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SKETCHES OF LONDON.

BY THE AUTHOR OF
"RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS OF THE LORDS AND
COMMONS," "THE GREAT METROPOLIS,"
" BENCH AND BAR," ETC., ETC.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.

PHILADELPHIA :
CAREY AND H AET.
1839.

ByzE ' I-
Printed by
Haswell, Barrington, and Haswell.

CONTENTS.

C H APTE R

THE P^ST OFFICE.

Its origin — Its, situation, dimensions, and appearance*^*
Business in the InlandjiOffice — Letter-carriers — Pre
paring for the despatch of$he mails — Number of letters
which pass through the Pq^Office— Number of letters
forwarded through private?|mveyances — General obser
vations and Statements-srReflections suggested by a
sight of the' letters' previous to their, being sorted —
Scene in the vestibule, and departure of the mails—
Transmission of njwfepapers — The average number sent
through the Post* Office — Enclosing newspapers in
. covers. The Two-penny Post Office — Its history and
present state— General remarks . . . p. 5

CHAPTER II.
BOOKSELLING  PATERNOSTER ROW.
Origin and history of Bookselling — Its introduction to
England.— Number of works annually , published in
London— Number, sold in Paternoster Row — Number
of houses that do a large business— Magazine Day —
Paternbster Row described . . ''•'- . p. 50

4 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER III.
RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS.
Episcopalians— Presbyterians— Wesleyan Methodists-
Independents — Baptists — Countess of Huntingdon's
Connexion — Various Evangelical Sects — Sandema-
nians — Irvingites — Moravians— Society of Friends-^
Roman Catholics — Swedenborgians — Unitarians — Mis
cellaneous religious Bodies-^The Jews — Moral state of
the Metropolis ... p. 66

SKETCHES OF LONDON.

CHAPTER I.
THE POST OFFICE.
Its origin — Its situacon, dimensions, and appearance-
Business in the*Tnland Office — Letter-carriers — Pre
paring for the despatch ofthe mails — Number of letters
which pass thrcjigh«'the Post Office — Number of letters
forwarded through private conveyances — General obser
vations and statements — Reflections suggested by a
sight ofthe letters previous to their being,, sorted —
Scene in the vestibule, and departure of the mails —
Transmission of newspapers — The average number sent
through the Post Office — Enclosing newspapers in
covers. The Two-penny Post Office — Its history and
present state — General remarks.
The General Post Office is one of the noblest
institutions not only in London, but in the world.
It is worthy of a great country like England,
and in none but such a country could it ever have
been brought to that admirable, I may almost
say perfect, state in which it now exists. It
VOL. II. — 2

6 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
will be my chief purpose in this '^chapter to
convey to my readers some idea of the vast and
complicated, though perfectly harmonious ma
chinery, in constant operation in this wonderful
establishment. The Post Office dates its origin from the year
1635, in, the time of Charles the First. Previ
ous to that time letters were forwarded to dif
ferent parts of the country by any chance con
veyance which offered itself. The necessary
consequence was not only an exceedingly dila
tory delivery, but, in many cases, the miscarriage
of important letters. It was this that induced a
Mr. Palmer of Bath to endeavour to devise
some plan by which the important object of a
safe and speedy conveyance of letters from one
place to another, might be gained. He accord
ingly suggested the propriety of establishing
coaches for the purpose, which should run at
regular intervals of time. The experiment,
for it was at the time viewed in no other light
than as an experiment, was first tried by causing
coaches to run between London and, Bath. It
was soon found to answer the intended purposes
so admirably, both as regarded safety, despatch,
and even economy, that in a very short time
similar coaches were appointed to run through
out every part of the kingdom in which there
existed any considerable traffic. The Treasury
speedily began to find that the Post Office would
prove a source of considerable revenue. Ifi a
few years, a revenue of several thousand pounds
was derived from it. It went on steadily in
creasing until it produced, in 1783, after paying
all expenses, an income to the Government of

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 7
145,000/. per annum. Since then, as will be
afterwards seen, the net revenue derived from the
Post Office has increased to more than ten times
that amount.
The General Post Office of London used to be
in Lombard Street, in a very confined and incon
venient situation. The premises there, being
found much too small for the amount of business
transacted, and it being desirable that a more
central situation should be fixed on, — the present
site in St. Martin's-le-Grand was. chosen nearly
twenty years ago for a new building, though that
building was not begun for some time afterwards,
and was not finished until 1829. The situation
of the new Post Oflrce is the best that could have
been chosen. It is in the very centre of the
most active and business part of London. It is
at the east end of Newgate Street, and the south
end of St. Martin's-le-Grand. It is not above
fifty yards from St. Paul's, and, considering the
part of the town, may be said to be in a fine
open locality. The building is of the Grecian
Ionic order of architecture. The basement is of
granite, but the body of the edifice is of brick,
faced with Portland stone. The building is large,
and has a magnificent appearance. Its length is
four hundred feet, and its breadth eighty feet.
The portico in the centre of the front, which has
an imposing effect, is seventy feet broad, and con
sists of six columns of Portland stone ; which
columns support a triangular pediment, on which
is inscribed in Latin, the name of George the
Fourth, the then reigning monarch, and the year
in which the superstructure was completed. At
the extremity of each wing is a portico of four

8 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
columns. The front of the building is to the
west. The front has forty-four large windows:
at the back, or east front, the number of windows
is no less than one hundred and eighty.
Beneath the centre portico is a vestibule which
has a singularly imposing effect. There is al
ways a greater or less number of persons in it, —
some on business, and others merely passing
through it, as affording a short cut from St.
Martin's-le-Grand to some parts of the City east
wards, or from the latter to St. Martin's-le-Grand.
On the north side of the vestibule are the receiv
ing rooms for letters, and apartments for the
sorting or classification of all inland letters and
newspapers. The mails are1 all received at the
east front ; strictly speaking, the back of the
building. On the south side are the Foreign
Office, and the Offices of Receiver and Account
ant. At the east end of- the vestibule are the
Two-penny Offices. The largest room in the
establishment is that in which the sorting takes
place, and is hence called the Sorter's apartment:
it measures forty-six feet in length, by twenty-
four in breadth. As any accident to the Post
Office by fire might be attended with most un
fortunate results to the country, the building has
been made fire-proof. At night the appearance
of the place is strikingly imposing, owing in a
great measure to the vast number of gas-lights
which are seen burning. The entire number of
gas-burners with which the place is fitted up, is
one thousand.
The business of the General Post Office, com
mences at the Inland-office a little after six
o'clock in the morning, the time at which the

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 9
mails arrive. The first thing to be done is to see
that all the mail-bags have arrived, and that they
are properly fastened. The sub-p&stmaster's bill
is then examined,, to see that it corresponds with
the amount of paid letters. If the amount be
surcharged, it is reduced ; if it be under, it is in
creased to the proper extent. These are duties
which are performed- by the superintending-
resident of the Inland-office, assisted by some of
the clerks under him. The next thing to be
done is, first, to sort the letters and newspapers
into divisions, and then to subdivide them into
walks. This is a process which requires the ut
most care, and, to accomplish it within the spe
cified time, the greatest despatch. The number
of persons employed in the work is accordingly-
very great. Including the letter-carriers, it is at
present, or wasin the beginning of the present
year 405. Of this number there are 84 clerks,
50 sub-sorters, 30 messengers, and the remaining
241 are letter-carriers. The clerks sort the let
ters, and the sub-sorters the newspapers. The
messengers assist in carrying them in bundles,
from place to place, and the letter-carriers re
ceive them for the purposes of delivery, and also,
to a certain extent, assist in the previous sorting
of them. There is what is called an early de
livery of letters in the City, in order that those
most extensively engaged in mercantile business
may have the advantage of receiving communi
cations from their correspondents before break
fast. The early delivery commences at half-past
eight in the morning, and is usually finished by
half-past nine, or a little after. It is not per
formed by lhe usual letter-carriers, but chiefly by
2*

10 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
the sub-sorters, who are a sort of promoted letter-
carriers ; or something between letter-carriers
and the clerks. These persons, in addition to
their salaries from the Post Office, receive gra
tuities from the parties receiving letters. The
emoluments derived from this source are very
considerable. The same parties ring the bells,
*as it is called, every evening, for half anhour after
the shutting up of the branch-officfes, in the va
rious walks into which the town is divided; and
for every' letter brought ^hem, they are allowed
to charge a penny. Their emoluments from the
two sources combined, are, as regards the City,
so great, that while the salary of the junior let
ter-carriers is ll. 3s. per week,, theirs is reduced
to 145. in consideration of the amount they re
ceive in this way. The sub-sorters all consist
of senior letter-carriers. Some of them, it is
understood, average about 200/.* a-year, after
* When one of these lucrative walks falls vacant,-
owing to the death, continued illness, or other cause, of
the party who had it, it is offered as a matter of right to
the next senior letter-carrier on the establishment. It
often happens, however, that he cannot avail himself of the
opportunity thus offered him of bettering his circum
stances, in consequence of his not possessing the requisite
capital to " work the walk," as the technical phrase has
it. In that case the offer is made to the next person in
the, order of seniority, and so on until some one having the
means of working the walk, has the, offer made to him.
The sum required for this purpose is often very great.
The Broad Street walk, in the City, cannot be worked by
any, letter-carrier, with a capital of less than 2000Z. An
other walk in Cheapside, requires at least from 1200/. to
1500/. for the purpose. The reason why so great a capi
tal is required, is, that the large mercantile houses only
pay their letters once a month ; whereas, the postman

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 11
being obliged, which they all are, to pay a cer
tain amount into a fund, 'called a superannuation
fund. Many of their incomes exceed 150/. a-
year. In order to expedite the delivery of the
early letters as much as possible, the sub-sorters
do not wait to receive the postage, but call for it
after eleven o'clock. ~ ,
The general delivery commences about nine
o'clock. Those letter-carriers, whose walks lie
in the western or other distant parts of the town,
immediately on receiving their letters and news^
papers, spring into an omnibus, provided by their
employers for the purpose, which carries them
at a rapid rate to their several destinations. By
{his means the remoter parts pf London' are not
much later in receiving their letters than those
parts in the immediate neighbourhood of the
General Post Office. An hour and a half is the
time which, in ordinary circumstances, the' de
livery is expected to occupy in each walk. Every
letter-carrier has his walk, making nearly 240
walks altogether into which the town is divided.
On delivering his last letter he proceeds to the
nearest Receiving-house, ahd gets a certificate
signed by the receiver, to show that he completed
his delivery in proper time.
Of late, a second delivery of letters has been
must settle with the Post Office three times a-week. The
credit, therefore, is given entirely at their own risk, as it
is at their own option. The consideration they get in re
turn from the merchants, for the accommodation thus af
forded them, is certain gratuities, which constitute by far
the largest part of their income. Sometimes they suffer
from bad debts. Instances are not uncommon, in which
merchants in an extensive way of business fail, owing the
postman from 151. to 20/. for unpaid letters.

12 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
established. These are letters which come by
a second mail, bringing bags from the leading
places in the North of England. As it would
be found impossible for the general post-carriers
to deliver the letters which come by this mail,
their delivery is entrusted, except in the City,
to the Twopenny Post letter-carriers ; of whom
I, shall have to speak afterwards. This second
mail arrives between eleven and twelve o'clock.
After the delivery of the letters in the morn
ing, the letter-carriers have nothing to do until
they ring the bells in the evening. They then
return to the General Post Office, where they
assist in sorting the newspapers until the des
patch ,of the evening mail. All the clerks and
other assistants, as in the case of the arrival of
the morning mails, are now busy at work. To
witness the operation of examining, taxing, and
sorting all the letters which eome in about seven
o'clock, in conjunction with the sorting of the
newspapers, is a most interesting sight. The
vast number of persons so employed, are severally
as much occupied with their individual duties,
as if there was not another person within their
sight or hearing.
All labour with an incredible despatch, and
yet the one never clashes or comes in collision
with the other. Some are examining franks,
others are checking the accounts of the deputies,
a third class are placing the letters between their
eyes and a light to detect double letters ; a fourth
classare taxing, that is, putting the postage on
the letters ; while a fifth are engaged in stamping
them. The remainder are employed in sorting
the letters agreeably to their respective addresses.

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 13
And yet the greatest regularity pervades the
whole of their movements ; all are working in
perfect harmony towards the same end, namely,
the despatch in the proper time, of the vast as
semblage of letters and newspapers which have
just arrived. Never, perhaps, did, the world
furnish so striking an illustration of what may
be accomplished by a skilful division of labour.
Only fancy what must be the perfection of the
system, and the despatch exercised, when I men
tion that out of 45,000 letters, which, speaking
in round numbers is the average number which
is sent off- every eyening, 35,000 are received
after six o'clock, and despatched by eight, and
yet not a single error occur in the way of send
ing letters to their wrong places. Our amaze-<
ment at this accuracy and despatch must be
greatly increased, when it is remembered, as will
be shown more particularly hereafter, that con
siderably more than this number of newspapers
is sorted and sent off at the same time.
Letters are, on an average, taxed at the rate
of 33 per minute. The stamping process is per
formed at the rate of from 150 to 200 per minute,
which is a wonderful instance of expedition,
considering that the thing is done by a hand-
stamp. The number of unpaid letters is in the propor
tion of about 5 to 1 of the paid. Out of 47,795
letters which were despatched from the Post
Office on a particular day in February last, there
were 32,835 unpaid, and 5,973 paid. The re
maining 8,987 were franks. The number of
letters that weigh an ounce is proportionably
very small. Out of 500 that were weighed on

14 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
a particular day in the spring of the present year,
there were only three whose weight exceeded
an ounce. The double and treble letters are to
the single in the proportion of one to eight.
Those letters which contain patterns of goods,
are considered as only single, and are charged
accordingly. The number of such letters coming
from Lancashire and other manufacturing places,
is much greater than of other letters. Out of
200 which lately passed on a given day through
the General Post Office from Manchester, no
fewer than 150 contained patterns of goods.
The average postage of letters which pass through
the Post Office, is nine pence. The average ex
pense of conveying each letter is, according to
the opinion of Mr. Rowland Hill, a gentleman
who has devoted much attention to the subject,
only the thirty-sixth part of a penny. The Earl
of Lichfield, the Postmaster General, estimates
the expense at one penny. In either case, as
will be afterwards seen, the government derives
an enormous clear revenue from this branch of
the public service.
The Post Office contracts with the proprietors
of mail-coaches on what tradesmen would call
hard terms. What do my readers suppose the
Post Office pays the contractors of the mail from
London to Edinburgh, for carrying on an average
1700 letters, and nearly 3000 newspapers ?—
Only five pounds, though the weight is upwards
of four hundred weight. I may here state that
it requires .20,000 letters, including the bags, to
make a ton weight.
It can hardly be necessary to say that the
number of letters received at the General Post

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 15
Office in the morning is pretty nearly the same
as that despatched in the evening. In the
former case, about 700 bags have to be broken
open ; in the latter, they have to be. tied up,
sealed, and sent off. If from the General Post
Office, I may be permitted to digress for a
moment, and to glance at the Two-penny and
Penny Post Offices — the former in the town,
and the latter in various parts of the country. — ,
the reader will be astounded at the number of
letters posted, to say nothing of those, lhat are
sent through other conveyances, in the course
of a-year. The number of General Post letters
which annually pass through that establishment
is 50,000,000. Of two-penny post letters the
entire number is 12,500,000 ; and of penny post
letters the number is 7,500,000 ; making a total
of 70,000,000 of letters which are yearly posted
in the United Kingdom.
But startling as this is, it gives no idea of the
actual extent of the epistolary correspondence
which takes "place in this country. Since the
carrying of letters by steam-packets has been
legalized, some thousands a-year have been trans
mitted through that medium of conveyance ; but
an immense majority of all the letters written in
the country are forwarded clandestinely to their
respective destinations ; the revenue not deriving
one farthing from them, otherwise than what is
indirectly derived from the consumption of the
taxed paper on which they are written. There
is scarcely a person that visits London from the
provinces, that does not bring with him a greater
or less number of letters to persons in town.
This is especially the case when the party comes

16 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
from a town of limited population, because in
that case his intended departure for the metropolis
is known beforehand to most of the inhabitants.
It is the same in going to any other large town's.
I have repeatedly known a person bring with
him from the town of Elgin, in the north of
Scotland, though only containing a population
of 5000, from twelve to fifteen letters to indivi
duals here, when visiting the metropolis. There
is rarely a box or parcel of any kind that is trans
mitted from one part of the country to the other,
without containing a greater or less number of
letters. Many ofthe leading merchants in Lon
don and the country, write thousands of letters
yearly, which never pass through the Post Office.
The great house of Baring, Brothers, and Co.,
publicly admitted some time ago, that in order
to avoid the postage, they were in the habit of
making up boxes of letters to the number of two
hundred, which they sent off every week to
Liverpool, where they were shipped for various
parts. Other large houses adopt a similar course.
I am convinced that, taken together, the letters
sent through clandestine conveyances to their
various destinations, and those forwarded through
the Post Office, the entire number annually
written in this country is not under 300,000,000.
But to return to the Post Office alone. It
may be interesting to know what the compara
tive number of letters is which are posted at the
two great offices in the parent establishment,
and the relative proportion of letters posted in
London and other parts of the country. The
following were the numbers as nearly as can

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 1
be ascertained, in the year ending December
1837 :— "¦»¦'•''
In the Inland Office . . 12,256,000
In the Foreign and Shipping
Letter Office . . •'. 702,000
In the Country Offices, Eng
land, . .- . . . 34,065,000'
In Scotland . . . 6,638,000
In Ireland . . . . 8,295,000

Making'a total of 61,956,000

This number, it is right to add, includes 7,067,000
Penny Post letters. Without these last, the
number of, strictly speaking, General Post letters
would be1 54,889,700, The number of offices,
for the transmission of this immense number of
letters is, in England, 633 ; Scotland, 220 ; Ire
land, 338 ; making a total of 1191.
The number of Branch General Post Offices
in London for the reception of letters is sixty-
four. This is exclusive of four grand branches,
which are respectively situated at Charing Cross ;
in Vere Street, Oxford Street ; Lombard Street ;
and High Street, Southwark. Letters and news
papers are received half an hour later at these
establishments than at the smaller receiving
houses. The salaries given to receiving house
keepers varies from 10/. to 25/. per annum. A
majority of the salaries are at the minimum of
10/. In four instancies only do the salaries reach
the maximum, of 25/. The total expenses of this
department of the Post Office establishment are
under 1000/. From these receiving houses, arid
from the four leading branch establishments, all
VOL. II. — 3

18 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
the letters and newspapers collected through the
day are brought to St. Martin's-le-Grand about
seven in the evening; and then, as before re
marked, operations begin in earnest, on a scale
of magnitude which is imposing, and with a
regularity, accuracy, and despatch}' which are
truly surprising. Only think of the 30,000 and
upwards of letters then lying on the tables all in
confusion, which must be arranged and despatched
in seven hundred different bags to all parts of
the country.
And who could gaze with stoical indifference
on this vast world of 'letters? Who could look
on it without feeling a train of touching reflection
arise in his mind ? Ah ! did he but obtain an
insight into the interior of those carefully folded
sheets of paper, what revelations would they
make ! How varied their subjects ! How diver
sified the temper and feeling in which they are
written ! What a vast difference in the tendency
of their contents, or in the feelings they are calcu
lated to excite !
There is not a subject under heaven which is
not touched on or alluded to in some one or other
of the myriads of letters that constitute the paper
mountain before, you. Every thing dreamt of
in earth's philosophy, is either specifically treated
of or referred to by one or more of the writers.
Ay, and there are more things in the epistolary
pile, than the world condescends to recognise as
forming a part of its philosophy. There are letters
there which unfold or speak of theories which
never existed, and never will exist in any other
place than the fancy of the writer. There are
hypotheses and opinions there which clearly

