72nd Psalm should be realised. Then there was another house on the common, the mansion of John Thornton, which seemed to share with that of Lord Teignmouth the honours of these Divine committees of ways and means. Before the establishment of the Bible Society, Mr. Thornton had been in the habit of spending two thousand pounds a year in the distribution of Bibles and Testaments-a very Bible Society in himself. It is, perhaps, not too much to say, there was scarcely a thought which had for its object the well-being of the human family but it found its representation and discussion in those palatial abodes on Clapham Common. There were Granville Sharp and Thomas Clarkson; thither, how often went cheery old John Newton, to whom, first of all, on arriving in London, went every holy wayfarer from the provinces, wayfarers who soon found their entrance beneath his protecting wing, and cheery introduction to these pleasant circles. Beneath the incentives of his animating words, the fervid earnestness of Claudius Buchanan found its pathway of power, and The Star of the East-his great sermon on "Missions to India," was first seen shining over Clapham Common; and it was the same genial tongue which encouraged that fine, but almost forgotten man, John Campbell, in the enterprise of his spirit, to pierce into the deserts of Africa. We may notice how great ideas perpetuate themselves into generations, when we remember that it was John Campbell who first took out Robert Moffat, and settled him down in the field of his wonderful labours. Sir James Stephen, in his admirable paper, is far from exhausting all the memories of that Clapham Sect. There was another house, not in Clapham, but not far removed-Hatcham House, as we remember it—a noble mansion, standing in its park, opposite where the old lane turned off from the main road to Peckham. There lived Joseph Hardcastle-certainly one of the Clapham Sect-Wilberforce's close and intimate friend, a munificent merchant prince, in whose offices in the City were held for a long time all the earliest committee meetings of the Bible Society, the Religious Tract Society, and the London Missionary Society, and from whom appear to have emanated the first suggestions for the limitation of the powers of the East India Company in supporting and sanctioning, by the English Government, Hindoo infanticide and idolatry. Among all the glorious names of the Clapham Sect, not one shines out more beautifully than that of this noble Christian gentleman. Perhaps a natural delicacy withheld Sir James Stephen from chronicling the story of his own father, Sir George Stephen; and there was Thomas Gisborne, most charming of English preachers of the Church of England evangelical school; and Sir Robert Grant, whose hymns are still among the sweetest in our national psalmody. But we can do no more than thus say that it was from hence that the spirit of the Revival rose in new strength, and taking to itself the wings of the morning, spread to the uttermost parts of the earth. CHAPTER X. THE REVIVAL BECOMES EDUCATIONAL.- IN the year 1880 was celebrated in England and America the centenary of Sunday-schools. The life and labours of Robert Raikes, whose name has long been familiar as a household word" in connection with such institutions, were reviewed, and fresh interest added to that early work for the young. Gloucestershire, if not one of the largest, is certainly one of the fairest-as, indeed, its name is said to imply from Glaw, an old British word signifying "fair"-it is one of the fairest, and it ought to be one of the most famous, counties of England. Many are its distinguished worthies: John de Trevisa was Vicar of Berkeley, in Gloucestershire, and a contemporary with John Wyclif, and, like him, he had a strong aversion to the practices of the Church of Rome, and an earnest desire to make the Scriptures known to his parishioners; and in Nibley, in Gloucestershire, was born, and lived, William Tyndale, in whose noble heart the great idea |