragement this passage affords the widow and the fatherless to put their trust in God, finishing his last public discourse with these lines of Doddridge:

"To thee an infant race we leave,Them may their father's God receive;That ages yet unborn may raiseSuccessive hymns of humble praise."

He spent the evening surrounded by his family, and conversing with his children in a strain of cheerful piety; and after a night of sound repose arose as well as usual the next morning. About noon, leaving the parlour, he was found a few minutes after in an apoplectic fit, or a seizure resembling apoplexy. Several medical men repaired to the spot, but life was extinct.

His remains were interred in the ground belonging to the Meeting House on Thursday, the 8th of March. On that occasion Mr. Horsey, of Northampton, read the Scriptures and prayed, and Mr. Edwards, of the same place, delivered the funeral oration. Mr. Hall, of Leicester, preached the funeral sermon on the same day from Heb. xiii. 7—a sermon which presented a most impressive representation of the responsibility attaching to a people that had been favoured with such a ministry, and the tremendous consequences that must follow the misimprovement of such advantages.

Mr. Toller only published during his life a sermon on the "faithful saying," entitled "A Plain and Popular View of the Evidences of Christianity"; a sermon occasioned by the death of the Rev. Samuel Palmer, of Hackney, Mr. Toller's most intimate friend, from 2nd Timothy i. 10—in which occurs this striking passage:—

Suppose this house had been three times its present size, and had been filled for half the century past with a constant crowd of hearers; suppose the fame of the venerable man now gone had been shouted to the skies, and he had been held up as the pride and prince of preachers; but after all, this had beenall:—suppose selfish motives had been supreme, under the disguise of love to souls; a mere notional religion had been propagated; people had been only amused, and amazed, and made to wonder and admire; but no minds really instructed, no hearts humbled, no sinners turned from theerrors of their ways, no Christian graces implanted, no Christian duties promoted; in this case all these fifty years (as we have seen) must end; and what is the consequence? What would all this parade and popularity have proved to him? Only the bursting of a glittering bubble; the retreat of an actor from the stage amidst the clappings of the theatre, which he was to hear no more. There is one passage of Scripture which, when realized, is worth all the cases of this kind which could occur put together, viz., when a dying minister can look round on a weeping, affectionate flock, and say, "Ye are our epistles, written upon our hearts," &c. I say, the genuine application of such a passage as this to a dying minister would be worth infinitely more than all the applause and popularity in the world.

Two discourses, occasioned by the death of the Princess Charlotte of Wales, were also published.

Since the death of Mr. Toller two volumes of sermons, and a volume of expository discourses on the Book of Ruth, have been published, as transcribed from the Author's shorthand manuscripts. To the first volume of sermons was prefixed a memoir of Mr. Toller, by his friend the Rev. R. Hall.

We will transcribe from that memoir an ever-memorable anecdote, or rather, the ever-memorable use the preacher made of a domestic incident to illustrate a most important subject:—

On one occasion he preached from Isaiah xxvii. 4—"Let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me." "I think," said he, "I can convey the meaning of this passage, so that every one may understand it, by what took place in my own family within these few days. One of my little children had committed a fault, for which I thought it my duty to chastise him. I called him to me, explained to him the evil of what he had done, and told him how grieved I was that I must punish him for it. He heard me in silence, and then rushedinto my arms and burst into tears. I could sooner have cut off my arm than have then struck him for his fault; he had 'taken hold of my strength, and had made peace with me.'"

After the death of Mr. Toller his son was invited for six months as a probationer for the pastoral office; at the expiration of that time he received a unanimous call to that office, which he accepted, and was ordained in October, 1821, when Messrs. J. Hall, Horsey, Edwards, Scott, Bull, and Hillyard were engaged in the principal services of the day. Thus, the eldest son of the late pastor, who had been educated for the ministry at the academy at Wymondley, succeeded to the place of his father in the most harmonious manner, and with the most cheering prospects of comfort and usefulness. During the 31 years that have elapsed since then, that harmony has been uninterrupted, that comfort and usefulness continued—the son pursuing a similar plan to that which the father adopted, in expounding the Word of God on one part of the Sabbath, to give enlarged views of Scripture truth, and to present the almost boundless variety the Book of God contains, habitually aiming to preserve a connexion between one part of the Sabbath services and the other. During the ministry of the present Mr. Toller 211 members have been added to the Church.