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 19
prove and loudly proclaim, the epistblarian to
belabouring under, mental hallucination, if not
absolute insanity itself. But who shall enumerate
all the topics,- apart from wild and visionary.
theories, which are treated of or incidentally
alluded to in the heap of letters which lie before
you ? There is politics in all the varied shapes
vvhich that science, if science it must be called,
assumes — Tory, Whig, Whig-Radical, Radical,
and Republican politics.
Religion, too ; see the diversified aspects in
which it appears. The Jew talks of his religion
as the only true religion. The Christian does
the same; and so does the Christian of every
individual denominatipn as distinguished from all
other sects and denominations. There is the
Calvinist and Arminian ; the Trinitarian and
Socinian ; the evangelical Christian, and the
merely moral Christian, — if the latter phrase do
not involve a contradiction : yet all express their
particular sentiments; all assure themselves they
are right ; and all maintain that those who differ
from them are wrong. See how the Churchman
assails and affects to despise the Dissenter ; see
again, how the latter retorts, and defies his op
ponent to point out a single passage in the New
Testament, which gives the slightest sanction to
the principle of religious establishments.
There is also friendship : that is happily a
theme which occupies a prominent place in many
of the countless, letters which are spread before
you. It is true that, as according to the homely
proverb all is not gold that glitters, so all the
professions and protestations of friendship that-
are there made by one party to another, are not

20 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
sincere. Many of them are hollowness itself. —
Under these professions and protestations of
boundless as well as undying friendship, there
will often be found to lurk the most deadly
enmity. But happily this is not always the case.
There are still to be found in tbe world, instances
of friendship almost as strong and pure as that
which may be supposed to exist among the higher
and holier intelligences who inhabit another and
a brighter sphere.
On the subject of love, which, in the philoso
phic sense of the word, is but another name for
friendship, there are letters innumerable. Ah !
but how much of the affection with which the
parties swear they regard those to whom they
address themselves, is the affection of the lips,
or rather, in this case, of the pen only ! The
parties are perhaps corresponding together pre
paratory to marriage ; but what innumerable
motives, other than those of pure love, often
prompt persons to enter into the married state !
See how matters will stand with those parties a
few years hence, who are now vowing eternal
attachment to each other. In how many cases
will they then be separated, after having been
united together ! In how many more will they
be living in such misery as to make their exis
tence a burthen to them ! Still there is much
of fervent, unalloyed love in the world. There
are lovers whose very being is bound up in each
other, and who, were the one party taken away
by death, the other would feel the universe to
be a perfect blank. So far from the impassioned
language of that letter conveying more than is
actually felt, no language on earth could express

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 21
one-half of the ardour of the attachment which
is really cherished in the bosom of the writer,
towards the party addressed.
But passing over a variety of other topics
which are alluded to, or dwelt on,' in the Mont
Blanc of epistolary paper which is to be seen at
seven in the evening in the General Post Office,
tbere is one subject which demands a moment's
notice, because, if I mistake not, it is a subject to
which a greater number of the letters relate, than
to all the other topics taken together. Is it
necessary to name this subject ? Can any one
hesitate a moment ih concluding that I refer to
money ? To get more money, or retain what
the party has got, is the grand object for which
the majority of the thousands and tens of thou
sands of letters that constitute the paper-mountain
before you, were written. The money-acquiring,
or money-retaining propensity is, in innumera
ble cases, open and avowed ; there is no attempt
to conceal or disguise it. In others, it is sought
to be kept secluded from observation, though the
veil thrown over it is often too transparent not to
be at once seen through. Not half so varied were
the forms which Proteus assumed, as are the
shapes in which the authors of these multitudin
ous letters seek to attain their money^getting, or
money-retaining objects. However much philo
sophers may affect to despise, or may in reality
despise, the worshipper of mere pounds, shillings,
and pence ; and however much( moralists may
mourn over the worldly feeling, there is no
denying the fact, that money is not only the ob
ject of a general idolatry, but that it is the grand
,3*

22 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
secret spring which sets and keeps the world's
machinery in motion.
Not less interesting is it to meditate on the
temper and feeling with which these letters are
written. How great is the difference in this re
spect! I have glanced at the spirit of pure and
ardent friendship which many of them breathe
— at the hallowed and consuming affection with
which numbers of them are penned. But see the
contrast to this friendship and this Jove, .which
hundreds, it may be thousands, of the number
present ! In some cases the letters are pervaded
by a spirit of the most rancorous hate ; the object
of the writer is to speak daggers to the party he
addresses, and to render him as miserable as it is
in his power to do. In other cases, the writer
deals in personal menaces; it is clear that it is
only a fear of the laws of his country, or the dis
tance that intervenes between the parties, that
prevents his having recourse to personal violence.
One ep.istolarian is employed in the heaven-like
work of imploring a friend to do something, if in
his power, for some unhappy child of misfortune,
who has not the means of helping himself : ano
ther, with a fiend-like zest and earnestness, is
labouring by misrepresentation, and calumny, and
falsehood, to blast the fair fame, and to ruin the
prospects of some other person, who never did
him the slightest injury, and whose virtues, one
would have supposed would have disarmed the
most inveterate of human malignants^ Some of
those letters proceed from a heart which is in the
lowest depths of despair ; others as clearly ema
nate from a mind inspired with the fondest and
most sanguine hopes. Some are penned amidst

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 23
the greatest trials, and amidst unutterable sorrow :
others are written amidst the sunshine of pros
perity, and are the offspring of a heart whose joy
is boundless.Equally varied is the tendency of the contents
of these letters, — equally varied are the feelings
they are calculated to produce. There are some,
perhaps many, that will, when opened, commu
nicate intelligence which will cause the most
extreme sorrow and wretchedness in the hearts
of those to whom they are addressed. There
are others among the immense number, that will
cause many a heart to heave deep sighs, and
many an eye to drop a lengthened succession of
tears. Is this all ? Oh, no ! Such letters will
mention facts, and contain observations, that will
inflict a wound on many a sensitive mind, from
__which the party will never recover ; but which
will eventually, perhaps speedily, terminate in
the broken, heart and the premature grave ! One
letter conveys intelligence to a widowed mother
of the unexpected death of an only daughter, in
whom her whole existence was bound up. See
the black seal of another. It is a letter addressed
to a young female. It bears the post-mark of the
town in which her lover, to whom she was not
only devotedly attached, but betrothed, resided.
She turns pale as she receives the letter with its
ominous seal. Her fears are awakened : she
tremblingly opens the letter, and they are realised
in their worst extent. He to whom she was
affianced is dead. She receives a shock to which
her constitution is unequal : she lingers for a few
months, and then drops into the tomb. There
are other letters, again? which contain the most

24 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
gratifying intelligence, and which, when received
by the parties to whom they are addressed, will
fill the bosoms of those parties with a joy and
happiness which surpass conception.
One letter apprises a family, that but a moment
before were revelling in all manner of luxury,
and rejoicing in their fancied wealth, that the
whole of their fortune has by one fell stroke been
taken from them ; and that they are now as poor
as the most destitute beggar. Another letter
intimates to another family, sunk in the lowest
depths of poverty, that a handsome independence^
has come into their possession by the death of
some relation, of whom perhaps they scarcely
ever heard, and of whom they never thought.
The extremes of sorrow and joy, of misery
and bliss, will thus be produced in various minds
by the letters in question; so will also all the in
termediate degrees of happiness and wretched
ness between these antipodes of mental sensation.
Who shall compute the aggregate amount of
pleasure and of pain — of happiness and of misery,
of which the entire mass of letters will be pro
ductive? Nor is it individuals alone whose interests or
happiness are thus deeply affected by the immense
mass of epistolary paper before you. The des
tinies of empires, nay, perhaps, of an entire quarter
of the globe, may be equally affected by one or
more of these missives. There may be the com
munication there, which is to be decisive of the
momentous question whether there is to be peace
or war in Europe. M*anya time and oft has the
face and fortune of a country been changed by
the contents of a single written sheet of paper.

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 25
But there are other reflections to which the
sight of the myriads of letters which are every
night to be seen in the. Post Office, is calculated
to give rise. There may perchance be found
lying at the same moment, in that establishment,
a letter from a parent to his son in a far distant
country, and one from the son to his parent;
both parties being anxious to hear from each
other, but neither knowing that the other was
about. to write. The letter of a lover to the
object of his affections, and that of the latter to
him, may also meet in the General Post Office
under similar circumstances. But this is a train
of reflection in which I must not indulge.
There is one other point of view in which the
man of contemplative mind cannot fail to regard
the tens of thousands of letters before him.
There is to be found the concentration of the in
tellect, of the moral worth, ay, and of the villany
of the land. Of this country only? Of the ci
vilized wOrld itself; for where is the corner of
the earth visited with the light of civilization,
from which communications of all kinds are not
daily pouring in through the General Post Office
to this great metropolis. London may be said
to be, not only in point of population, wealth,
and importance, the mistress of cities, but, if the
expression be not a forced one, a vast epistolary
reservoir, supplied by streams which have their
fountains in every part of the world where the
, knowledge of letters obtains.
The Post Office is, in the social system of this
country, What the heart is in the physical system.
From it proceeds to the remotest extremities of
the land, through the conduits of the highways

26 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
and by-ways of its" various districts, that blood
which is the life of the social system.
Shut up the Post Office for one little month,
and what would be the result? Society would
be, in one sense, disorganized. Socially, the
effects would be the same,'as they would be phy
sically were the sun in the firmament to be sud
denly extinguished.
A celebrated dramatist, makes one of his heroes
invoke the gods to
"Annihilate both space and time,
And make two lovers happy."
The Post Office may be said, in one sense, to
accomplish this; for the moment a letter is re
ceived from a friend, no matter how remote the
part of the world whence it is received, that
moment the parties are spiritually hrought to-'
gether. The letter may have been written
months ago, and in another hemisphere; still the
distance and the time are both forgotten, and the
same feeling is experienced by the party re
ceiving the letter as if the party who writes it
were at that moment standing beside him, and
whispering assurances of his friendship and af
fection into his ear. Through means of the Post
Office, a delightful interchange of thought and
feeling can always be made between those who
are near and dear to each other. Their bodies
may be separated by vast continents, and almost
boundless oceans; but their spirits may, by means
of this wonderful establishment, hold sweet fel
lowship, together.
The great secret of successful authorship in

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 27
particular departments of literature, is said- to
be variety in the work produced. The appetite
which craves most intensely for variety of moral
or rnental food, would be satisfied to repletion
were the contents of some. four or five thousand
letters, taken out of the Post Office at random,
to be placed, before it. What variety, as before
remarked, in the subjects! What variety in the
spirit and temper! What variety in the style of
writing! Oh, what an insight into mankind
would be got from such revelations! More might
be learned in one day of human nature, as it
really exists, from such an exhibition of it, than
could be learned in a year from one's. ordinary
intercourse with society. In writing to private
friends, people are more open and explicit than
in ordinary conversation. Reserve is in a great
measure- laid aside; what the, heart thinketh the
pen inditeth. What baseness would ofteti be
found where one expected nothing but virtue!
How grossly and bitterly would we find our
selves calumniated, where, from the viva voce
-^language held to us by the writers, we would or
could have expected nothing but commendation!
What proofs of ingratitude where we had, by acts
of kindness, placed the party under everlasting
obligations! What malevolence of feeling, where
we had deserved nothing but friendship, and
where protestations of ardent friendship had been
made to us! We would also see the individual
peculiarities of the writers. Their prejudices,
predilections, and pursuits would all be unfolded
to, us. We would, in a word, be enabled to look
into the inmost recesses of their minds, and see
their real character as clearly — perhaps more

28 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
clearly because less biassed — as they do them
selves. But I must not indulge farther in the train of
reflection to which the sight of so many thousands
of letters is calculated to give rise.' It is time I
should return to matter of a different kind.
As seven o'cloek, the hour for closing the post,
approaches, the scene in the vestibule of the build
ing becomes exceedingly interesting and anima
ted. The boys, and persons of larger growth,
in the employ of news-agents, begin to muster in
great numbers; and immediately after seven, a
sort of newspaper fair commences, and is carried
on with great spirit and vigour until half-past
seven. It is an imitation of that described in the
chapter On "Newsmen." , "A Times for three
pence!" bawls one little fellow. "A Chron. for
twopence ha'penny!" shouts another. "Who's
got a Sat, (Satirist)?" inquires a third. "Two
pence for a Post/" bids a fourth. " Threepence
for a 'EraM!" squeaks a fifth ; while a sixth
demandsthe same price for a 'Tiser! The dis
cordant bawling which thus goes on, at the full
compass of the parties' stentorian capabilities, is
exceedingly unpleasant to the ears of those ac
customed to more harmonious sounds1., I even
question whether the parties themselves, accus
tomed to it as they are, night after night, from
one year's end to the other, Sundays excepted,
do not find it the reverse of pleasing. The news
boys assemble here at this hour to dispose, if
possible, of their remaining papers, in the hope
that some persons, anxious to despatch a news
paper by that night's post, but not being pro
vided' with one, may become a purchaser* The

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 29
nearer the moment for shutting up the newspaper
slit approaches,,' the more vociferous do the little
rascals become, in their anxiety to dispose of
their wares. The work of putting in late news
papers into the office, and paying the half-penny
with each journal, goes on all this time with
great energy. Ahd the vigour increases as the
last moment advances. For two or three minutes
before the half-hour, there is a literal rush of
parties, anxious to get in their papers, to the
window, and violent is the squabbling which on
some such occasions takes place. One boy arrives
from some news-agent literally gasping for breath,
and groaning under a load of evening journals,
which, but fifteen minutes before, had not issued
from the press. "Make haste, Harry, or you'll
lose!"* bawls out some acquaintance who has
had the start of him, by way of stimulating him
to increased alacrity, as he waddles up the ves
tibule .towards the window. The words have
scarcely been uttered, when a person employed
for the purpose shouts, "The half-hour!" and
that instant closes the window. The poor boy,
with his burden of papers, is just two or three
seconds too late; you see his mortification in
his face; very possibly he expresses it in words
which are not fit.to be repeated.
The moment /the window is shut, there is an
end to the newspaper fair in the vestibule. The
sudden transition from the deafening and dis
cordant noise, to the most perfect stillness, has a
striking effect. In a few minutes the place is
deserted by the dealers in newspaper commodi-
* Meaning, he will lose the post, or be too late.
VOL. II. — 4

30 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
ties. The scene of attraction to the stranger is
now transferred to the north end of the building,
that being the place where all the mails start at
eight o'clock. The blowing of horns announces,
every other two or three minutes, the arrival of
mails from the different branch establishments.
Now the omnibuses for carrying the mails on
the railways, the mail coaches, arid the mail cur
ricles, come rattling along, one after the other, in
order to be in readiness to start the instant the
mails are rea^y to be despatched. About five
minutes before eight; the whole of these vehicles,
from twenty to thirty in number, have arrived;
and interesting is the appearance which the yard
on the north side now presents. The guards are
all moving about, anxious to receive their bags;
the horses, impatient to start, stand pattering
their feet on the stones; while every coach has
its two blazing lights in front. Outside there are
some hundreds of people all anxious to witness
the interesting spectacle. Eight o'clock strikes;
the bags are all ready, and now the work of
despatching the mails begins. The guard blows
his horn; off starts one vehicle, and dashes out at
the gate; it is followed by another, and another,
and another, all at a distance of only a few paces
from each other, until the whole are fairly on their
way to their respective destinations. It is a most
striking sight. The blowing of horns, the rattling
of the vehicles, the pattering of the horses' feet,
the appearance of the lights, and the concourse of
spectators assembled outside, impart a peculiar
interest to the scene. One mail turns to the
right, another to the left; one to the North, an
other to the South; and the sound of the horns

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 31
dies away in the distance, and the coaches them
selves disappear either in the darkness of the
night, or amidst a crowd of other vehicles. They
severally proceed to their respective destinations,
carrying letters, which but a few minutes before
formed one promiscuous heap, to the four quarters
of the world.
A very large proportion of the business of the
Post Office has of late years arisen from the
transmission x>f newspapers. The reduction of
the duty which took place in 1835, has greatly
increased the labours, which were previously
very arduous, of the persons employed in that
establishment. Mr. Bokenham, a gentleman
holding a responsible situation in the Post Office,
stated in February last, when examined by a
committee of the House of Commons, that the
number of newspapers sent through that establish
ment, had doubled since the reduction of the
duty. In this, I think, there must be an error.
My own opinion is, that the increase has not
been more than one half, or fifty per cent, if in
deed it has been so much. I can easily under
stand how Mr. Bokenham fell into the error.
He stated that the average number of newspapers
every day sent through the Post Office, when the
duty was four-pence, was under 50,000. So far
he.was, I believe, quite correct. He added that on
the Saturday previous to his giving his evidence,
the number of newspapers forwarded through
the Post Office was 107,000. In this also he
was perfectly accurate. But here arose the error:
he inferred that because on a given day since the
reduction of the duty, 107,000 newspapers had
been received in the Post Office, while the aver-

32 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
age number received before the reduction was
under 50,000, the circulation of newspapers must
have doubled. He overlooked the important
fact, that Saturday was not a proper day to single
out, if he wished to ascertain the difference be
tween the number of newspapers sold before the
reduction of the duty, and at the time at which
he gave his evidence; for Saturday, it should be
remembered, is the day on which almost all the
Sunday papers are published, and that many
thousands, I should say at least 40,000 of these
journals, go through the Post Office on that day;
while the average number of weekly papers that
pass through the Post Office on other days, does
not exceed 10,000. This, it will be perceived,
would make an error in the calculation to the
extent of 30,000, which deducted from the 107,-
000, would make the actual average number
77,000, which is rather more than an increase of
50 per cent, on the number circulated prior to
the reduction of the duty. The greatest number
of newspapers ever known to have passed through
the Post Office in one day, was 175,000. The
occasion on which this prodigious number of
broad sheets passed through the London Post
Office, was that of the coronation of the Queen.
The day was the Saturday after that ceremony
took place. The number of newspapers that
goes by the morning mails, is from 5000 to
6000. The number of persons employed in the sort
ing and despatching of newspapers is very great.
The stated number is about 290 ; but on parti
cular occasions, when there is anything of an ex
citing interest in the public journals, the number

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 33
is increased to 300. The operation to be gone
through in forwarding newspapers, is much more
simple than that which must be observed in the
case of letters. The first thing to be done is to
put all the newspapers one way ; so as that their
respective addresses may be at once perceived. —
This done they are carried to the sorting table,
where they are sorted or arranged for all the
great lines of road, for the different mails. The
number of divisions into which they are classed
is twenty. They are then collected into other
parcels, and carried to the mails by which the
respective parcels so arranged or sorted, are to be
forwarded to their several places of destination.
But though the process of sorting newspapers for
the mails be less complicated than that gone
through in the case of letters, nearly the same
time is required to sort a thousand, or any other
given number of newspapers, that is required to
sort the same number of letters. Tne difficulty
of handling newspapers in consequence of their
bulky appearance is so great, that as much time
is lost in the process of handling as is required to
examine, tax, and stamp letters. It is stated by
the clerks in the Post Office, that where a man
would take one handful of letters, he must take
twenty handfuls of newspapers.
Let me here administer a word of reproof to
newsvenders and those other persons who either
put newspapers into the Post Office, or wrap
them up in newspapers for that purpose.
The carelessness of such persons often causes
the clerks in the Post Office a great deal of ad
ditional trouble ; inasmuch as the covers repeat
edly come off, and they have to put them on
4*

34 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
again. But the argument against this carelessness
which is most likely to have greatest weight with
such persons, is,that when the envelopes come
off the newspapers in this way, and the clerks are
unable to ascertain what particular cover belongs
to a particular newspaper, the papers are often
sent to the wrong place, or not sent at all.
Through this carelessness in enclosing newspa
pers in their envelopes, some hundreds come off
every day ; a fa,ct which will in many cases
account for the non-receipt by the friends of the
parties, of papers addressed to them, and for
which non-receipt the provincial post offices are,
in such instances, most unjustly blamed. The
newsvenders are frequently to be seen wrapping
them up in the Post Office yard, and being thus
from necessity hurriedly enclosed, it is no won
der that ithe thing is so imperfectly done, as to
cause a number of the covers to come off. Be
sides, when they are put into the Post Office
before the paste has had time to dry, it is natural
to suppose the covers would, in many cases,v
tossed about as the newspapers then are, lose their
hold, and come away altogether.
As in the case of letters, newspapers may be
put into the Post Office after the time allowed for
the purpose, on the, payment of a small fee.
That fee is, in the case of newspapers, only one
half-penny. The latest time at which newspapers
are received at the General Post Office is half-past
seven; at the branch offices they are not received
later than half-past five. The average number of
newspapers which are put into the General Post
Office after half-past seven, and on which, conse
quently, the half-penny is paid, is as nearly as can

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 35
be ascertained about 2000 ; in some cases the
number has been as high as 11,000. This has
been on nights when there has been some inter
esting debate in either House of Parliament, and
when the evening papers have published second
editions, containing a report of such/debate.
• Such is an imperfect glance at the Post Office.
It is, as was observed in the outset, the most ex
traordinary, and the most perfect institution, all
things considered, in the world. Errors or de-
linquences in it are of exceedingly rare occur
rence. When the latter are committed, they are
almost invariably detected in sufficient' time to
bring the parties committing them to punish
ment. The checks are so numerous and efficient,
that crimes canriot be perpetrated with impunity;
and .this remark applies not only to the persons
employed in the parent establishment in London,
but to all the post offices and persons employed
in them throughout the country. The entire
number of persons thus immediately under the
Postmaster-General, is nearly 4000.
At what expense, it will be naturally asked,
is the London Post Office, with its more thanva
thousand branches, distributed through all parts
of the country, kept up to the public ? In 1836,
the expenses were 600,245/.', which being deduct
ed from the gross revenue 6f 2,020,347/., leaves
a net annual income to the country of 1,423,102/.
The Postmaster-General receives a yearly salary
of 2,500/. ; the Secretary's salary is 1,500/. The
salaries of other officers holding situations of im
portance in the establishment, vary from 1,000/.
to 300/. The clerks begin with a salary of 70/.
or 80/. per annum according to circumstances,

36 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
and gradually rise till they reach 250/., which is
the highest they can attain as clerks, and which
cannot be attained until the parties have been
twenty years in that particular department of
the public service.
In a chapter devoted to the General Post
Office, it were an unpardonable oversight not to
give some account of the Pwopenny Post Office,
which, though essentially a distinct and indepen
dent establishment, is, in the public mind, and to
a certain extent in point of fact, connected with
the other.
The establishment of an office for the delivery
of letters in the metropolis and neighbourhood
originated with a private individual of the name
of William Dockwra, who lived in the latter part
of the seventeenth century. It was towards the
close ofthe Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell that
this person, who was, I believe, of Dutch ex
traction, first set up an office for the receipt and
delivery of letters. The charge, instead of being
as at present two-pence for each letter, was then
only one penny ; but considering the difference
in the value of money at the two periods, a penny
was a higher charge then than two-pence is now.
It appears, however, tbat Mr. Dockwra was not
long permitted to reap the rewards of his enter
prise, for an action Was commenced against him
in the Court of King's Bench, by James the
Second, at that time Duke of York, for opening
the office in question, on the ground that it invad
ed the powers granted by the legislature to the
Post-Master General. The result, of the trial
was a verdict against the defendant, accompanied
with damages ; but to what amount I have not

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 37
been able to learn. JHe petitioned the House
of Commons on the sMyjbt. and they, taking his
case into their favourable corisidejation, recom
mended him as a fit person for receiving a pen
sion from the Crown. A pension of 500/. per
annum was accordingly granted him. After re
ceiving this pension for several years, he was
appointed to the .office of Comptroller of the
Penny Post, but at what salary I have been unable
to ascertain. In this situation he continued until
1700, when, having for some time previously mis
conducted himself in a variety of ways, he was
dismissed from it. Mortified at the Penny Post
being taken from him, and thereby deprived of
the lucrative results of his private speculation, it
appears that he had not been any length of time in
the situation of Comptroller of that establishment,
than he vented his spleen by annoying the pub
lic and his employers by every means in his
power. It was, it would appear, not only charg
ed but proved against him, that he removed the
General Penny Post from Cornhill, which was
so convenient for merchants on 'Change, to some
remote and obscure part of the town, by which
means letters were not only delayed several
hours longer than they were -before, but the poor
messengers were worked, or rather walked to
death. Mr. Dockwra was aho convicted of stop
ping most of the parcels sent through his office,
by which means shopkeepers' goods were not
only often injured, but the physic sent by the
apothecaries was in sorne 'cases not delivered
until the patient, fbr whose benefit it was intend
ed, had died.^He was further found guilty of
opening letteii$$nd reading them aloud, — -steal-

38 SKETQHES OF LONDON.
ing bills and money from letters, — robbing his
Majesty of his revenue, ahd harassing and in
sulting every person under him, except such as
were his own* creatures. These offences being
proved against Mr. Dockwra, it is not to be won
dered at that he was dismissed from his situa
tion. In a few years afterwards, namely, in 1708,
another attempt was made by a Mr. Povey to
establish a Town Post Office in opposition to
that of the Government. In the true spirit of
rivalry, he only charged one half-penny instead
of a penny, on all letters he received and deliver
ed ; but he was only allowed to carry on busi
ness for a few months. A suit was then com
menced against him on the part of the Govern
ment, which ended in the shutting up of his
Various establishments.
When the Twopenny or Penny Post Office, —
for, as already remarked, the charge on letters,
&c, was originally only a penny, — was first
established, it was customary to take in and de
liver all small parcels and band-boxes at the
same price as the letters. It was one of the
charges against Mr. Dockwra, that when he was
appointed Comptroller, he forbade the " taking in
any band-boxes, except very small ones," or par
cels above a pound weight. The practice of
sending parcels, band-boxes, &c, through the
Penny Post Office, continued until the year 1765,
when is was enacted that no package exceeding
four ounces in weight should pass through that
office. The price of letters was raised to two
pence in 1801 ; since which time, instead of the
Penny Post Offices, these estaj§g|fhments have
been called Twopenny Post Offices.

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 39
For more than a century after the establish
ment of the Penny Post Office, the practice was
to charge one penny for the letter when put into
the Receiving House, provided it was addressed
to any place beyond the suburbs of London, and
then to charge another penny from the party to
whom the letter was delivered. This last penny
was allowed to the postmen for their wages ; but
it was soon thought too much, and they were
paid a fixed sum, the penny being handed over
to the Treasury.
The Twopenny Post Office is divided into'
two branches. The one branch embraces a circle
of three miles from the General Post Office, and
the other a circle of twelve. The charge for
letters delivered within the limits of the first
circle is two pence ; and for those delivered
within the bounds of the second, the charge is
three pence. The latter letters, however, come
under the general designation of Twopenny Post
letters. The number of Receiving Houses in
the circumference of the first district is two
hundred and nine, and the number within the
limits of the second, is one hundred and ninety-
four. For the sake of distinction, the first dis
trict is sometimes called the town district, and
the other the country district. Before twopenny
or threepenny letters are delivered, they must
all be forwarded to the General Post Office, where
they are examined and sorted, and then des
patched to the branch offices, where they are
handed over to the postmen for delivery. The
branch offices are four in number. One is at
Charing Cross, another at Marylebone, a third
at Southwark, and a fourth in Stepney. Horses

40 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
are regularly employed for transmitting country
threepenny letters to town, and for transmitting
letters from town to the various places within the
limits of the country district. Horses are also
employed for the same purpose in town, except
in the near neighbourhood of the General Post
Office. The period which elapses from the time
at which a letter is put into the receiving house
and its delivery to the party to whom it is ad
dressed, varies according to the relative situation
of the place at which it is written, and the place
to which it is destined. In some cases a letter
may be more promptly or less expeditiously
delivered, according to the greater or less fre
quency of deliveries in the place to which it is
addressed ; for in some places deliveries are
made four times a-day ; in others, only three
times ; and in a few places, only twice. The
interval between putting a letter into a receiving
house within the limits of the Threepenny Post,
and its delivery is, on an average, ten or eleven
hours. If not put into a receiving house before
two o'clock, a letter will not be delivered until
the ¦following morning, as there are no depar
tures after that hour. This is an exceedingly
inconvenient arrangement, and ought to be forth
with altered. In town there are now seven
deliveries. Formerly there were only six ; but
a "Seventh has been added within the last few
months. The time allowed for each delivery is,
as in the case of the General Post letters, an hour
and a half, and it is expected that the postman,
if the number of letters do not exceed seventy,
shall finish the delivery within that period, which
is not allowing him quite a minute and a half for

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 41
the delivery of each letter. In cases where the
number of letters to be delivered exceeds that
which the postman can accomplish within the
specified time, he is allowfed one or more assist
ants, according to circumstances. In some of
the more populous and business districts of the
town the number to be delivered in one walk, and
at one " despatch," is from one hundred and fifty
to two hundred. On one occasiorij in January
1837, the number amounted, in the Lombard
Street walk, to no fewer than two hundred and
eighty. The town, as may be inferred from what
I have already stated, is divided into a certain
number of " walks," which number necessarily
increases with the extension of the metropolis.
At present the number of walks is upwards of
sixty. The entire number of .walks in the town
and country districts is about one hundred and
forty. The number of persons who are in one
way or other connected with the Twopenny
Post Office department, is upwards of one thou
sand, of whom above five hundred and thirty are
engaged as letter-carriers, supernumeraries, auxi
liaries, &c. Above two hundred and fifty letter-
carriers* are employed in town alone. They are
very hardly worked, each having three delive
ries to make in one day: The'letter-carriers are
divided into two-sets, the one set delivering and
the other collecting letters at the various recei
ving; houses, alternately. At night, owing to
the great addition in the number of letters
received, the men who go Out to deliver the
letters at four are obliged to return and go out
again at seven. The Twopenny Post letter-car
riers are thus constantly on their feet, from eight
VOL. II. — 5 i

42 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
in the morning, when the first delivery com
mences, until eight in the evening. And yet for
all this laborious and exhausting work, they only
receive the miserable pittance of twenty shillings
per week. It is true, that if any of them are
called on to perform extra duty, they make two
or three shillings more ; but in no instance does
their remuneration exceed twenty-three shillings
weekly. It is discreditable to a great country
like England, and to so great a national establish
ment as the Post Office, that these hard-worked
men should be so inadequately remunerated for
their labours.
All letters, or packages in the form of letters,
not weighing more than four ounces, may be
transmitted to their destination through the Two
penny Post. Out of upwards of sixty thousand
letters which daily pass through the Twopenny
Post, not more than four or five, on an average,
are stopped on account of their being more than
the legal weight. Of this sixty thousand letters
no fewer than about fifty thousand are written in
or to town. Tlie remaining ten-thousand are
beyond the limits of the Twopenny and within
those of the Threepenny circle. It is worthy
of observation, that out of this great number of
letters, about twenty-five thousand are, on an
average, collected at five o'clock. The number
of letters containing larger or smaller sums of
money which pass through the Twopenny Post,
is nearly five hundred. Sums from 40/. to 50/.
are frequently transmitted through the medium
of the Twopenny Post : in some cases 100/, has
been so transmitted, but such cases are very rare.
The dead letters, or letters which, either through

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 43
a defective direction^ or the death or removal of
the parties to whom they are addressed, have to
be returned to the General Post Office,'average
about five hundred per day.
It deserves to be mentioned that, notwith
standing the great number of letters which daily
pass through the Twopenny Post, very few mis
carriages or other accidents occur. The only
ground of dissatisfaction with the way in which
this branch of the public service is conducted, is
the! delay which takes place in the delivery of
letters. In town, or within the limits of the
twopenny circle, letters cannot, in the generality
of cases, be interchanged in less than from ten
to twelve hours ; in the country or threepenny
district, the time which usually elapses before
such interchanging is affected, is from twenty to
twenty-two hours. So far as regards the town,
there are hopes that the evil complained of will
in a Very great measure be speedily remedied, a
suggestion having been made, and some attention
having been paid to it in the proper quarter, to
have twelve deliveries daily.
The revenue derived from the Twopenny
Post Office, is yearly increasing. Last year it
was 120,801/. 3s. lOd. The cost of collection,
'or the expenses of conducting the establishment
was 39/. 5s. lOd. per cent, being 47,446/. lU.4d.
and. leaving a net income of 73,334/. 12s. 6d.
How rapidly the revenue derivable from the
Twopenny Post hjas increased since the begin
ning of the present century, will be understood,
when I mention that in 1801, the proceeds were
only 38,422/. 1 Is. 4d. The charges of collection
were that year upwards of 57£ per cent, being

44 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
22,135/. 19s. Id., and consequently only leaving
an actual addition to the general revenue, of
16,286/. 12s. 3d. From that year up to the
present there has been, with only two or three
exceptions, a steady iricrease in this department
pf the public income.
The receiving-house keepers are in all cases
men who occupy shops in a convenient situation.
They must give security to a certain amount for
their due attention to the delivery of letters to
the postman, and for the transfer to the proper
quarter which is made once a month, of the
amount of money they receive for letters which
are paid. Formerly the receiving-house keepers
used to be paid according to the number of letters
they received, allowing them twopence for every
tenth letter : but for some years past they have
all had fixed salaries, varying according to the
population and business of their respective dis
tricts, and the consequent supposed number of
letters they are likely to receive. The highest
salary given is 100/. per annum ; the lowest is
5/. The former sum is received by the shop
keeper, who takes charge of the Twopenny Post
Office in Cornhill ; the number of letters there
received being far greater than that received in
any other part of town. The average number
of letters daily dropped into the letter box of
this office is from 1500 to 1700 ; so that it almost
exclusively occupies the time of one person to
mark the paid letters, and sort the whole before
the carriers call for them. The next highest
amount received is 60/. per annum, which is at
Charing Cross. , In a number of cases, 20/. is
received ; but I should suppose the average sum

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 45
to be about 15/. There are at least a dozen in
stances in which only 5/. are received ; but the
number of letters that are putinto such housesdoes
not perhaps exceed twenty or thirty per day.
,If the suggested more frequent delivery of
Twopenny Post letters to which I have al
luded, could be carried into effect, it will not
only afford a great convenience, and be of im
mense service to the public, but will add very
considerably to the revenue derived from this
source. Twelve deliveries a-day with the ac
companying improvement of having four sorting-
offices in town, instead of all the letters being
sorted at the General Post Office, would insure
an interchange of letters in at least three hours,
often in two, and would therefore necessarily
lead to a vast increase in the number of letters
written. But the grand improvement — because the be
nefit would be universally enjoyed throughout
the country — connected with the Post Office
Establishment, would be that of having a uniform,
and at the same time low rate of postage. This
would be an accommodation and a boon to the
public worthy ofthe name. It is a thing univer
sally desired, and would be hailed with universal
gratitude were the Chancellor of the Exchequer
to comply, in this respect, with the earnest wish
of the public. I am not sure that the present
high rate of postage has been considered in all
the lights in which an enlarged philosophy would
view it. The question has been too much re
garded in its relation to mere matters of finance.
The pecuniary bearings of that question, whether
5*

46 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
these, refer to the public revenue or to the
pounds, shillings and pence of private individu
als, are, in my opinion, but as dust in the balance
compared with the moral results involved in it.
To diminish the revenue to the extent of some
hundreds of thousands in the year— supposing
such to be the consequence of a reduced rate of
postage, is, no doubt, a matter not to be desired,
were no other interests affected. The saving a
few pounds per annum, to individuals, is also in
itself, no doubt, highly desirable ; but what is
the loss to the revenue, or the gain to the indivi
dual in easy circumstances, when compared with
the moral bearings of the question ? The first
would constitute but a poor argument against the
reduction ; and the second but a poor argument
for it. When.the question comes to be looked
at in its moral tendencies, the loss in the one
case, and the gain in the other, ought both to be
equally lost sight of. The present, high rate of
postage practically amounts, in the case of the
masses of the population, to a positive prohibi
tion of all correspondence with friends. They
are unable to pay tenpence or a shilling, or fit
teen pence for the postage of a letter : and they
cannot find in their hearts to put parties to the
expense of a postage, whp are as poor as them
selves. The consequence is, that they forbear
writing at all. In coming to this resolution not
to write, or in waiting to get private opportuni
ties, which, perhaps they do not meet with for a
long time, they are doing violence to all the
better feelings of their nature. Their affection
maj be strong for the parties with whom it

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 47
was their wish to, correspond ; but the lapse of
a long period without any communication with
them, first restrains, then deadens, and ulti
mately extinguishes this feeling of affection. In
this way — and I am supposing no imaginary or
forced case — are the affections of many a son or
daughter estranged from their parents, and the
heart of brother alienated from brother ; than
which nothing on earth can be more unnatural
or unseemly. Does the evil end here ? Ah !
no ! While the parents may be mourning over
the silence of their son, and spending anxious
days and sleepless nights in wondering why, if
no accident had befallen him, he does not write,
he, having through the embargo laid on the ex
pression of his filial attachment by means of a
letter, been denied the gratification of writing to
those parents, — has been led to spend the time
which would have been so employed, in the
company of improper persons, and the result has
been an intimacy with them, which promises the
most unhappy termination.
The amount of mental misery caused by this
means, to relatives, and of moral evil to the par
ties themselves, is, 1 am convinced, much greater
than people have any idea of. Were it known
to qur legislators, I am sure they would not hesi
tate a moment in reducing the rate of postage to
such an extent as would afford the poorer classes
in the land the opportunity of frequently com
municating with their friends, and by that
means cultivating the better feeling, and cherish
ing the holier affections of our common nature.
A low and uniform rate of postage is the only

48 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
way by which this great object can be gained.
Suppose the postage throughout the country
were to be reduced to two-pence — the amount
, charged on all letters delivered within the limits
ofthe metropolis — that, I am satisfied, would at
Once remove the existing interdict on the ex
pression of one's feelings towards friends whom
he has left in some distant part of the country ;
for there is no person able to write a letter, that
could not manage to pay two-pence for its trans
mission to its destined place. The reduction of
the postage of letters to two-pence, would be
regarded'as a boon by the whole country ; to the
lower classes it would be a positive act of kind
ness, worthy of an enlightened philanthropy. Its
happy moral and social effects would soon be
witnessed throughout the length and breadth of
the land.
But I know there are some who would sacri
fice all such considerations to a mere question of
revenue ; and that, unless they can be convinced
that the revenue would not suffer from the adop
tion of the proposed reduced rate of postage, they
will not listen for a moment to any such propo
sition. Well, then, it appears to me beyond all
doubt, that the consequence of this reduction of
postage would be so great an increase in the
amount of correspondence, or the numbers of
letters written, as that the receipts on this branch
ofthe revenue would be as great, if not much
greater under the reduced rate, as they are under
the existing system. Mr. Hill's plan 6f a penny
postage would certainly, if adopted, be accom
panied by a reduction in the amount of the re-

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 49
venue ; and therefore it is, knowing the impor
tance which is attached to the financial bearings
of a reduced rate of postage, that I give my
support to a two-penny rate, in preference to a
penny.