In the year 1849 very extensive alterations were made in the Meeting House, together with the building of a new vestry, school-rooms, class-rooms, and a dwelling-house for the sexton; the whole cost of which was about £1400, which was paid off within two years from the re-opening. The place is greatly changed from what it was. The large chandelier, with its dove and the olive leaf, is gone; the beautiful gaslight taking the place of the candles. The old pulpitis removed from its place, having long ago lost its noble sounding-board, it being now understood that the voice is better heard without such an appendage. The spacious windows on each side of the pulpit are lost, to make way for the new school-rooms, which are open to the Chapel. But the whole, we believe, has been greatly improved; additional room having been made for the hearers on the Sabbath, for the week-evening lecture, and also for the accommodation of the Sabbath-school, its Bible and its Infant classes. The present number of Church members is nearly 200; the scholars in the schools about 280.

Services are conducted in seven villages by members of the Church, chiefly on Sabbath evenings.

An impartial review of the whole will, we believe, present to the pastor and the flock the most abundant reason to "thank God and take courage."

In the history of this Church, we cannot but observe the very interesting fact which it presents, of 75 years having been already filled up by the ministry of the father and the son (and we trust that there is a probability of years of useful service being added in the case of the latter to the period that has passed), during which a Christian society and a numerous congregation have been preserved in peace, with the interests of vital religion advancing. While such a fact speaks well for the spirit and continued improvement of the people, it says much also for the Christian temper, the consummate prudence, the able and successful labours of the pastors, while to God they would unitedly ascribe all the glory.

At Warkton, about two miles from Kettering, occasional services are held. In this village Mr. Thomas Stone, another of the Puritan ministers, was rector—"aperson of good learning," it is said, "and great worth: a zealous Puritan, and a member of the classes." "He died, an old man and full of days, in the year 1617." Bridges observes, "that he was inducted into the living of Warkton in the year 1553." If this statement be correct, he must have been rector of that place 64 years. He was a learned man, of great uprightness, and uncommon plainness of spirit, minding not the things of this world; yet, according to Wood, "a stiff Nonconformist, and a zealous Presbyterian." At Geddington, the birth-place of Mr. Maidwell, the first pastor of the Independent Church at Kettering, there is a Chapel regularly supplied on the Sabbath evenings. This place of worship was provided by Mr. Nathaniel Collis, for many years a respectable bookseller in Kettering, and a deacon of the Church—Geddington was his native place.

Services are also conducted on Sabbath evenings at Great Oakley, five miles from Kettering; occasionally at Orlingbury, five miles in another direction; also at Thorpe and Loddington.

The Dissenters of Kettering have conducted occasional services in the village of Broughton, about three miles distant on the road for Northampton, for many years past. But rather more than five years ago, there were four or five young men in this village who began to think of the things which belonged to their everlasting peace; they formed themselves into a little band, and resolved that they would meet weekly and study the holy Scriptures, and encourage each other in theways of God. They subsequently joined a Christian Church at Kettering. Becoming anxious for the welfare of those around them, they had a cottage licensed for preaching; that was found too small for those who wished to attend. In the meantime several other Christian friends came to the village, and at length, in the year 1850, a Chapel was erected; it is a neat structure, capable of containing about 200 hearers. In January, 1851, a Christian Church was formed, consisting of 19 persons; Mr. Toller and Mr. Robinson, of Kettering, being present, and conducting the services. This village Church is formed on the broad principle of Christian union, designated simply a Christian Church, without denominational distinction; its present number of communicants is 22. There is preaching here on the afternoon and evening of the Sabbath, by friends from Kettering and other places. An interesting Sabbath-school is conducted, numbering more than 60 children. The teachers express the earnest desire that many of them may be gathered into the fold of Christ, and become useful in their generation.

This place was once noted as the residence of the eminent Puritan divine, Robert Bolton, B.D. He was presented to the rectory in the year 1609, and continued until his death, in 1631. It is stated concerning him, that "he was a most authoritative and awakening preacher, being endowed with the most masculine and oratorical style of any in his time;" that "he was so deeply engaged in his work, that he never delivered a sermon to his people in public till he had preached it to himself in private."

"His remains were interred in the chancel of Broughton Church, where there is a half-length figureof him with his hands erected in the attitude of prayer, resting on a book lying open before him; and underneath is a monumental inscription in black marble, of which the following is a translation:"—

Here lies,peaceably sleeping in the Lord,the body of Robert Bolton,who died December the seventeenth,in the year 1631.He was one of the first andmost learned of our Church.His other excellencies all England knoweth,lamenting the day of his death.