50 SKETCHES OF LONDON.

CHAPTER II.
BOOKSELLING  PATERNOSTER ROW.
Origin and history of Bookselling — Its introduction to
England— Number of works annually published in
/ London — Number sold in Paternoster Row — Number *
of houses that do a large business — Magazine Day —
Paternoster Row described.
Of the origin of Bookselling, considered as a re
gular branch of trade, nothing certain is known.
Though written or copied works circulated to
some extent among the more privileged and
wealthy of the ancient Greeks and Romans, there
is no reason to believe that any particular person
or persons, made it their trade or profession to
sell those books in Greece or Rome. The first
mention of Bookselling as a regular trade, occurs
in some of the French historians, who state that
at the twelfth century there existed at Paris and
Bologna, a class of persons who dealt in books.
The purchasers were almost exclusively, if not
altogether so, members of the universities of
these two places. The Booksellers of that period
did not keep shops : it is not probable that their
sales were sufficiently extensive to afford such
an amount of profit as would have enabled them
to pay the rent of a shop. They kept their

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 51
books on portable stalls in the streets, similar to
those which are still to be seen in London. It
would appear, if Hallam, in his "History ofthe
Literature of Europe," be correctly informed,
that the practice of publishing books on commis
sion then prevailed. I think this extremely
probable ; irideed I can hardly conceive it likely,
that the class of persons who would expose them
selves to all sorts of weather in the public streets,
would be men possessed of sufficient capital to
carry on the trade at their own risk and on their
own account ; for it is to be remembered that
' printing was then unknown, and that to provide
the parchment on which works were written,
and to pay the author for copyright and the
transcribers for copying them, must have requir
ed the expenditure of no inconsiderable sum of
moriey. At what time Bookselling, as a regular branch
of trade, was introduced into England, is uncer
tain. There can be no question that it was not
until after the discovery of printing. Even then,
and for a considerable time afterwards, the prac
tice waS for printers to publish or sell their own
impressions. As nearly as can be ascertained,
the trades of printing and selling books were not
Separated until about the time of the Reforma
tion, when the demand for new books called into
existence a class of persons who took to them
selves the designation of Booksellers, and de
voted themselves exclusively to the Bookselling
business. That business they conducted on es
sentially the same principles as those which
regulate the Bookselling trade at the present
day.

52 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
' I need hardly observe that the Bookselling
business first commenced in London. It is
worthy of remark, that the great body of the
Booksellers of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries had their shops near each other, and
that the locality they chose for the purpose was
in the neighbourhood of St. Paul's. Thus the
same part of London as that in which our Pater
noster Row is situated, has, from the introduction
of Bookselling into this country as a distinct
branch, of business, up to the present time, a
period of more than three hundred years, been
the great mart of literature.
I had occasion to mention in a previous work,
that the number of new books annually published
in London, — most of which are sold at the whole
sale prices in Paternoster Row, — has averaged,
for two or three years past, 1500 a-year. What
the number was towards the close of the seven
teenth century — at which time, as far as I have
been able to learn, the Trade as a body took up
their abode in their present locality — 1 cannot
state with confidence. I am convinced, however,
that*1 it could not, including reprints, have ex
ceeded 150 annually ; for books were then ex
pensive, and the taste for reading was chiefly
confined to the clergy, and the professors and
other learned men in the colleges. But the fact
which chiefly fortifies me in the position I have
advanced, is, that in the year of the great fire,
namely, 1666, it is stated in, a petition of the
printers of London, to Parliament, that their
number was only 140. It is probable that twenty
of these may have been employed in press-work ;
for press-men and compositors at that time, as in

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 53
some cases they do still, went indiscriminately
by the general designation of printers. This
then would leave 120 as the. number of compo
sitors, each of whom, on my supposition of 150
books being then published every year, would
have one book and about a fourth part of another
to himself And this, I am satisfied, when the
large folio size of some of the books of that
period is taken into account, and making allow
ance for the number of pamphlets then printed, —
is as much as any compositor could, at the ordi
nary rate of hours of labour, accomplish. Up to
the middle of the following century, the number
of new works yearly published, instead of in*
creasing, diminished about 50. per cent making
that number only somewhere about 100. This
decrease may perhaps be accounted for from the
number of periodicals which in the first half of
that century made their appearance, and many of
which acquired an extensive circulation. The
" Gentleman's Magazine," the "Monthly Re
view," and the ^'Critical Review," may be
severally mentioned as instances in point
Coming at once downwards from the middle
of the last to the beginning of the preset cen
tury, we find that the average number' of new
books published in London — nearly all of which,
be it remembered, had to pass through Pater
noster Row prior to their circulation in town or
transmission to the country, — was about 350.
From 1810 to 1820, the average number was
between 500 and 600, In 1828, the number
was 842 ; so that since that time — the number
last year, as before stated, having been nearly
VOL. II. — ^6

54 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
1500, — the increase has been upwards of 80 per
cent. Of the number of books which daily issue
from Paternoster Row, it were impossible to
form a conjecture which could be regarded as
constituting even an approximation to the truth.
The sale of works is dependent on a variety of
circumstances. Sometimes three or four new
books, all by popular authors, make their appear^
ance in one week. The business done in Pater
noster Row at such a time is immense. But
then it often happens that for three Or four weeks
afterwards, no new book of any note is brought
out ; consequently, business is proportionally
slack during that period. Of new works by
authors of established reputation, there are gene
rally more copies sold within a fortnight of the
day of publication, than there are for years after
wards. I have indeed known cases in which
upwards of a thousand copies of a work of fic
tion, by a popular writer, have been sold in tbe
course of ten or twelve days, while not more
than three or four hundred copies were ever
afterwards disposed of. Then there is the influ- -
ence which the seasons have on the sale of lite
rary works. For four months in the year,
namely, from June to November, a work of any
note very rarely appears. During those months,
therefore, the bibliopoles in Paternoster Row do
but comparatively little business. These and
other circumstances render it difficult to form
even a conjecture as to the number of the larger
class, of books which are daily sold in the locality
in question.
The number of houses in Paternoster Row in

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 55
an extensive way of business, is seven or eight.
By far the largest portion of the general business
is monopolised by two of these houses. In the
case of particular works, however, there are
some of the smaller firms that do a far greater
quantity of business than the more extensive
houses. For example, while Messrs. Simpkin
and Marshall will take 100 copies of a work of a
strictly literary character ; Messrs. Hamilton and
Adams will content themselves with 25, or even
a less number. On the other hand, when a work
on theology, written by some popular evangeli
cal divine, makes its appearance, the latter firm
will take a greater number of copies than the
hpuse of Messrs. Simpkin and Marshall. The
explanation of this is, that Messrs. Hamilton and
Adams' house is an old established one for the
sale of religious works of the evangelical class.
If I mistake not, they took a greater number of
copies of the recent " Memoirs of Mr. Wilber
force," than any other house in the trade, owing
to the circumstance of that excellent man having
through a long course of years been so intimately'
mixed up with the evangelical party, whether in
the Church or among. Dissenters.
The most remarkable feature in modern book»
selling, is the trade in periodical literature.
" Magazine Day" is a sort of monthly era in the
history of a London Bookseller. The orders for
the forthcoming numbers ofthe various periodi
cals whieh he is in the habit of receiving for
some days previously, keep it constantly in his
mind's eye ; and when it does arrive, the great
contest among the trade isr who shall be able to
supply their customers earliest. Magazine Day

56 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
can only be said fairly to commence about half-
past nine o'clock, and before twelve you will see
the various periodicals in the windows of every
retail Bookseller throughout the length and
breadth of the metropolis. Perhaps in no other
instance, that of newspapers alone excepted, is
an article so rapidly circulated oyer town, as is
periodical literature on that day.
The point from which the magazines and
other periodicals all, start when their distribution
is about to take place, is, as in the case of larger
works, Paternoster Row; which, with that
fondness for brevity of expression so characteris
tic ofthe people of London, is invariably called
"The Row," by the dealers in periodicals. It
is, I repeat, not only the great, but may be said
to be the only emporium of periodical literature
on Magazine Day. Most persons unacquainted
with the London bibliopolic trade, fancy that
every Bookseller in town who receives an order
for a certain periodical from the country, must
go for it direct to the particular publisher of that
periodical. This is not the fact. The party
receiving the order sends at once to the Row,
where he gets the periodical in question, and
where he gets, at the same time, all the other
periodicals which other customers may have
ordered. If he had to go for each periodical to
the place of publication, he would find it impos
sible to get through his business, if of any extent,
with the requisite expedition ; as the publisher's
of such works are scattered in all directions
throughout the metropolis. Only fancy a person
having to go, say froni the middle of the City,
first to a house in Leadenhall Street, for the

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 57
*.( Asiatic Journal," and then westward to Regent
Street for "Fraser's Magazine," "Bentley's
Miscellany," or the " Metropolitan Magazine."
Instead of this, however, he has only to go direct
to the Row, where he at once gets, from the
house he is in the habit of dealing with, all the
periodicals for which he may have orders.
The actual publishers of periodicals, therefore,
have, properly speaking, nothing to do with the
sale of their respective works on Magazine Day,
and they seldom have even any idea of the
actual number sold of their own publications on
that day. I have known instances in which the
proprietors of some new periodical, or the new
proprietors of some old one, have been extremely
anxious to know the effects of the expenditure of
a very large sum of money in advertisements,
and yet have not been able to form the least idea
on the subject on Magazine Day.
The plan. adopted by the publishers of peri
odicals, is to send to the various wholesale houses
in the Row large quantities of their respective
works, either on the evening before, or early in
the morning of Magazine Day. Different houses
receiye different quantities, according to the rela- .
tive amount of business done. Some houses
take them only on the condition that the unsold
copies shall be returned. They have a small
commission on the number sold, over and above
the regular trade allowance of twenty-five per
cent. This enables them to supply the trade on
the same terms as if each periodical were pur
chased direct from its publisher. These whole
sale houses in the Row scarcely ever, by chance,
meet with any other customers than the trade;
6*

58 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
and, consequently, they never get full price for
any magazine or other periodical they vend.
The quantity of business which some of the
larger houses go through on Magazine Day, is
immense. I know one house which draws, on
an average, from 1200/. to 1500/. Only fancy
the number of periodicals, varying from two
pence to three' shillings and sixpence, which
must be turned over from the shelves of this
establishment to the hands of the purchasers,
before such a sum of money could be taken !
The house to which I refer, disposes of from 500
to 750 copies of some of the more popular peri
odicals. The business done on Magazine Day is
all in ready money. There are no credit trans
actions whatever. The best customers know,
that without money they will not be supplied,
and consequently no credit is either asked or
expected. ' The constant bustle kept up from morning till
night, in these wholesale houses, exceeds any
thing of which a person, who has not witnessed
it, could form any eonception. The premises
are full of young men and boys, all struggling
for a priority of " supply." I have often seen
as many as fifty or sixty, wedged into a shop of
the ordinary size. What between the rapid and
noisy movement of their feet on the floor — the
clinking of sovereigns, and shillings, and pence,
On the counter — the quarrelling among them
selves — the loud announcement of the names of
the works supplied, and the amount of money to
which each person's order comes, by the parties
behind the counter, and the calls by the customers
for the different publications wanted ; what be-

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 59
tween all these discordant sounds, kept up with
out one moment's intermission, a stranger be
comes literally stupified before he has been inany
minutes in the place. Any thing more confused,
either to the eye or to the ear, it were difficult
to conceive. I have often thought that some of
the houses in the Row would furnish a fine exam
ple on Magazine Day, of a miniature Babel. The
unfortunate persons doomed to spend that day
behind the counter, undergo an incredible
amount of hardship. Negro slavery, under its
worst aspects, never exhibited any thing to paral
lel the labour and fatigue which these persons
are fated to encounter. The only thing that sus
tains them, is the consideration that the day
happens only once a-month. I am satisfied that
a week consecutively of such labour as is under
gone in these houses on Magazine Day, would
be more than the strongest constitution could
endure. To a person unacquainted with such matters,
who chanced to spend a few minutes in a large
house in the Row on Magazine Day, all that he
heard would be quite unintelligible. The indi
viduals ordering periodicals scarcely ever call
the periodicals they wish to procure by their
proper names. The love of brevity, to which I
have already referred, is observable in every
word they utter. The " Gentleman's Magazine"
never gets any1 other name than the "Gents."
" Tait's Magazine" is simply "Tait." The
" New Monthly Magazine" is the " New
Month." The " Metropolitan Magazine" is
abbreviated to the first three letters, with the
addition of an s. The "Encyclopaedia Britan-

60 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
nica'' is the « Ency. Brit." The " Court Ma
gazine" is the " Courts ;" the " Lady's Maga
zine and/Museum" is reduced to the dissyllable
of " Ladies ;" so that it is quite common to hear
one person sing out in one breath, "two Gents,"
" six Taits," "four Blackwoods," "a dozen
Chambers" (meaning monthly parts), "three
New Months," "three Mets," "one Court,"
and "two Ladies." But to form some idea of
the ludicrous effect which such unintelligible
jargon must have on the ears of a stranger, it will
be necessary that the reader imagine to himself
that a battery of such terms, levelled, if I may
use the expression, at the parties behind the
counter, is kept up incessantly by fifteen or twenty
persons at once.
The constant bustle kept up from morning till
night in these houses in the Row, coupled with
the crowds of persons, chiefly young men, who
are alwa}'s in them, afford excellent opportunities
to those persons who may be disposed to exercise
their light-fingered capabilities. Handkerchiefs
often disappear from one's pockets on such occa
sions ; and when it chances to be a rainy day,
and umbrellas are in requisition, the possessors
of such articles will require to keep what is called
a sharp look-out if they mean to retain them for
¦ their own use. A few years since, a friend of
mine had occasion, on a rainy Magazine Day, to
be in one of the wholesale houses in the Row.
He laid down an excellent silk umbrella while
he paid for a magazine ; it instantly vanished.
He mentioned the circumstance to one of the pro
prietors of the establishment : the answer ofthe
latter was, " Oh, sir, every body must take care

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 61
of himself on Magazine Day." While mortified '
at the circumstance, he could not help admir
ing the remarkable dexterity with which the
theft had beeri committed. He hung the arti
cle on the counter, close beside himself, and
is convinced that half a dozen seconds could hot
have elapsed before he discovered that it was
gone. Magazine Day always occurs on the last day
of the month, except when that last day happens
on a Sunday. In such a case, Magazine Day
takes place on the Saturday. The appearance of
the Row on such days, exhibits a remarkable
contrast to what it does on ariy other day of the
month. On other days of the month, the Row
has a dull aspect. You only meet with a single
individual at distances of from twenty to thirty
yards. The place has quite a deserted appear
ance. Very different is it on Magazine Day.
Then you see crowds of young men and boys,
flying about in all directions, with bags thrown
over their shoulders, either partially or wholly
filled with "Mags," as the case chances to be.
They could -not appear in greater haste though
they were running to save their lives.
I have referred to the quantity of business don©
in one of the largest houses in the Row on Md--
gazine Day. What the entire number of periodi
cals which are sold by the Booksellers in the
Row on that day is, I have no data by which I
can arrive at a positive conclusion ; but, from
calculations I have, made, I should think the
number of copies of periodicals which issue from
it on the last day of every month cannot, includ-

62 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
ing the cheap ones, be under 400,000 ; and I
should think the entire sum received . over the
counter for these, is not less than 20,000/.
The number of periodicals of one kind or
other, including the cheap ones, which are pub
lished, is between 220 and 240. Of these, there
are from fifty to fifty-five monthlies which are
devoted to general literature, and about forty-five
to science, natural history, &c. ; upwards of forty
are of a religious character ; fifteen or sixteen are
chiefly devoted to the fine arts; and no fewer
than seven are professedly ladies' magazines, cir
culating chiefly among dress-makers, and the only
merit of which consists in their plates. The
remainder of the periodicals are of the cheap
class. I have said that Magazine Day is a sort of era
in the history of the bibliopolic trade ; so it is
also in that of another class of persons : I mean
authors of books and contributors to periodicals.
Every Magazine Day, by ten o'clock, authors
are attracted to the Row from all parts of the
metropolis, to see what is said oftheir productions
in the literary notices ; while contributors, or
rather would-be contributors, are drawn to the
same locality, to see whether their articles are
inserted, or whether they can read their fate in
the notices to correspondents. Neither authors
who expect their books to be reviewed, nor can
didates for admission into the magazines, have
resolution to wait till the periodicals are regularly
published. Their anxiety to ascertain their doom
is, in such cases, so intense, that they>will rather
walk from the most distant parts pf London to

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 63
to the Row— the magazines being there first seen
— than wait for two or three hours till brought
to them. When the result is agreeahle they do
not regret their early rising, or the distance they
have walked ; when it is otherwise, they reproach
themselves with their folly in having tormented
themselves before the time.
Magazine Day is not confined to the metropoli
tan circulation of periodical literature. On that
day, works of this class are collected for all parts
of the country, and, sent' off in packages by the
earliest conveyance; Since the late establishment
of steam communication between London and
almost every part of any importance in the king
dom, the periodicals which first see the light in
the Row, on Magazine Day, are in the hands of
readers in the remotest parts of the country in
less than a week. The quantity of literature thus
sent off in monthly parcels to the country is im
mense, and' has been vastly increased sinee the
introduction of cheap publications into the bibli-
opolic market.
Paternoster Row is by no means an attractive
place externally. It is a narrow dark street, or
rather a sort of lane, and is about two hundred
yards in length. The houses on either side have
a dingy and gloomy appearance ; and the atmo
sphere is close and heavy. Owing to the height
of the houses, the narrowness of the street^for
there is barely room for two carts to pass in it —
and the fact of there being no thoroughfare in a
direct line at the western end, a breath of wind
is a luxury very rarely enjoyed in that locality.
The Row is well adapted for being the empo-

64 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
rium of literature. It is not only exactly in the
very centre of this great and busy metropolis, but
it is so very quiet, except on Magazine Day, that
if a stranger were taken from the country and
dropped down into it blindfolded, he would, on
opening. his eyes, conclude that he was in some
small provincial town. The Row is almost ex
clusively occupied by booksellers and stationers.
The only premises of any note possessed by other
tradesmen, are those occupied by a candle-maker
and a butcher. I have often thought it a pity
that the first of these persons, could not be in
duced by some means or other, to go and manu
facture his rushlights, his sixes, &c. in some other
quarter ; and that the second could not be per
suaded to slaughter his black cattle in some less
literary locality. The association between tallow
and butcher's meat and the belles lettres, is. ra
ther an odd and awkward one.
Eight o'clock at night is an hour which is
always heartily welcomed in Paternoster Row.
Sweet to the ears of the inhabitants is the music
of Paul's bell when it strikes that hour. With
wonderful .celerity are the shutters put up, and
the lights in the shops and warehouses extin
guished ; and no less edifying is the despatch
displayed in closing the doors and turning the
key. In a few minutes all is darkness, save
what light is emitted by a few gas lamps placed
at a respectful distance from each other. The
parties employed all day are sick of literature.
They are happy to escape from hard work and
close confinement. You see their joy at being
once more free agents, depicted in their coun
tenances. Each one hastens to the place of his

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 65
destination. In fifteen or twenty minutes, the
shops are all closed : all is dark. There are no
traces of business. Silence reigns undisturbed
in the intellectual locality.

vol. n. — 7

66 SKETCHES OF LONDON.

t/ «> ^?^ •*-¦>• 7?
v- ,,H. i-^-.^y
^T ,. " CHAPTER III.

RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS.
Episcopalians — Presbyterians — Wesleyan Methodists —
Independents — Baptists — Countess of Huntingdon's
Connection — Various Evangelical Sects — Sandema-
nians — Irvingites — Moravians — Society of Friends-
Roman, Catholics — Swedenborgians — Unitarians — Mis
cellaneous religious Bodies — The Jews — Moral state of
the Metropolis, M.
In a chapter devoted to the "Religious Denomi
nations" of London, the episcopalians are entitled
to a priority of notice, not only as a matter of
courtesy on account of their religion being the
established religion of thecountry, but as a mat
ter of right, from the circumstance of their
being, by far, more numerous than any of the
various other sects in the metropolis.
The places of worship belonging to the Church
of England in London, taking, as is always done
in such Cases, the metropolis and its suburbs to
comprehend acircuit of eightmilesfrom St. Paul's,
are, including those additional churches jerected
within the last twelve-months, about 320. Of
this number, 240 are churches; the remainder

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 67
are chapels. The chapels are divided into
two classes; those which are parish chapels
and those which are private property. As nearly
as I have been able to ascertain, about fifty are
parish chapels, and thirty the property of private
persons. Among the latter class of chapels, are
St. John's Chapel, Bedford Row, where the
Hon. and Rev. Baptist Noel preaches ; Gray's
Inn Lane Chapel,* which is under the pastoral
care of the Rev. Mr. Mortimer^ and Tavis
tock Chapel, Drury Lane, where the Rev. Mr.
Hall, the successor of the late Rev. Mr. Wilcox,
statedly proclaims the truth of the Gospel.
The appointments of ministers to the parish
chapels are, in most cases, under the control of
the Vicars or Rectors of the respective parishes.
Thus for example, Dr. Moore, the Vicar of St.
Pancras, has the patronage. of no fewer than five
places of worship in the immediate neighbour
hood^ including Camden Town, Kentish Town,
and Somers Town Chapels. In the case of pri
vate chapels, th» party to whom the property be
longs, has of course, nominally, the right of appoint
ing the minister, but eventually that appointment
rests with the congregation ; for to thrust in an
unpopular preacher against their wishes, would
be to destroy his own property. In the parish
ehurches, again, the right of appointing the cler
gyman is vested in various hands, according to
circumstances, which it Would require too much
time and space to explain at sufficient length to
make them. understood. The patronage is, in a
great many - cases, vested in the Crown. The
right of appointing the respective clergymen
belong to the nine churches in St. Marylebone, is

68 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
exclusively vested in it. The patronage of the
Bishop of London is extensive in our metropo
litan churches. The Archbishop of Canterbury
is patron in several cases ; and, in some instances,
holds his patronage conjointly with the Crown.
In such cases, the right of appointment is exer
cised alternately. The Lord Chancellor is sole
patron of four or five livings in London ; and in
six or seven other cases, exercises the right of
patronage alternately with the Archbishop of
Canterbury, with the bishop of London, with
private individuals, and with the parishioners.
The parishioners possess the sole right of patron
age in only three or four instances. In one or
two cases in the City, particular corporations pos
sess the right of appointing the clergy.
The entire number of clergy connected, in
one way or other, with the Church of England
in London, is, I am inclined to think, about
twice as great as the nurfiber of places of wor
ship ; in which case that number would be 640.
This may at first sight startle the reader. His
surprise will subside when he inquires into the
matter. It is to be remembered that in almost
all the parish churches there are at least two
clergymen ; the incumbent himself and an assist
ant. In many cases there are three clergymen
connected with one church : in some there are
even four'.* In the case of St. Paul's Cathedral
there is the astounding number of thirty-seve,n,
most of them, of course, drones or sinecurists ;
while in the case of Westminster Abbey there
?The new church at Chelsea, and St. Anne's, West
minster, are instances in point.

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 69
is the goodly number of thirteen. But in my
calculations, I do not include these extreme cases.
I refer only to the ordinary places of public
worship in connection with the Establishment.
Now when it is recollected. that in several
cases there are four clergymen, who officiate in
one church, and that in many cases there are
three,* I am sure I am justified in giving over
head two ministers to each place of worship
belonging to the' establishment in London,
which would make the entire number of our
metropolitan clergy that already stated, namely
640. In many of the churches, and in a few of the
chapels, of the Establishment, there are three
services on the Sunday. In all the others, with
the exception of some twelve or fifteen chapels,'
connected with particular institutions, or bodies
of individuals, there are two services. The ex
ceptions to this to which I refer, are in such
cases as that of the Rolls Chapel, where the
minister, addresses himself exclusively to a small
congregation of lawyers, and where there is only
one service, which commences at eleven in the
morning. I may also mention the case of King's
College Chapel, where the students only attend,
and where there is only one sermon on the Sun
day. In almost all the churches and chapels,
where the preachers belong to the Evangelical
party, there is a week-day service, which com
mences in most instances at seven in the evening.

* There are also three ministers, in some instances, to
one Chapel of Ease, Baker Street Chapel may be men
tioned in proof of this. 7*

70 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
There is one church in the city, but its name at
this moment escapes my mind, in which service
is performed every evening, Saturdays excepted.
The preacher is, or was a year or two ago, the
Rev. Mr. Gordon, and the church is in the
neighbourhood of St. Paul's. Under what cir
cumstances the practice of thus having, with the
exception of one day in the seven, divine service
every evening originated, is a piece of informa
tion which, I regret to say, 1 am not in a condi
tion to give my readers.
The number of churches and chapels in the
metropolis in connection with the Establishment,
is considerably greater than I supposed'before I
made the necessary inquiries into the matter. But
let not the friends of that Establishment run away
with the idea, that the number of Episcopalians
in London is proportionally great. It must not
be forgotten that many of these places of worship
are of very limited dimensions, and that in a
great number pf instances they are not half, or
even a fourth, filled. Go, for example, to the
city, and you vyill see churches capable of contain
ing 600 or 700 persons, when the average attend
ance does not exceed 150. Nor is even this all.
There isa goodly number of chapels which are
connected with, and supported by, particular
societies and institutions, and where the attend
ance of the hearers is not voluntary, or because
they are attached to the Church of England, but
is insured by what may be called a conventional
compulsion. Of this description of chapels, there
are at least three connected with the Inns of Law,
and where the students of the respective Inns,
and others belonging to them, are under the sort

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 71
of constraint to which I have alluded, to attend.
How purely "professional" such congregations
are,, may be inferred from the fact, that in one
case, that of Gray's Inn Chapel, the preacher, the
Rev. Dr. Shepherd, now and then treats his au
dience to Latin and Greak quotations. I have,
in my time, heard many curious things delivered
from the pulpit ; and( I know one eccentric — in
this case I should say irreverent — -minister of the
Church of Scotland, who is said to have given, on
one occasion, a quotation, in one of his sermons,
from the well-known song, of " Home ! Sweet
Home !" but I do not remember to have before
heard of Latin and'Greek quotations being given
from the pulpit. It is true that in an audience,
consisting exclusively of lawyers, Dr. Shepherd
may naturally enough be supposed to take it for
granted, that all his hearers are men who are
possessed of a sufficient amount of classical know
ledge to be able at once to comprehend him when
using such quotations. A little inquiry into in
dividual cases would soon, I doubt not, convince
him ofthe contrary ^ v
But this is a digression. I was speaking of
the number of chapels in connection with the
Establishment, in which the attendance is com
pulsory, and where, consequently, the persons so
attending these places, cannot with propriety be
ranged under the banners of metropolitan Epis
copacy. The case before referred to, of the stu
dents attending King's College, is another one
in point. There are Dissenters, and— what most
Churchmen will admit to, be still worsen-there
are you.ng men of no definite notions on the sub
ject of religion in that institution. The chapel in

72 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
King's Road, Chelsea, attached to the Duke of
York's School, is a case of the same kind ; so
are the chapels attached to three or four asylums;
and various other chapels which could be men
tioned. I conceive I am fully justified in strik
ing off at least the odd twenty places of worship
out of the 320, as not containing. congregations —
the attendance being forced — which can be said
to be Episcopalian. Well, then, assuming that
300 is the actual number of places of worship in
the metropolis, in which the congregations are
bond fide Churchmen, the next question which
will be asked will be, What may be the actual
number of Episcopalians in London, as inferred
from their attendance at church ? We haveseen
that in many places of worship in the Establish
ment, the number of persons present does not
exceed 150; but then there are a good many
churches and chapels where the average attend
ance is upwards of 1000, and perhaps five or six
where it exceeds 2000. I shall assume, which
is certainly an exaggeration rather than an under
statement, that the attendance in each place of
worship connected with the Establishment is
500 ; the aggregate number of Episcopalians, in
that case, in London and its suburbs, would be
150,000. Among the Church of England clergy in Lon
don, as everywhere throughout the country,
every variety of theological opinion is enter
tained. We have Calvinists, Baxterians, and
Arminians. Would that the diversity of senti
ment ended here ! Unhappily it does not.. We
have men who hold doctrines of a far higher
order than the first, and of a far lower order than

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 73
the last. The pulpits of our London churches
are, in some cases, filled by Antinomians ; in
others, by Socinians. Among the Antinomian
clergy, there is, unfortunately, one very popular
preacher, and I believe a very excellent and
pious man. ' So much greater is the cause for
regret, inasmuch as his influence over the minds
of his hearers must be proportionally powerful.
Need I name this clergyman ? Need I say that
I refer to the Rev.' Mr. Dodsworth, of Margaret
Street Chapel, Marylebone. Mr. Dotlsworth
may disclaim the name of Antinomian. The
mere name of a thing goes for little. Will any
one acquit, him of preaching doctrines the ten
dency of which is strongly Antinomian, when
they are informed that he inculcates, in the
plainest and most forcible terms he can employ,
that man may " have the indwelling of the Holy
Spirit, be accounted by God a saint, and be a
faithful believer in Christ, even while denying
the fundamental truths of the Gospel, and living
in the grossest licentiousness ?" If\ any one
question lhe fairness of this representation of Mr.
Dodsworth's doctrinal sentiments, let them con
sult a volume which he published a\ few years
since, under the title of "Romanism and Dis
sent." A mode of preaching more at variance
with the whole tenor of the New Testament, or
more destructive of all sound religion, was never
devised. We denounce the Antinomianism of
Drs; Crisp and Saltmarsh, of a past age, and con
demn the Antinomianism of a Dr. Hawker and a
Mr. Huntington of a more recent period. Never
in their highest sulprapsarian flights, did either
of these men give utterance to expressions, whose

74 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
practical tendency was more destructive of all true
religion, than some of those which will be found
in the Work of Mr. Dodsworth, referred to. Do
we wonder at the reverend gentleman's hetero
doxy on this head ? How could we, when we
remember that he was one of those who went
into some of the wildest of the vagaries of the
late Mr. Irving, asserting the doctrine of modern
miracles, and advancing the most outrageous no
tions on the subject of the millenium ?
Of the London clergy who hold Sociniah views,
the number is considerable. I need not point to
individual instances. The merely moral charac
ter of their preaching, or their systematic omis
sion of all the distinctive doctrines ofthe Gospel,
will in many cases prove a sufficient guide to
where they are to be found. I am not aware of
any case in which the clergy of the metropolis
preach Socinianism, other than in the negative
way in question, There is, it is true, one clergy
man who a year or two ago — I do not know if
it be so still — was most zealous and unremitting
in preaching against the doctrine of the eternity
of future punishments ; but as lam not aware of
his having avowed any other Socinian doctrine,
it might, perhaps, be doing him an injustice, to
include him among that body.
' It will be asked, has the newly->fangled theo
logy of Dr. Pusey, and the Rev. Messrs. New
man and Keble, the Oxford Tract triumvirate,
found its way into the pulpits of the Establish
ment in London ? Let the question be put to
the editor of the " Church of England Quarterly
Review," who is not, as is very generally sup
posed, Dr. Pusey himself, but a clergyman who

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 75
discharges the ministerial functions in a church
in the North of London. I am hot, let me in
justice to this reverend gentleman remark,
charging him with preaching the Oxford Tract
heresies from the pulpit, because I have not any
information on that point on which I can rely.
But the charge of Puseyism lies against him, in
asmuch as he has so lavishly praised the men,
and commended their works, who were the first
to broach, and still continue the leading cham
pions of those sentiments. Mr. Dodsworth, of
Margaret Street Chapel, the reverend gentleman
of whom I have so lately been speaking, is an
other of our London clergymen who have adopt
ed this pestiferous and most unscriptural system
of belief. But I pause not now to advert more
particularly to what this system is, as I shall
presently have occasion again to refer to it.
It is a fact which is 'sufficiently curious to be
worthy of mention, that nearly all the clergy of
the Church of England, in London, are decided
Tories in their political views. I state the fact
without stopping to institute any inquiry into the
cause how it happens to be so. Let me add,
however, which I do with great pleasure^ that
comparatively, few of them are in the habit of
carrying their politics into "the pulpit. He who
would ascertain their sentiments on most great
state questions, must, in the majority of cases,
look for them elsewhere than in their sermons.
He must inquire for them in the opinions they
express in private, or, it may be, at some public
meetings of a particular class, or in the way they
vote when any measure of a politicalkind comes
either before their respective parishes, or at the

76 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
election of a member to serve in Parliament.
The most marked exception to this rule is in the
case of the Rev. Mr. Melville of Camden Chapel,
Camberwell. He js one ofthe most furious Tory
partizans I ever knew, in the pulpit as well as
out of it. I heard him preach a sermon five or
six months ago in Burleigh Street Chapel, Strand,
preparatory to a collection to support public
worship in that chapel ; and though neither the
subject nor the occasion called for any thing po
litical, he attacked the Melbourne ministry and
liberal opinions, with such vehemence, that a
large portion of his discourse would have an
swered admirably for a leading article in " The
Standard" newspaper. The Rev. Mr. Mortimer,
of Gray's Inn Lane Chapel ; the Rev. Mr. Dale,
of St. Bride's Church, Fleet Street ; and the
Rev. Dr. Croly, of St. Stephen's, Walbrook, in
' the city, do 'severally now and then indicate
their political views in their pulpit ministrations ;
but they do it rather by implication than by
direct or open advocacy;
A Very considerable number of the London
clergy hold evangelical principles, and regularly
preach the leading doctrines .of the gospel. The
lives too, I am happy to say, of most of the evan
gelical clergy are in accordance with their preach
ing. They are as a body men of decided piety,
and of great zeal in the service of their Master.
Most remarkable and most gratifying is the
change which has taken place in this respect
among the metropolitan clergy, within the last
twenty years. Very few, indeed, were the
number of evangelical clergymen in our pulpits
before that time. I should suppose there could

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 77
not have been one evangelical clergyhian for
fifteen or twenty of an opposite class. Now,
perhaps the evangelical clergy may be in the
proportion of one to five of those who are merely
moral preachers. Within a mile of the place-
Great Russell Street, Covent Garden — in which
I now write, there are more evangelical ministers
in connection with the Establishment, than there
were in the whole of England seventy or eighty
years ago ; for Romaine states, that among the
whole of the clergy, about 10,000 in number, of
his time, there were not seven that preached the
gospel of Christ. What a melancholy moral
spectacle must the country at that time have pre
sented ! The happy change which has taken
place promises, I rejoice to say, to proceed with
yet greater rapidity than it has hitherto done.
The pulpits of our Chapels of Ease, with scarcely
an exception, are filled with pious and devoted
ministers ; men who preach the truth as it is in
Jesus, and who enforce their doctrines by their
exemplary conduct. Such men as Dillon and
Dale, and others whose names it is not necessary
to mention, are doing infinite good in our parish
churches ; and so are such men as Mortimer and
Noel in the chapels, — not only by the moral
change they are made the instruments of effecting
by their stated pulpit ministrations, and by their
visits to the abodes of sickness and of sorrow ;
but by the spirit of emulation with which they
are inspiring many of their brethren in the pas
toral office, who but for them would have gone
on to the end, in the same lukewarm inactive
way they had previously done.
Who that knows any thing of the metropo-
VOL. II. — 8

78 SKETCHES OF, LONDON.
litan churches, has not been struck with the
contrast in, point of attendance, which a place of
worship in which the clergyman is a merely
moral preacher, exhibits, to that in which the
minister is a zealous and able preacher of the
great doctrines of evangelical religion ? I could
point out cases in which the numbers who attend
the ministrations of the evangelical clergyman
are nearly ten times as great as those that attend
the ministrations of the clergyman of moderate
or merely moral views ; and this too, be it re
collected, where the situations of the two churches
are, as nearly as may be, equally good.
It has often struck • me as an anomaly — an
anomaly for which I can only account on the
ground of the strong prejudices which we so
often see created by a defective education ; — it
has often, I say, struck me as an anomalous state
of things, that while the evangelical clergy in the
Establishment not only agree with the orthodox
Dissenters in all the leading doctrines of the
Gospel, but as to the best means, in so far as
abstract principles are concerned, of inculcating
those doctrines, with effect, — they should not
only not co-operate with Dissenters when the
latter seek to form and carry out extensive plans
for the moral amelioration of mankind, but
should even seek to thwart them in their high
and holy purposes. Are not the Dissenters often
denounced from- our evangelical pulpits ? Are
they not spoken of by the orthodox clergy, as if
they were a sort of spurious Christians ; if in
deed they be admitted to be Christians at all ?
Have not the most of the great enterprises in
which the Dissenters have engaged for the moral

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 79
regeneration of the human race, whether at
home or abroad, been met with the sneers and
derisions, if not the open hostility, of a greater
or less number of the evangelical clergy ? If the
Dissenter's, plan, or at all events, , mature and
carry into effect, a City Mission ; than which no
society ever formed was more thoroughly free
from sectarianism, more catholic in -its constitu
tion, or more entirely exempt from denomina
tional tendencies in its , operations ; if such an
institution is brought before the pubhc, chiefly
under the auspices of Dissenters, then the ortho
dox party in the church first get their organ, the
'.'Christian Observer;" to start all manner of
objections to it, and next they get up their
" Pastoral Aid • Society," in opposition to it.
With the exception ofthe Hon. and Rev. Baptist
Noel, the Rev. Mr. Hall of Tavistock Chapel,
and one or two others, all the clergymen have
stood aloof from the City Mission. And surely
it is not an uncharitable supposition — as there is
nothing in the slightest degree tinged with secta
rianism in the constitution or operations of that
Society — to infer, that the only reason why the
clergy look upon it with so unkindly a feeling,
is the circumstance of its being principally the
work of the Dissenters.
Then there is the. " Additional Churches"
movement in the metropolis. May not that also
be traced to the spirit of ' opposition to the Dis
senters on the part of the Church, — in this case
brought into action by the promulgation of apian
Which was formed among the leading Dissenters
three or four years since — though circumstances
have hitherto prevented its being carried into

80 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
effect— for erecting a considerable number of
additional chapels in the more populous parts of
London ?
I could, but it is unnecessary, point out vari
ous other exemplifications of this spirit of oppo-
sition?on the part of the evangelical clergy of the
metropolis, to- the Dissenters. It is deeply to be
regretted that it should be so. The Dissenters
cherish no such hostile feeling towards the ortho
dox party in the Church. Neither do they
regret, otherwise than as indicative of an un
kindly disposition on the part ofthe evangelical
clergy towards themselves, that all their bene
volent enterprises on behalf of their perishing
fellow-men, should be met by the institution of
rival societies and associations. They rejoice,
yea, and will rejoice, that the Gospel is preached ;
that the Bible is circulated ; that Eeligious in
struction is communicated, even should the pri
mary motive be jealousy, a spirit of rivalry, or
any thing else. I think I may say for the Dis
senters, as a body, as I know I can for thousands
of them individually, that they rejoice in the
erection of new churches, in which evangelical
religion will be preached, in the darker and
more destitute districts of London, and that they
wish God-speed to the agents of the Pastoral Aid
Society. The hostility of the Dissenters to the
Church as an established religion, is quite com
patible with the greatest personal respect for
,the evangelical and pious clergymen in that
Church, and with joy and rejoicing at the con
version of sinners through their instrumentality.
This much in reference to the Church of
England clergy ' in London. If we extend —