Mr. Bolton published a number of works; those most known in the present day are his 'Directions for Walking with God,' and his 'Four Lost Things.'

If a stranger were passing through the small but respectable town of Market Harborough, on the road to Leicester, with the intention of observing what was most worthy of notice, he would see on the right of the principal street, in the upper part of the town, a handsome structure, of considerable dimensions for the size of the place. On the front of the building he might notice the inscription—"Independent Chapel." If an intelligent traveller, he would think, Surely this was not the first origin of Independency here! This must have been erected for a body of some standing in the town. On inquiry, he would find that there had been an old Meeting House, which had stood at the top of the lane leading for Great Bowden for more than 150 years, during the whole of which period a numerous and respectable body of Dissenters had assembled in it; but that the building, with its plain walls, its high pews, its deep galleries, its antique pillars, and irregular form, had been entirely taken down; and this Chapel, in a more eligible position,had been raised by the present congregation. And he might be informed that it was nobly done; for after the most liberal subscriptions, amounting to £1600, a moiety of which was lost by the failure of the bank in which they were deposited: (in consequence of this, an appeal was made to the public, the result of which about made up the loss sustained:) the whole amount that remained to complete the cost was raised on the day of opening; the sum expended in the erection of the Chapel exceeding £3000.

From this introductory statement, we shall lead the reader back to the early history of this cause.

In looking backward for 190 years, we find that by the "Act of Uniformity," passed in the year 1662, Mr. Thomas Lowry was ejected from the Church in this place. Though we have no record of his life or his labours, beyond the statement "that he was a native of Scotland, and had a living in Essex before he came to Harborough," yet by his Nonconformity he teaches us that he had embraced principles which led him to refuse to bow to the dictates of men in the things of God, and which prompted him rather to sacrifice his worldly interests than what related to truth and a good conscience.

The probability is, that some of the people to whom he had ministered would become Nonconformists with their pastor; but whether he obtained any opportunities of preaching to them after his ejectment is not known. Subsequent events lead us to the conclusion that the principles of Nonconformity must have obtained a number of adherents in Harborough and its vicinity; because we find that, eleven years after the passing of the "Act of Uniformity" (i.e., in the year 1673), Mr. Matthew Clarke became the statedpastor of an Independent congregation here. This brings before us the first clear and certain information relative to the early history of this cause in Harborough.

A short distance from Leicester lies the village of Narborough, where, at the restoration of Charles II., Mr. Matthew Clarke was the rector; the living being worth at that time about £120 per annum. His father and grandfather had both been ministers in the Church. He was educated, under the best masters, with a view to the profession—first, in the Charter House, in London; afterwards, under Dr. Busby, at Westminster; and under Dr. Temple, at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was a diligent student; became eminent for his scholarship: but what was still more important, he became early devoted to God; associated himself with some students who were remarkable for piety, and who engaged in such exercises as tended to prepare for the work of the Christian ministry, for which they were designed. He obtained the degree of M.A.

He was presented to the living of Narborough in 1657. After pursuing his labours there for five years, he was ejected as a Nonconformist. He was earnestly pressed to conformity by Mr. Stratford, the patron of the living, but could not by any means bring his conscience to a compliance with what the law required. For conscience' sake he was a sufferer. Devoted to his work, he took every opportunity of preaching the Gospel in Leicestershire and parts adjacent. He was watched narrowly by some furious justices of the peace; and though he had the happiness often to escape, yet he was three times a prisoner in Leicester Gaol, for the crime of preaching the Gospel! After dwelling for a time in a lone house in Leicester Forest,and being driven from thence by the "Five Mile Act" to Stoke Golding, he was invited to Harborough, where he came and settled in 1673; and had a large congregation. This appears to have been the first and the permanent settlement of Protestant Nonconformists of congregational principles in this place.

In connexion with Harborough, Mr. Clarke also took the charge of a congregation meeting at Ashley, a village about five miles from the former place; and during the whole course of his subsequent ministry he regularly preached at Ashley in the morning, and at Harborough in the afternoon, every Lord's-day. His ministry appears to have been highly valued, and to have been eminently successful; at the close of it the Church numbered 202 members, a very large proportion of them living in the villages surrounding Harborough—some of them a number of miles distant. In the character of Mr. Clarke were combined unbending integrity and conscientiousness, with great kindness of spirit and manner. Of the first we have proof in his decided Nonconformity—in his willingness to suffer rather than to sin—in his following the path of duty, whatever might be the dangers to which it exposed him—in his steady pursuit of all the labours of his calling until laid aside by his last affliction—in his firm resistance of acts of injustice and oppression, as shown when, being convinced that the King's tax on his salary was unjust, he firmly and successfully refused payment: of the latter we have proof in his affectionate regard to the truly pious wherever he beheld them—in the peaceful temper which he breathed—in the kind and profitable intercourse he promoted between his brethren—and in the conciliatory spirit he manifested towards those who werethe enemies of the Gospel, or of the cause he supported.