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 81
and I am sure I shall be pardoned for doing so
at such a moment as the present — our views to
the state of matters in the Church throughout
England, what a dark and affecting picture do
we behold ! How frightful the amount of error
in opinion and laxity in practice which is pre
sented to us ! Taking the last first, are there not
large numbers of the country clergy, who mix
themselves up with all the fashionable frivolities
ofthe neighbourhoods in which they respectively
reside ? Have they not become proverbial for
their fox-hunting partialities ? Do they not
muster in large numbers at all the provincial
dinners, whether the occasion be political or
merely convivial ! Do they not habitually ne
glect the discharge of all those duties connected
with the ministerial office, except such as they
are bound by law to perform ? Would they not
deem the parishioner not only a fanatic, but a
positive moral nuisance, who should wait on
them for the purpose of conversing with them
on the interests of his soul, and soliciting their
spiritual advice ? But why thus catalogue the
various respects in which a very large portion of
the clergy are defective in the performance of
their pastoral duties ? Why point out in detail
their unfitness for the office they fill ? Is not
that unfitness in a great majority of cases — for
be it distinctly understood that I thus limit. my
observations — notorious as the light of day ? Is
it not adrnitted, on all hands, even by the more
pious class of churchmen themselves, that such
persons are not only altogether unfit persons to
occupy a place in the pulpit, but are doing un
speakable injury not only to the Church, but to
8*

82 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
the Christian religion itself ? Hear the testi
mony on this point of the Rev. Mr. M'Neile,
given about two months ago at a public meeting
at Liverpool, and see how the three thousand
persons present bore testimony to its truth by
the cheers with which they greeted his state
ments. "I never did," exclaimed Mr. M'Neile, " I
never will, with my eyes open, palliate, excuse,
or plausibly daub over licensed -abuses in our
church establishment (hear). — That there are
such, no honest man who values his Bible will
dare to deny ; and that we have been brought'
into the predicament we are in, that the necessity
should be so laid upon us to endeavour to re
kindle a reformation spirit in England, is mainly
to be attributed to this, that the Clergy of the
reformed Church of England, in years of care
lessness, supineness, and prosperity, have sought
their own ease rather than the salvation of others
— have wasted their time in balls, in parties, in
musical festivities, in preference to — (cheers
drowned the rest of this sentence). Oh, if we
would reform at all, let us reform altogether, ahd
let us begin at home."
As regards matters of opinion, again,- in the
Church, that is a subject which one almost
trembles to approach. There are hundreds of
the clergy, it is to be feared, that have never
thought sufficiently on theological topics to have
any opinions at all. They signed the Thirty-
nine Articles and the other forms of faith, without
taking the trouble to institute any inquiry as to
what those articles or forms of faith mean ; or
whether they mean anything at all. And, once

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 83
snugly ensconsed in a good living, they contrive,
by the help of some divines who have gone
before them, to string a few common-place sen
tences together, which are dignified with, the
name of sermons. Or possibly, to save all
trouble, they get some one to write a few moral
essays, with a text of scripture prefixed as a
motto to them ; or it may be, that seeing some
manuscript sermons of a deceased Clergyman
advertised for sale in the public journals, — by no
means an uncommon thing, — rthey have bought
them at an easy rate, and find them very conve
nient substitutes, for any productions of their own.
There are other churchmen — and the number, it
is to be apprehended, is not few — whose persons
are every Sabbath, and occasionally on week
days, enveloped in full canonicals, who, if the
testimony of their brethren in the ministry is to
be credited, must be pronounced unbelievers in
Christianity. This is a serious imputation. The
question is, is it founded in truth ? If it be fair
to. infer a person's principles from his conduct, I
think there could be no difficulty in pointing to
clergymen, some of whose names are graced
with the appendages of a D.D., or other mark of
assumed theological distinction, who reject the
idea of a divine revelation. But on a matter of
this kind, I prefer giving the testimony of parties
who cannot be for a moment suspected of preju
dice against theChurch. Hearthenthedeclaration
on this point, of one of our Welsh bishops in his
late address to the clergy of his diocese. The
prelate in question distinctly asserts, "that there
are in the high places of the establishment men

84 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
who are scoffers at all religion." What more
need be said ? Here I leave the matter.
Is there not at least one very distinguished
prelate in the Church — -shall I name Dr. Whatley,
archbishop of Dublin — who, while asserting that
he believes the scriptures to constitute a revela
tion from heaven, rejects the idea of the moral
law being obligatory on Christians, and maintains
that the Christian Sabbath is not of divine insti
tution? This dignitary of the Church is a great
favourite with freethinkers of all grades: ought
not this to cause him to subject his theological
views to a rigid re-examination ?
It will perhaps surprise those who were not'
before aware of the fact, to hear that even the
superlatively wild and visionary notions of Ba
ron Swedenborg have found disciples' and advo
cates among the clergy ofthe Church of England.
Some years ago, one of our country clergymen,
whose name at this moment escapes my recollec
tion, published'an edition of the Baron's works,
in, I think, six large volumes, to which he pre
fixed an elaborate, and, I am willing to admit, an
able and. learned introduction, in which he
thoroughly identified himself with the Sweden-
borgian system. Moravianism,too, can boast of
its disciples in the' pulpits of our national Esta
blishment. The Rev. Mr. Martin, late of Kim-
bolton, a most pious and useful man, was some
years ago an instance in point, though I am not
sure that he has not now openly seceded from
the Church, ahd attached himself to the Mora
vian body. It is unnecessary to mention other
individual cases ; they are too ^numerous for that.
With Arians and Socinians our national pulpits

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 85
swarm.. As for Arminianism, again, — though
'the creed of the Church is, if anything, Calvifi-
istic, — that class of principles is professed by a
large majority of the clergy. But why specify
particular classes of opinions ? Why thus go
into detail ? What could be more notorious ? —
it is so notorious as not to be denied even by
churchmen themselves, — that there is no creed,
. from the highest Antinomianism down to the
lowest Latitudinarianism, that has not its patrons
in the pulpits of our national Church.
But in thus adverting to the infinite diversity
of sentiment which obtains in a church — and
among the clergy of that church, be it observed
which professes, by her tests and her creeds, to
insure a perfect unanimity of .faith "within her
walls, — my object is to prepare the way for some
observations on the extent to which Popery pre
vails in, the Establishment, as appears from the
recent. unequivocal and unblushing admissions of
a number ofthe clergy themselves.
Several generations have passed away since
the remark was made by a celebrated individual,
that the Church of England had a Calvinistic
creed, a Popish ritual, and an Arminian clergy.
Ever since I was capable of thinking on the sub
ject, I felt unable to make any essential distinc
tion between the ritual of the Church of Rome
and-that ofthe Church of England. The latter
has always appeared to me to be as purely of
man's invention, as entirely anti-scriptural, as the
former. But though thus regarding the Episco
palian form of worship as equally Popish, or at
least nearly so, as that of the Church of Rome, I
am ready to confess that I never once suspected,

86 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
that in matters of doctrine, Popery prevailed to
any extent in our national Establishment. Pos
sibly I may the more readily have given the
clergy credit for an exemption, with perhaps a
few exceptions, from a Popish creed, in conse
quence of the horror with which they professed
in their sermons, and through their organs ofthe
newspaper and magazine press, to regard that
system. Now, however, the delusion is dispelled;
dispelled not in my case only, but in case of all
who, like me, were so charitable as to acquit
the clergy of our national Establishment of any
Popish opinions on points of doctrine.
Within the last few years, the most rampant
Popery has been' openly and unblushingly pro
claimed from the pulpits of many of our churches.
It had its origin in Oxford, that place which,
from ' the doors of its University being shut
against Dissenters, has always been regarded as
the stroHg-hold of Episcopalian orthodoxy,
and which one would . have supposed the last
place in the country where such rank heresy
could have been found. Yet so it is ; and what
greatly aggravates the evil, is the circumstance,
that two of the three clergymen who have be
come the great apostles of Popery in the Church,
hold professorships in the University. ' How is
it possible that the minds of their pupils, unin
formed and ready to receive any impression as
those minds must be, can reject the moral poison
thus administered to them. In most cases, there
can be no question, these pupils will come out
of the University deeply inoculated, with the
dangerous and destructive notions of these pro
fessors ; and then, entering the Church, will

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 87
themselves become the propagators of the heresy
over the length and breadth of the land.
The three clergymen, as already stated, who
were the first to broach the system — the first I
mean, as regards its avowed adoption in the
Church— are the Rev. Dr. Pusey, and the Rev.
Messrs. Newman and Keble. These men have
entered into an alliance together for the purpose
of propagating their Popish doctrines in every
possible way. They have their "Tracts for the
Times," upwards of eighty of which have al
ready been published ; their "British Critic and
Theological Review," edited by Mr. Newman
himself; their pulpits ; their published sermons;
their magazines and newspapers; and lastly,
their sacred hymns. Through each and all of
these media of communication with the public
are these men — and those who have identified
themselves with them — disseminating their Po
pish doctrines and dogmas; and rapidly, as will
be. afterwards seen, are those doctrines and dog
mas spreading in the country.
Is any one unacquainted with the particular
class of opinions which are thus so zealously
proclaimed, and advocated in the pulpits of the
churches of Oxford, and in various other parts of
the land ? The more prominent and important
heresies are — the assertion of an uninterrupted
apostolical succession — the authority of tradition
-—the impropriety of any individual not a clergy
man seeking to form his opinions from the scrip
ture alone— that the church is the sole depositary
of divine truth — that the doctrine of justification
by faith, though theoretically true, is practically
obsolete — that all men are justified by baptism.

88 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
and that if they afterwards fall into mortal sin,
they can only be re-justified, not by the atone
ment of Christ, but by the baptism of tears and
penance — and that we are to pray for the dead,
and to the dead.
Will it be believed that these doctrines are
constantly being preached and disseminated
through every possible channel, by a zealous and
powerful party in the very seat of episcopal
orthodoxy ? Did the Church of Rome ever
promulgate a set of doctrines more utterly at
variance with the inspired volume, or more cal
culated, first to destroy all true piety in the soul,
and then to destroy the soul itself?
But lest I should be charged with misrepre
senting the opinions of the theologicalsect which
has lately started up at Oxford in the bosom of
the church, let me refer the reader to the accounts
given of those opinions by two of the organs of
that church. Let me point his attention, as it
would take up too much space to give the neces
sary extracts here, to the " Christian Observer"
monthly magazine, and " The Record," a twice
a-week newspaper, — for the last twelve months ;
and it will be seen that I have not in the slightest
degree misrepresented the views of this new
school of theologians. To the testimony of the
" Christian Observer" and " The Record" on
this point, might be added that of a host of the
most pious and learned ofthe clergy themselves.
To mention the names of Dr. Faussett, the Mar
garet Professor of Divinity in Oxford, and the
Rev. George Townsend, may suffice.
But why waste time in establishing an identity
between the doctrines of the Oxford Tract school

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 89
of divines, and those of the Church of Rome,
when their own recognised and avowed publica
tions are accessible at a cheap rate ? In these
there will not only be found the Popish doctrines
with which we charge these persons, but also
their own admission in so many 'terms, that the
difference between -them and the Church of Rome
is but very trifling, and that they regard a union
between the two churches as a very possible con
tingency. Mr. Newman renounces, in his own
name, and in the names of his coadjutors in the
dissemination of these heresies, the term Protes
tant. He denies that the Reformation was a
renunciation ofthe Roman Catholic faith ; main
taining that it only constituted a modification of
Popery, or a correction of some of the errors
which had been mixed up with it. The Rev.
Mr. Palmer, of Worcester College, Oxford, also
one of the nevv sect, says in his " Treatise on the
Church of Christ," that " various Romanists of
note have held that the difference between us (the
Church of England, and Church of Rome) is so
small as to render a re-union ofthe churches by
no means impossible," — evidently himself con
curring in the. opinions of those " various Ro
manists of note." Another of these Episcopa
lian-papist theologians says — " The precedence
ofthe Pope over other bishops in England and
elsewhere, is a matter suspended and under abey
ance, but that precedence is not to be denied.
He (viz. the Pope) has certain legitimate claims,
which may be settled when he removes existing'
impediments to our acknowledging him." —
Those trifling "impediments" which still exist,
will doubtless soon be removed, at any rate in
vol. n. — 9

90 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
the view of these Protestant-papists ; and we may
therefore expect, to awake some morning, and
find that the supremacy of his Holiness of Rome
is formally acknowledged in the University and
churches of Oxford ; a place so long and so far
famed for its alleged indomitable orthodoxy.
Once more, in one of the recent Oxford Tracts,
a proposition is actually made by these Popish
churchmen, to appropriate certain portions of the
Romish Breviary to Protestant uses, in the con
ducting of public worship. One of the Collects
so pointed out as adapted for use in Protestant
places of worship, runs thus, — " Grant, 0 Lord
God, that we, thy servants, may ever prosper in
perpetual health of body and mind, and by the
glorious intercession of the Blessed Mary, ever
Virgin, may be delivered from present sadness,
and enjoy eternal bliss." In accordance with
this Collect, is one ofthe hymns of these Oxford
divines, written by Mr. Keble, and addressed to
the Virgin Mary. It reads thus —
Ave Maria ! Mother blest,
To whom, caressing and caressed,
Clings the eternal child ;
Favour'd beyond archangel's dream,
When first on thee, with tenderest gleam,
The new-born Saviour smiled.
Ave Maria ! Thou whose name
All but adoring love may claim,
Yet may we reach thy shrine;
For he, thy Son and Saviour, vows
To crown all lowly lofty brows
With love and joy like thine.
But the Virgin Mary is not the only saint to
whom prayers and praises are to be addressed.

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 91
Others are to share the; honour — let me not be
understood as here using lightness of speech —
with her. Another of the Collects proposed to
be transferred from the Popish Breviary to Pro
testant churches, or rather to be used in the ser
vice both of the Church of Rome and in that of
the Church of England, is as follows : — " We
pray that, by the deserts of both Peter and Paul,
we may obtain everlasting glory."
Such are the views entertained by the Oxford
Tract party, and in accordance with their Popish
principles is their spirit. They denounce, like
the Church of Rome, all who differ from them,
as men who form no part of the church of Christ.
Jacobites in politics, and intolerant in their reli-
gipn, they would soon, I have no doubt, provided
they had the power, rekindle the flames of perse
cution. I enter not on the subject of their theology
controversially : that would not only be at vari
ance with the plan of this work, but would occupy
far more of my space than it would be wise to
devote to such a subject. I may be asked, have
the doctrines in question made any great progress
beyond the immediate sphere of the triumvirate
who are so active in their efforts to disseminate
them ? They have, indeed, already made fearful
progress in different parts of the country, and, as
before stated, are now making rapid progress
where they were before unknown. One of the
largest churches in. Brighton is crowded every
Sunday to hear those doctrines preached by the
Rev. Mr. Anderson; so is the church of Dr.
Hook in Leeds. In fact, there are few towns of
note to which they have not. extended ; nay, they
have even reached obscure and insignificant places

92 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
in the remotest parts of the kingdom. They are
preached in small towns in Scotland. They ob
tain in Elginshire, which is six hundred miles
north of London ; and I found them myself in the
heart of the Highlands of Scotland, when travell
ing there three months ago. Among the Scotch
Episcopalian^, indeed, I have no doubt these
Popish doctrines will find special favour. Nor
are they confined to mere Churches and Chapels
of Ease. As before remarked, they are advocated
in the newspaper and periodical press. The
." Morning Post" sustains the character of their
apologist in London ; and the " Liverpool Mail,"
the "Coventry .Herald," and other journals iden
tify themselves with them in the country. The
Oxford Tract doctrines have even insinuated
themselves into the House of Commons. There
is, at least, one county member in the centre of
England, who cherishes them with more than a
parental affection, and who is most zealous in his
efforts to inoculate others with them.
It is a curious fact, that notwithstanding all the
horror which the Tory newspapers of London
affect to entertain of Popery, not one of them has
yet ventured to hint a word of condemnation,
either of the heterodox doctrines themselves, or
of the conduct of the parties inculcating them,
which are now being disseminated in all parts
of the country. " The Standard" khas writ
ten, for a series of years, with surpassing zeal
and ability, against the Popery of the Church
of Rome : how happens it that that journal has
not adventured a single word in condemnation of
the Popery which is now so rampant in the
Church of England ? Has the omission been

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 93
accidental ? Or is it the result of ,a fear to offend
the new party, because they are powerful in a
political sense ? I can hardly think the latter is
the reason,inthe case of "The Standard," ofthe
silence which has been preserved on this subject
in its columns, though it may be the reason with
other journals ; for "The Standard" often fear
lessly asserts its peculiar opinions regardless of
what the party with whom it identifies itself may ,
say or think. A memorable instance of this was
afforded a few weeks since, in the case of Lord
Durham and his Canadian ordinances. I confess
I feel much curiosity to learn the cause of the
unbroken silence which the editor of that journal
has preserved on a question so deeply affecting
the interests of the Church.
The circumstance connected with the spread
of the pestilential heresies of the Oxford school
which seems to have principally attracted the
attention of those who feel interested in such
matters, is that of the Bishop of Exeter having
openly espoused them. Knowing, as I do, more
of the character pf this prelate than most other
persons, it does not at all excite my surprise,
that he should mix himself up with the views
and conduct of the Pusey, Newman, and Keble
party. The simple circumstance of their revi
ving the obsolete doctrine — which I should have
before remarked, is one of the leading articles of
their creed,— of passive obedience and the Divine
right, would have gone far to recommend these
men and their views to Dr. Philpots. But the
fact of their exalting the authority of the Church
to such a degree as to set that authority above
every thing else ; nay, even — startle not, reader,
9*

94 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
while I write it — above that of Scripture itself,
— was certain of insuring the immediate adhe
rence of this prelate to the system ; especially
as it is notorious, that the Bench of Bishops is in
his view synonymous with the Church.
Nature intended this haughty dignitary ofthe
Hierarchy for a Roman Catholic. He would
have made an excellent Pope. The persecuting
spirit of the Churchof Rome would have been
strikingly illustrated in his administration of her
affairs. His conduct a month or two since, to
the Rev. Mr. Head, affords a very tolerable spe
cimen ofthe sort of authority which he would
exercise over the inferior clergy, did they dare
to disobey his high behests. His hour's "rebuke"
of-that worthy, but not sufficiently resolute cler
gyman, breathed a spirit of intolerance and harsh
ness which none but the modern Laud could
have displayed. Every sentence was a dagger
which must have pierced the soul of his hapless
victim. I, who have heard almost every speech
of any importance which this imperious prelate
ha? made in the House of Lords for the last five
or six years, can easily picture to my own mind
the merciless severity of manner, and yet —
strange, if not contradictory, as it may seem —
all the while under an assumed mildness and
meekness of temper, with which the "rebuke"
was administered. I can easily conceive how
he luxuriated in the writhings of his prey while
lacerating and tearing him to pieces. What a
melancholy spectacle it must have been, to see
Mr. Head tamely submitting to all this, and the
clergy of the diocese all looking on without
daring to utter a word of sympathy with the suf-

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 95
ferer, or of disapprobation of the relentless cru
elty of the prelatic flagellator. In their hearts,
they must have felt that sympathy; in their
inmost souls they must have felt indignant at the
harshness of their spiritual superior.
But to return to the frightful prevalence of
Popery in the bosom pf the Church. Church
men have been most prodigal of their reproaches
of Dissenters on the ground ofthe alleged diver
sity of opinion which obtains among them, in
consequence of their not being called on to sign
any creeds or religious tests prior to their ordi
nation to the ministry ; and they have been no
-less liberal in their boastings of the pretended
uniformity of faith and doctrine which, they say,
obtains within the pale of the Establishment. It
is a misrepresentation to say that there exists any
serious diversity of sentiment among Dissenters;
for though there are various denominations of
Dissenters, almost all the members of one par
ticular body are as nearly as may be, as one in
their religious views. But how stands the fact
with regard to the Church ? I have already shown,
as the best proof of the inefficacy of tests and
creeds, that within her pale are to be found every
variety of sentiment, every class of theological
opinions which has an existence at the present
time ; and this, be it remarked, while, by their
continuance in the Church, the parties holding
these various views are practically declaring that
they are believers inthe.doctrinesbf that Church.
What is this, but to be daily and hourly proclaim
ing a falsehood ? What is it but a continued at
tempt to practise deception on the public ? In
this particular case of holding and promulgating

96 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
Popish views, the matter assumes a still more
awful aspect ; for the clergy of the Establish
ment are, when taking upon themselves their
ordination vows, required to declare the Pope
to be anti-christ, and the Church of Rome the
mother of harlots. Why do not the Oxford
Tract party act like honest men, and detach
themselves at once frdm a Church with whose
articles and homilies they are at variance on so
many important points, and go over to that
Church whose doctrines they have espoused ?
However much, in that case, we might pity them
for falling into such errors, we would1 at least
venerate their integrity and their high moral
purpose ; just as we did when Earl Spencer's
brother, the Hon. and Rev. Mr. Spencer, seceded
from the Establishment of England, and openly
and unreservedly threw himself into the arms of
the Church of Rome.
But possibly we may be told, that though the
leaders of the Oxford party have only of late
openly preached and otherwise promulgated
their Popish views, they have not adopted those
views since they became clergymen, but enter
tained them before their ordination. This will
not be found to mend the matter. Why, in that
case, did they enter the Church at all ? Why
take upon themselves ordination vows, utterly
irreconcileable with their principles ? Why not
have commenced their priestly career in the
Romish Church, or, if not going the full length
with her, why not start as an independent sect ?
It is just as blamable to sign articles or homilies
expressive of opinions antagonist to the senti
ments which a party actually entertains, as it is

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 97
to continue to give one's practical sanction to a
class of principles which he has in his own mind
abjured, by rernaining in communion with the
body who profess and inculcate the principles so
abjured. To me it appears, viewing the ques
tion in its moral relations, to be nothing but per
jury either way.
I know that the defence which the friends of
DrJ Pusey ,set up for him is, that he does not
now, and never did believe that the Thirty-nine
Articles contain any meaning at al). Were a
Dissenter to characterise these articles as utterly
destitute of meaning, we all know what a hue
and cry would be raised against him, by the
Church. May I also pause for a moment to re
mark, that a greater reflection could not be made
on the memories of Cranmer, Latimer, and Rid
ley, and whoever else may have had. a hand in
drawing up the Thirty-nine Articles, than to
charge them, in a matter of such solemn import
ance, with drawing up so lengthened a series of
perfectly unmeaning articles. Not less insulting
is it to the Church to represent her as thus
solemnly trifling with her clergy by extorting
from them an assertion, on their oaths, that they
believe articles which, as "they convey no
meaning at all," can contain no matter for one's
faith. But this is a point which I willingly leave
to Churchmen to settle among themselves. Let
me simply ask Dr. Pusey, how it came to pass
that he solemnly swore that he believed a given
number of articles which contain no meaning
whatever ? Dr. Pusey must be aware that the
object of subscribing the Thirty-nine Articles is
to get a guarantee that the faith of the party so

98 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
subscribing, is the faith, or what is supposed to
be the faith, of the Church. As therefore those
articles, according to his notions, convey no
meaning at all, they could not express his faith,
though he not only virtually, but in so many
words, declared they did. He must be a dex
terous casuist, indeed, who will satisfy any mind
possessed of ordinary discernment, that in sign
ing the Thirty-nine Articles, assuming the hy
pothesis of his friends to be correct, t)r. Pusey
was not guilty of more than mere Jesuitical eva
sion — of something worse than tergiversation.
Others of the Oxford Tract school urge, in
justification of their conduct, that the new doc
trines are not at variance with the articles and
formularies of the Church of England. This is
a positive insult to one's understanding. It is in
effect saying, that Cranmer did not understand
the meaning of his own words, when he assisted
in drawing up the Articles and Book of Com
mon Prayer. He Was simple, or rather fool
enough, to suffer himself to be burnt at the stake,
because he could not formally assent to doctrines
which were contained in the very creeds which
he had drawn up ! Such is the meaning virtually
of a certain portion of the Oxford theologians.
And what a reflection does this convey on the
intellects of the npble army of confessors and
martyrs, who cheerfully braved the horrors of
the Smithfield fires rather than profess Popery !
All these pleas for remaining in the Establish
ment are worse than contemptible. Were these
men inspired with the fine sense of honour
which we often see exhibited in the conduct of
mere worldlings, arid which we ought in every

SKETCHES OF LONDON- 99
case to witness in the conduct of ministers of the
gospel, they would scorn to receive the wages,
or to eat the breiad of a Church which they are
labouring with all their might to destroy, or, in
other words, to consign over bodily to the Church
of Rome.
What very seriously aggravates the evil is,
that, the pernicious doctrines disseminated by the
new theological school of Oxford, are insinuated
into the minds of thousands before they are
aware of it. Who could expect to hear the
doctrines of Popery inculcated in the pulpits or
in the recognized publications of the Church of
England ? If the people go into a place of wor
ship belonging to the Church of Rome, and in so
doing receive spiritual poison, they have them
selves to blame. It is otherwise when they go
into the places of worship belonging to the na
tional Establishment. There they never suspect
that any thing will be offered them but whole
some food. In the former case the poison is
labelled, in the other it is not.
One of the charges most frequently preferred
by Churchmen against Dissenters is, that they
have entered into an allian'ce with infidels and
Papists, in their opposition to religious establish
ments. Who are the allies of the Papists now ?
Are they npt to be found within the. bosom of
the Church itself ? The Dissenters never enter
ed into any formal alliance with the Papists.
They never had the slightest religious sympathy
with Roman Catholics ; they merely acted with
them as citizens of the state suffering under com
mon grievances and seeking a common remedy.
With the Churchmen of the Pusey school the

100 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
case is quite the reverse : they are opposed to
Roman Catholics in matters of polities, and yet
they cordially fraternize with them in matters
of religion. Which of the classes, Churchmen
or Dissenters, are then the greatest abettors of
Popery ? There can be but one answer to the
question. It is a fact which ought not to be overlooked,
that though there is a numerous and powerful
party in the Church, who are at this moment
employing every means in their power to ex
clude the Roman Catholics from Parliament,
and though the anti-Popish party in mere mat
ters of politics, in that Church, succeeded in
ejecting Sir Robert, then Mr. Peel, from the re
presentation of the University of Oxford, because
he concurred in the propriety of removing the
civil disabilities of the Roman Catholics, there
has grown up a party in the bosom of that very
University, whom they cannot eject, though
avowing and inculcating the rankest Popery.
Could there be a greater argument against reli
gious establishments than this? Could anything
more clearly prove the anti-scriptural constitu
tion of the Church of England ? Or could any
thing more decisively show the superiority of the
Dissenting system, than the fact, that were such
deadly heresies to spring up in our churches,
they would be strangled in an instant, by the
parties with whom they originated or by whom
they were adopted, being obliged either to ab
jure them, or submit to the other inevitable
alternative of ejection. Thus, while the Church
in such a case has no remedy at all, Dissenters

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 101
have an instant and infallible remedy in their
own hands.
One other observation or two, and I quit the
subject. It is a fact which ought not to be lost
sight of, that the dangerous heterodoxies to which
I have been adverting, are, so far as I have been
able to learn, solely confined to the Church. I
know not of a single instance in which even a
lay Dissenter — among Dissenting ministers, I
know there is no such instance — has been carried
away by the Oxford novelties-. Nor ought it to
be forgotten, that when the wild extravagancies
of the late Rev. Mr. Irving were brought before
the public, the parties who adopted those out
rageous notions, were almost exclusively, if not
altogether, parties who belonged to either of the
two national Establishments. The Irving here
sies never insinuated themselves into our Dis
senting places of worship. The Armstrongs and
Owens among the clergy, and the Drummonds
and Percevals among the laity, were all members
of the Church of England. In Scotland it was
the same. From Edinburgh to Inverness, — and
the heterodoxies of Mr. Irving did extend them
selves as far north as Inverness, — every person,
so far as I could ascertain, who embraced the
new faith, belonged to the Church of Scotland.
How is this to be accounted for ? To my mind
it appears very obvious. A national Establish
ment holds out peculiar inducements to men who
are but imperfectly instructed in religious mat
ters, to enter its communion. It is the religion
recognised by law ; it is the fashionable religion ;
and hence it is often embraced, or rather pro
fessed without due previous examination. The
VOL. ii. — 10

102 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
man, oh the contrary, who identifies himself
with the Dissenters, must do so from conviction
only ; and the amount of scriptural knowledge
requisite to cause a person to join the ranks of
Dissent, will in all probability, under the divine
blessing, constitute a security against his adop
tion of such dangerous and unscriptural opinions
as those to which I have been referring.
Most deplorable and humiliating is the specta
cle which the Church of England at this moment
presents. A large party within her bosom are
busily engaged in doing the work of the great
enemy of souls. Mr. Binney has said, that the
Church of England has destroyed more souls
than she has saved. I would hesitate before
concurring in this statement ; but what between
the death-like indifference she displayed to the
interests of vital religion at a former period, and
the ruinous doctrines which are now being dis
seminated through every possible channel, the
amount'of guilt for which she will have to ac
count, must be frightfully great.
But what will the end be ? No one can
doubt that out of all this evil much good will be
eventually educed. I think I can clearly see, as
one of the results of what is now passing before
our eyes, the extinction of the Church, and that
at no distant day, as a national Establishment.
A house so much divided against itself cannot
stand. The Church must, through these schisms
within her own bosom, crumble into pieces. It
were, indeed, more than a miracle if she could
long survive the contentions and divisions which
now rage within her pale, abetted as these are by
the criminal conduct of many ofthe clergy, the

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 103
coarseness and violence of her Gathercoles, and
the haughty and overbearing manner of her Phil-
pots. Verily, the greatest enemies of the Church
are they of her own household.
In the meantime, the duty of the evangelical
clergy, who mourn over the fearful heresies into
which so many of the High Church party have
fallen, is clear. It is not enough that they — and
their number, I rejoice to say, is nearly 3,000 —
verbally protest against such pestilential doc
trines ; but they ought practically to protest
against them by detaching themselves at once
from the Church. This is the only effectual pro-
- test which they can enter against the soul-de
stroying heterodoxies ofthe Oxford Tract school.
Of this we are certain, that myriads of her most
pious laity will immediately detach themselves
from her, and go over to the already crowded
ranks of the Dissenters.
But as we are not only ourselves not to do
evil that good may come, but if we can help it,
not to permit evil to be done by others, it is the
bounden duty of all who value the truth as it is
in Jesus, to join together in offering every re
sistance in their power to these deadly errors of
the Pusey theology.
The only question is, how is this best to be
done ? I think it would be exceedingly injudi
cious to enter into formal controversy, either
through the pulpit or the press, with the Oxford
theologians : that would only be to give greater
importance and a wider circulation to their doc
trines. What appears to me to be the most ad
visable course for both the Evangelical clergy
in the Church, and the Dissenters to pursue,

104 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
would be to assign in their pulpit ministrations,
and' in those works of theirs which may issue
from the press, a greater prominency than ever
to the opposite, which is the Scriptural class of
doctrines. The* Oxford party preach up the
authority of tradition, representing it in effect as
superior to that of Scripture — I would dwell on
the great Protestant doctrine, that the Bible, and
the Bible alone, is the only authority in matters
of religion. To the law and to the testimony, if
they speak not according to it, it is because there
is no truth in them. The Oxford divinesvirtually
prohibit the reading of the Scriptures by the laity
—I would point my hearers to the command of
Christ, — " Search the Scriptures." The Pusey
school of theologians proclaim the doctrine of
justification by faith to be practically obsolete — I
would labour with renewed earnestness to impress
on the minds of my hearers, that by faith only
can men be justified. The Oxford party exclude
the doctrine ofthe atonement by Christ — I would
give that doctrine a prominence in my ministra
tions, exceeding any thing I had ever done before,
although I take it for granted, it has always
formed the leading feature in all evangelical
ministrations. I would cause the walls of the
church or chapel to resound with the great truth,
that the cross of Christ is the only safe foundation
for a sinner's hopes for eternity. The Pusey
party recommend prayers for and to the dead, —
I would dwell on the fact, that the moment a
man dies, his everlasting destiny is sealed ; and
that there is no other intercessor in heaven than
the Lord Jesus Christ.
This it appears to me, would be a more judi-

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 105
ciotis course to pursue, than to grapple formally
in the way of controversy, with the Popish dogmas
which are now being proclaimed from so many
pulpits in the Established Church.
I have thus adverted at some length to the
pestilential heresies of the Pusey school. It may
be supposed I have been guilty of a digression in
so doing. The digression is not so great as might
at first be imagined ; for these heterodoxies pre
vail, to a very great extent in the churches of
London, though not yet in all cases avowed ; and
therefore the matter comes within the scope of
my plan.
Of late, there have been several instances of
secession from the Church, on the part of her
clergy ; not, I believe, so much on account of
the doctrinal heresies to which I have been ad
verting, as on account of objections which their
consciences could not get over, to Episcopacy as
a system. The most recent instanoe with which
I am acquainted, of any clergyman who had thus
detached himself from the Church, coming to
London and settling here as a Dissenting minister,
is in the case of the Rev. Mr. Butler, now the
pastor of the Baptist Chapel in Keppel Street.
It is not, I believe, more than twelve or fifteen
months since he, from conscientious scruples,
resigned his situation as minister of St. Margaret's
Church, Ipswich. I heard him preach one even
ing, in September last, in Keppel Street Chapel;
and have no doubt, from the excellence of his
matter, coupled with his earnest and impressive
manner, that he will, ere long, greatly increase
the church and congregation. 10*

106 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
The Church of England has various organs in
the London press, from the quarterly down to
the twice a-week periods of publication. I have
already referred to the " Church of England
Quarterly Review," and " The British Critic,"
also'a quarterly publication, as being the organs
ofthe Oxford Tract party. I have also mentioned
the "British, Magazine," under. the editorial
management.of Dr. Rose, as being, to a certain
extent, in the interest of the same theological
school. The "Christian Observer," also published
periodically, is thoroughly orthodox in its princi
ples, and is1 conducted with a measure of ability
worthy of that displayed in its pages many years
ago, when, on this account, as well as on account of
its sound theology and thepiety whieh pervadedits
pages, it was most warmly recommended and high
ly eulogised, by Mrs. Hannah More, Mr. Wilber
force, and others worthy of being classed among
the greatest and best spirits of the age. The
"Christian Guardian" is another monthly maga
zine devoted to the interests of the Church. It
also, happily, sides with the evangelical party.
" The Churchman," likewise a monthly, though
formerly published once a-week, was, until within
the last few weeks, under the editorial superin
tendence of the Rev. Mr. Gathercole, — an indivi
dual, the very mention of whose name conveys
the idea of a heterodox theology, with a coarse
ness of manner and a spirit of intolerance, worthy
of the prelate who possesses the See of Exeter.
" The Churchman" is now conducted by theRev.
Mr. Irons, of St. Peter's Church, Walworth, and
son ofthe Rev. Mr. Irons, the Dissenting minister
inCamberwell. Ihavenotseen it since itcameinto

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 107
Mr. Irons' hands, and consequently do not know
on what principles it is to behenceforth conducted ;
but, as Mr. Irons is the author of a volume of
"Lectures on the Apostolical Succession," in
which the, mongrel divinity of the Oxford school
isinculcated ; and, as the volume in question is
dedicated to Dr. Pusey, the head of that school, —
there is every reason to fear that the " Church
man," under Mr. Irons' management, will bemade
a vehicle for tbe dissemination of the half Popish,
half Protestant principles of the hew sect. The
Church has also a weekly organ, called the
"Church of England Magazine," which is evan-
'gelical in its sentiments. Its matter consists, for
the most part, of sermons of eminent divines of
the present day, and of other reading of a prac
tical kind. The Church has only one newspaper,
" The Record," which is published twice a-week.
Its principles are thoroughly orthodox ; and it
asserts them fearlessly, uncompromisingly, and
with much ability. I am convinced it has con
tributed largely to the spread of evangelical views
in the Church.
I now come to the Presbyterians of London.
They are divided into two classes — those in con
nection with the Church of Scotland, and those
belonging to the United Associate Synod of that
country. ' i *'
*The Church of Scotland does not prosper
so well in London as might be expected, consi
dering the number of Scotchmen who are settled
in it. That number was estimated by the late
Rev. Mr. Irving at 100,000. I believo it is now

108 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
nearer 130,000. If this computation be correct,
and I am sure it is not an exaggerated one, it is
painful to think that there should not be a greater
number of Scottish chapels in London, and that
those which do now exist, should not be better
attended than they are. The number of chapels
in connection with the Church of Scotland is
eight. They are, taking them geographically,
Swallow Street Chapel, Piccadilly, the pulpit of
which is filled by the Rev. Dr. Brown ; Crown
Street Chapel, Little Russell Street, Covent Gar
den, presided in by the Rev. Mr. Cumming; Re
gent Chapel, of which the Rev. Mr. M'Moreland is
the minister; Verulam Chapel, Kennington Lane,
in Which the Rev. Mr. Miller has laboured for
some years ; London Wall Chapel, Finsbury,
the pastoral charge of which has been assumed
within the last twelve months, by the Rev. Mr.
Burns ; River Terrace Chapel, Islington, which
has also got a new minister in the person of the
Rev. Mr. Lorimer ; and St. Andrew's Church,
Commercial Road, which has for a number of
years been under the care of the Rev. Dr.
Crombie. The most largely attended of these
chapels cannot, as far as one may form an opinion
of numbers from the evidence of his eyes, boast
of a congregation exceeding 500, if, indeed, any
of them are so well filled ; while there are one
or two of them in which the usual attendance is
not more than 150. I am sure I exceed rather
than fall short ofthe mark, when I estimate the
average attendance at each of the chapels at 300.
This, then, would give the aggregate numbers
who attend the Scotch chapels at only 2400,

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 109
making but one in fifty-four of the Scottish popu
lation in London who attend a place of worship
in connection with the established religion of their
native country. It were well if the majority, or
any considerable proportion of the remainder,
attended any other place of worship ; but such,
it is affecting to think, is not the fact. I speak
with much confidence, because I do so from an
intimate acquaintance with Scotchmen and with
the relative numbers of Dissenters and Church
men in Scotland, when I say, that if I allow 3000
for those Scotchmen who attend other places of
public worship, I am making as liberal an allow
ance as the facts will warrant. This, then, added
to the number supposed to attend chapels in
connection with the Church of Scotland, would
only give an aggregate of 5400, or one out of
every twenty-four Scotchmen, who observe the
public ordinances of, religion. This fact is the
more painful to me, in consequence of my know
ing from personal observation, how assiduously
the great body of Scottish parents labour to instil
sound religious principles into the minds of their
children. The greatest increase which has taken place
for the last few years in any of the congregations
in London in connection with the Church of
Scotland, or, indeed, I believe, in any other con
gregation whatever, has taken place in5, that of
Mr. Cumming, of Crown Street Chapel. It is
only about six years since this Rev. Gentleman
was appointed minister of the chapel, and yet in
that short period the congregation has trebled,
and is still increasing. The members, I believe,
have increased in a still greater proportion. Mr.