Mr. Clarke had one son, named after him, who for a time became an assistant to his father in the work of the ministry at Harborough. The venerable father contrived, amidst all that he suffered for conscience' sake (and he drank largely of the bitter cup), to take peculiar care of the education of his son, whom he early instructed in the learned languages, together with several young persons who were studying under his tuition for the ministry.

The parent's wish to see his son a preacher of the same Gospel for which he was suffering was honourable to himself, but it seems to have led him to devote that son to the work without waiting to see whether God approved; which, but for the grace bestowed upon the youth, might have been a fatal injury to himself and thousands more. After revolving the question seriously in his mind, and reflecting on the sacrifices which the ministry would require, the son was at length animated to comply with the father's desire, by the consideration that they that "turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars for ever and ever."

On examining his own religious character, he said that he had endured much distress because he could not discern that remarkable change which many had experienced; still, however, he dreaded above all things a hypocritical profession; and though at first he thought his abstinence from sin, as well as his attention to secret prayer and other duties, might have arisen from a fear of offending his parents, yet he trusted that at last they sprang from the principle of love to God.

After he had acquired, not only Latin and Greek, but also several of the Oriental languages, in which his father possessed uncommon skill, and had added to them a familiar acquaintance with Italian and French, he went to study for the ministry under Mr. Woodhouse, a celebrated teacher in Shropshire. From thence he removed to London; and having joined a Church there, and heard several of the most celebrated preachers, he returned to Leicestershire, where he began his ministry as assistant to his father, amidst the storm that raged in the year 1684. He was so useful that very large additions were made to his father's Church while he was with him. "When he was present," says Mr. Neal, "at the declaration which the new converts made of the powerful impressions received under his ministry, oh, how he would humble and abase himself before God in prayer, and set the crown of his success upon the head of free grace!" During the first three years of his ministry he also laid the foundation of several congregations in that country. He was in 1687 called to preach at Sandwich, in Kent, where he was detained by the importunity of those who derived benefit from his labours; but after two years was recalled by the equal solicitations of his father and the flock in Leicestershire. But though he then settled with them, they were compelled by a sense of duty to give him up almost immediately, for, having preached an occasional sermon in London, he was invited to assist Mr. Ford in Miles' Lane. This was his final removal from Harborough. After Mr. Ford's death he became the sole pastor of the Church, was the means of changing a declining cause into one of the most prosperous Churches in London, and attained a very high degreeof popularity and usefulness, which were maintained by the divine blessing even to the close of his life. With the inspiration of friendship added to that of genius, Dr. Walls composed a Latin epitaph, which was inscribed on his tomb in Bunhill-fields; and at the request of friends he gave an English translation, which would furnish an eloquent and spirited memoir of the deceased. This epitaph we insert here, because Harborough was the scene of his youthful days, his early education, his decided piety, and his first stated engagements in the ministry, which were so excellent and successful as to give promise of all the future eminence he attained. It may be found in the last volume of Watts's Works, page 439.

Sacred to memory.In this sepulchre lies buriedMATTHEW CLARKE,A son bearing the nameOf his venerable father,Nor less venerable himself:Trained up from his youngest yearsin sacred and human learning:Very skilful in the languages:In the gift of preaching,excellent, laborious, and successful:In the pastoral office,faithful and vigilant:Among the controversies of divines,Moderate always, and pacific:Ever ready for all the duties of piety:Among husbands, brothers, fathers, friends,he had few equals:And his carriage toward all mankind wasEminently benevolent.

But what rich stores of grace lay hid behindThe veil of modesty, no human mindCan search, no friend declare, nor fame reveal,Nor has this mournful marble power to tell.Yet there's a hast'ning hour—it comes!—it comes!To rouse the sleeping dead, to burst the tombs,And set the saint in view. All eyes behold,While the vast records of the skies, unrolled,Rehearse his works, and spread his worth abroad;The Judge approves, and heaven and earth applaud.

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