110 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
Cumming has already done much good, and with
his great talents, his decided piety and exceed
ingly attractive manner of preaching, would have
done still more, had he not within the last two
or three years betrayed so marked a Tory bias
in his politics, and been so frequent and fierce in
his attacks upon the Dissenters. Mr. Cumming,
like every other person, has an undoubted right
to entertain any class of political principles which
commend themselves to his mind ; but no minis
ter of the gospel ought ever to introduce his
politics into the pulpit. If he do, he is sure to
impair his pastoral usefulness.
Here let me be distinctly understood. I do
not make this remark in the case only of those
ministers whose politics are tinged with a Tory
complexion : I would as unhesitatingly and as
unqualifiedly condemn the conduct of the
preacher of the gospel, who would make his
pulpit the vehicle of disseminating Liberal
political principles, though with that class of
principles, as many of my readers are aware, I
have always identified myself. On the subject
of the violent tirades, often breathing a spirit
which is any thing but charitable, which Mr.
Cumming is in the habit of uttering' against the
Dissenters, especially the Voluntaries, I say no
thing but this — that putting the bad taste of the
thing, in any circumstances, out of the question,
he ought to have some consideration for the feel
ings of those Dissenters who, from a partiality
to his preaching, attend on his ministrations ; for
I have heard him state, that he has among his
regular hearers, I believe among his members,

SKETCHES OF LONDON. Ill
Seceders,* Baptists, Independents, and other
Dissenters. While thus so liberal in his denunciations of
the Dissenters, Mr. Cumming is a warm friend
and strenuous defender of the Church of England.
Is he singular among his brethren' in the Church
of Scotland ministry in London, in this respect?
I regret to say he is not. There is at least one
of our metropolitan Scotch ministers, unless those
who should be well informed on the subject are
grievously mistaken, who most cordially sympa
thises with him in all he says against the Dissen
ters, and in all he urges in behalf of the Church
of England. Let me, however, do the reverend
gentleman to whom I refer, the justice to say
that he eschews such matters in the pulpit, con
tenting himself with assailing the Dissenters and
heaping his eulogies on the Church two or three
times a week, as occasion offers, through the
medium of the newspaper press. And, as if the
labours of these two reverend gentlemen were
not sufficient in this way, Dr. Chalmers, the most
distinguished minister in the Church of Scotland,
must needs be brought from the other side of the
Tweed, to co-operate with them by a, series of
lectures in the Hanover Rooms, condemnatory
of the Dissenters, and commendatory of the
Church of England !t

* A very numerous body in Scotland, who have separ
ated themselves from the Established Religion there.
¦j- Little were Dr. Chalmers' auditors aware, that the
greater part of the lectures which he addressed to them,
in the Hanover Rooms, consisted of matter which he had
written, spoken, and printed years before. The Lecture,
in particular, in which he was so prodigal of his praises
ofthe "Dignitaries ofthe Church," was only a fragment,

112 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
Well, we have heard of many strange unions,
private and public ; many extraordinary com-
with some slight alterations and additions, of a sermon
which I heard him preach five years ago, in Regent's
Chapel, and which was afterwards printed in "The Pul
pit," and sold for the " low charge " of three pence. To
me it was a good joke, as I heard the old story repeated
over again and given out as a tale which had not before
been told, to think, that the Episcopalians should be pay
ing the reverend gentleman fifty guineas — which is said
to have been what he received for each lecture — for what
they might have procured for three-pence. I made some
observations in a popular journal on this sermon — now
called a lecture — when the Doctor delivered it five years
ago ; and as much importance was attached to it by the
friends of the Church, it may not be amiss to glance at a
few of its positions here.
Dr. Chalmers' discourse was altogether an extraordinary
production. It was extraordinary no less for the illustra
tions it contained of the reverend Doctor's positions on
the subject, than for the positions themselves.
Surprised as I am at the Doctor's notions on religious
establishments generally, I am still more surprised at the
ground he takes with respect to the Church of England.
He says he feels " quite assured that if the wealth which
is still in reserve for the elements or the rewards of an
elevated scholarship be enervated, or even transferred to
the support of the Church's homelier and humbler services,
then will England cease to be that impregnable bulwark
of orthodoxy, which she has heretofore proved, in virtue
of her many ecclesiastical champions, among Ihe nations
of Protestant Christianity."
This is startling enough, without controversy : it is
more extraordinary as coming from a clergyman of the
Church of Scotland. I had thought that none but a bishop
could have used such language : 1 could scarcely credit
the fidelity of my auricular organs when 1;he words first
fell on them in Regent Chapel. The Doctor defends the
English hierarchy as it is. His vision can discover no
blemish either in the Church's constitution or working.
It is not enough that she be allowed her enormous revenues ;

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 113
pacts ; many singular alliances in our time ; but
of all the unions, compacts or alliances, that we
but those revenues must not be more equally distributed
among her clergy. If any part of the. Church's wealth,
that is to gay, the incomes of her bishops, be "transferred
to. her homelier and humbler services," then both the
Church and religion will be ruined to a certainty : '.' Eng
land will cease to be the impregnable bulwark of orthodoxy
she has heretofore proved,"
There is something so very gross in this, that one
scarcely knows how to grapple with it. Nor is it neces
sary that we should controvert the position at any length.
There is something. in every unsophisticated breast that
rebels against the doctrine that f orthodoxy " can only be
upheld by lavishing, year after year, some 10,000/. on aa
average, on each of twenty or thirty "dignitaries," as the
Scotch divine calls them, for doing little, so far as the
interests of religion are concerned ; while the thousands
of -inferior clergy, who. labour in their vocation "from
morn to noon, from noon to dewy eve," scarcely , get more-
remuneration , than mechanics receive for their industry.
That must be a suspicious " orthodoxy " which can only
be supported by so gross and perpetual an outrage on all
one's innate notions of moral right.
If the Scotch divine's position be true, that the enormous
revenues of the Church of England — which in his vo
cabulary just mean the bishop's livings — are indispensable
in their present unequally distributed state, for the main
tenance of " orthodoxy," then it follows that there can be
no such thing as " orthodoxy " in the Church of Scotland;
for she has no dignitaries, no bishops, within her pale;
while in the pay, of her clergy there is no difference worthy
of the name, when; the comparative cheapness of living
on the different glebes is taken into account. Does the
Doctor not see the awkward predicament in which his
arguments place the. Church of his own country ?
It were a bad look-out for the "orthodoxy of England ''
if its existence depended on the bishops.1 Had it been
left in their keeping, had it depended either on their
practical conduct or their "ponderous erudition,", to use
Dr. Chalmers' expression, it would have been long ago
VOL. II.  11

114 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
have ever heard, that between the Church of
England and the Church of Scotland, in a com-
numbered among the things thatwere. The Rev. Thomas
Scott, the best part of whose life was spent in an obscure
curacy, worth little more than 50/. a-year, has done more
for the "orthodoxy" of England, in Dr. Chalmers' ac
ceptation ofthe term, than" all the bishops that ever lived,
put together.
The Scotch theologian not only defends, with knight?
errant temerity, the revenues or wealth of the Church of
England, but he vindicates, with equal boldness, in an
after-part of his discourse, the indolence, or, as he calls
it, "the indulgence of our established dignitaries." If
Dr. Chalmers be consistent, he mustbe very severe in his
condemnation ofthe Church of Scotland, inasmuch as she
tolerates no idlers or drones among her clergy. And if
he does blame her for having no wealthy orlazy " dig
nitaries " within her pale, why does he not at once eome
out from her, and join a Church which is so largely blessed
in the idleness of its " dignitaries."
But I have not yet given the bishops credit for one half
the merit to which, in Dr. Chalmers' apprehension, they
may lay claim. Among other signal general services they
have rendered the cause of" orthodoxy," is the particular
one of "keeping from the borders of the Church both the
Arian and Socinian heresies." This is new to me. Can
the reverend gentleman he serious, when he insinuates
that these " heresies " have not crossed the borders of the
Church 1 Impossible. He must know that the Church
of England numbers within her communion a host of
Arians and Socinians. He must know that she has done so
ever since she was a church. Nor can he be ignorant of the
fact, that Arianism and Socinianism '(particularly the
latter) are at this moment making the most rapid progress
within the boundaries of the Church. And if they are
either to be expelled, or their further progress stayed, the
" dignitaries ecclesiastical " are the last persons to Whom
we would look for such a consummation. They are
notoriously much more tinctured with Arianism arid So
cinianism than the, inferior clergy. We think it scarcely

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 115
mon opposition to Dissenters, is the most sur
prising. Union, compact, alliance, did I say,
admits of doubt, that a large proportion of the present
bishops are Socinians. ,
.j The Doctor, who seems determined to give the English
bishop3 credit for every thing, next informs us that they
have distinguished themselves above all other men as the
successful defenders of Christianity against the attacks of
infidels. Here again the reverend gentleman speaks with
out book* I bold that not only the greatest number, but
the most triumphant defences of Christianity, for which
the Church can claim credit, have been produced, either
by the inferior clergy or by lay members. It is a singular
fact, too,' and. one which, but ill assorts with the Scotch
divine's assumed union of "orthodoxy" with the "pon
derous erudition of bishops," that those ofthe bishops and
clergy generally who have most distinguished themselves
hy their, works on the evidences of Christianity, have be
longed to the class of Christians to whom he applies the
epithet of Socinian. Bishops Butler and Watson, and
Dr. Paley, not to mention a host of others, are instances
in point.
But so far from the bishops bavins' any right to mon
opolize the credit of being the only defenders of our faith,
I deny that the' Church has any exclusive claims to such
.credit, even when she "adds her clergy and lay members
generally to her " dignitaries." Religion is, in this re
spect, under infinite obligations to the despised Dissenters ;
and here, again, though I make the admission with a sort
of regret, chiefly, to those whom Dr. Chalmers calls So
cinians. It will suffice, in proof, to mention the. names
of Drs. Lardner, Leland, Leslie, and- Priestley.
Dr. Chalmers, in the. plenitude of his; zeal to eulogize
the English bishops as the great and only champions of
Christianity, doesgreatinjustice to his own church. Who
wrote the most triumphant exposure of the sophistry of
Hume, in his Essay on Miracles 1 Was it not Dr. Camp
bell, of- Aberdeen ?— Who wrote the second best refutation
of the errors of the infidel just mentioned 1 — Was it not
Dr. Beattie, ofthe same place '! And have not the clergy

116 , SKETCHES OF" LONDON,
between the two national churches? I recal
the words. The union, the compact, the al
and lay members of the Church of Scotland, in various
other instances, done themselves immortal credit, by their
vindication of Christianity when- vilified and misrepre
sented by infidels %
There is a distinguished minister of the Church of
Scotland, whose name I have, not yet mentioned as among
those to whom Dr. Chalmers, in his blind admiration of
the Bench of Bishops, does an unpardonable injustice.
And who does the reader suppose that clergyman to be?
He is none other than the worthy Doctor himself; for no
one, without question, since the appearance of Paley's
Evidences, has produced so masterly a work in defence
of Christianity, as Dr. Chalmers; which work, as most
of my readers are aware, first appeared in Brewster's
Encyclopedia, but has been since published, and gone
through many editions, in a separate form.
And'' yet the Doctor and all the other persons, not be
longing, to the Bench of Bishops, whose names I have
mentioned or referred to, have not only not had the " ad
vantages of wealthy endownments,'' but have not had
that " leisure " which he considers indispensable " to
vindicate the substance of our faith ;" for such of them
as were ministers of the gospel had their weekly pulpit
labours to perform, and such of , them as were not, had the
duties of their several professions to attend to.
Dr. Chalmers' discourse proceeds throughout on the
assumption, that the " ponderousness " of a clergyman's
erudition and the soundness of his faith, are altogether
dependent on the extent of his " endowments " and the
amount of his "leisure." It follows, according to the
Rev. Gentleman's hypothesis, that the Archbishop of
Canterbury, having at least fifty times as much " leisure
and wealth " as the average run of the inferior clergy,
must be fifty times as erudite and orthodox as any and
every one of that body.
Seriously, I had not believed, until the conviction was
forced upon me — first by the testimony of my ears, and
afterwards by that of my eyes— that Dr. Chalmers came

SKETCHES OF LONDON. < 117
liance is, like Irish reciprocity, all on one side.
It is all on the side, of the Presbyterian esta
blishment. That establishment seeks to embrace
Episcopacy with a truly sisterly affection ; but
the latter, rejects the tendered embrace. The
Church of England considers the Scottish Pres
byterians, though she may avail herself of their
aid in this the hour of her emergency, in no other
under the category of those referred to by Pope, when he

" 'Tis from high life high characters are drawn,
A saint in crape is twice, a saint in lawn," &c.
Dr. Chalmers, in an after-part of his discourse, repeats
the position, that the bishops are the great bulwarks of
Christianity. It were a waste of time, arid an implied
censure on the understanding and intelligence of my
readers, to controvert the assumption at greater length
than I have done. The Doctor, if he know aught of public
opinion on, the subject, either in or out of the religious
world, must be aware that that opinion is, that if Chris
tianity had no better props than the bishops to support
¦her, she.must have long since gone to the wall. Positive
good they, as a body, are perfectly innocent of ever having
done revealed religion. I wish we could acquit them of
hvaing done it much actual mischief. The doctrines of
many, and the lives of still more of them, have, I appre
hend, done greater injury to the cause of Christianity than
the combined assaults of Voltaire,, Hume, Gibbon, and
Paine, and the nameless lesser fry of avowed infidels.
On the unseemly and anomalous spectacle of a clergy
man ofthe Church of Scotland going so far out of his, way
to become the indiscriminate and zealous apologist of a
church that differs in so many respects, and on matters of
so great importance, from his own ; on this unseemly and
anomalous sight, it is not necessary I should make any
remarks. It has only to be seen to inspire in every breast,
be the sentiments of the individual what they may, a feel
ing which I need not name. 11*

118 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
light than as Dissenters ; she unchurches all the
members of the Presbyterian establishment at
at one fell swoop. Can the clergy of the
latter State religion be ignorant of this fact.
Alas ! alas ! that the hostility of so many of
the ministers of the northern religious Establish
ment, towards, the Dissenters, should thus induce
them to fawn upon and uphold to the utmost of
their power, the ecclesiastical Establishment of
England, with all its great and manifold corrup
tions ! Can they have forgotten jthe light in
which their forefathers regarded Episcopacy, and
the persecutions they endured at the hands of
Laud and other prelates of the English Church ?
Can they have forgotten the noble stand which
the Covenanters and Cameronians made against
both Church and State, when it was attempted
to force Episcopacy on Scotland as the establish
ed religion of the country ? I appeal to these
Church of Scotland apologists for the Church of
England, whether, in early life, they did not,
times without number, rise from the perusal of
the record of the noble resistance made by their
forefathers to the attempted imposition of the
yoke of Episcopacy upon them, with mingled
feelings of indignation at the tyrannical and inhu
man proceedings of the creatures of Laud, and
of admiration of the more than heroic conduct,
the almost supernatural deeds of bravery which
the poor simple Scottish peasantry, knowing no
thing of the science of arms, and having a hor
ror of war, achieved in their opposition to Epis
copacy, and in their assertion of the inalienable
right of every man to worship God according to
the dictates of his conscience ? Ejected from

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 119
their accustomed places of worship, they went
out in thousands, with their swords in their
harjds and their Bibles in their pockets, and sta-.,
tioning themselves on the face of their heath-
clad hills, there heard the truths of the gospel
preached, and caused the adjoining valleys, as if
vocal, to resound with the praises of their God.
How many mountains and how many moors in
Scotland, can still be pointed out as having been
hallowed by the worship which our forefathers,
when they durst not enter a house made with
hands, there offered up to their Maker ! How
often, when the Scottish peasants of the seven
teenth century had no other canopy but that of
the heavens, and no other seat but the green
sward or the mountain heath, did they sing in
the expressive, though somewhat inelegant
psalmody of their own church, the forty^sixth
psalm,— that psalm which cheered and sustained
Luther in all his trials, troubles, and dangers, —
beginning with
" God is our refuge and our strength,
In straits a present aid ;
Therefore although the earth remove,
We will not be afraid."
I hold that the annals of the world do not fur
nish an instance of such truly noble and heroic
conduct as that which the Scotch Presbyterians
of the seventeenth century displayed when ex
posed to the relentless persecutions of Episco
pacy. To no man will I yield in my admiration
of the character and conduct of the Puritans and
Nonconformists of England ; but I do say that
their sufferings on account of their attachment to

120 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
their principles, were unworthy the name com
pared with those endured by the Covenanters
and Cameronians of Scotland.; Among the rug
ged mountains and , the bleak moors of their
native country ; exposed to hunger and cold, and
comparative nakedness, did they, rather than
renounce their religion, wander about, hunted
like so many wild deer by the Claverhouses and
other myrmidons of Laud, and the votaries of that
persecuting Episcopacy which it has of late be
come so fashionable with certain Scotch divines
to laud to the skies- Yes, the Presbyterians of
Scotland in the seventeenth century, thus took
joyfully the spoiling of their goods — endured
reproaches and privations of every kind — and
even manured the land with their blood, in their
resistance to Episcopacy. In their noble strug
gle in the cause of civil and religious liberty,
which struggle lasted, without one hour's inter
mission, for the long period of twenty-eight
years, upwards of 10,000 of their number per
ished.* And ten times that number were ready
to sacrifice, as they did peril, their lives in de
fence of the great principle of every man's right
to worship his Maker.aceording to his conscience.
A few months ago, I visited the hallowed spot
* A new work on the "Life and Times of Archbishop
Sharp," is announced for immediate publication, by Mr,
Stephen, author of several interesting works on ecclesias
tical and other subjects. From Mr. Stephen's habits of
patient and extensive research, and from the impartiality
he. has shown in previous works, treating of matters of
ecclesiastical history, we may expect, in his forthcoming
volume, much new information regarding the religious
persecutions .which the Scoteh Presbyterians- endured in
the seventeenth century.

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 121
in Perthshire, where their last battle with Pre
lacy was fought ; and where Lord Dundee was
slain. I shall not attempt to give expression to
my feelings as I gazed on the consecrated field.
Their noble resistance to Episcopal tyranny was
crowned with complete success, and since that
time every man has been allowed, without mo
lestation, to worship God as he pleaseth. Had
they fawned on and played the spaniel to Pre
lacy as many of their descendants are now in the
habit of doing, none of the latter would ever
have had a Presbyterian pulpit in which to stand
up. They would have had Episcopacy to their
hearts' content.
The ancestors of these Scottish, clergymen
regarded Episcopacy with quite as great a hor
ror as they did Popery itself, They looked on
both religions as having originated from the
same source, and as having the same tendency.
Theynever spoke ofthe Church of England in
any other terms than as " Black Prelacy."
Could they have anticipated that in little more
than 150 years, their descendants would have
cherished and spoken of this Prelacy as a sister
church, how would it have grieved their noble
spirits,^their holy souls ! The descendants of
Samuel Rutherford,* John Renwick, Alexander
* Let me here recommend to my English readers of
divinity, the Letters of this singularly gifted and pious
minister ofthe gospel; for I -believe they are almost un
known in this country. Blended with sound general
views of evangelical truth, there is in these Letters a
depth of spiritual experience, which I have no hesitation
in saying, I have rarely,, if ever, met with in any other
uninspired book. Willison, in his "Afflicted Man's
Companion," mentions the case of a minister of the gos-

122 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
Peden, and hundreds of others I could name,
strenuously defending and warmly eulogising
"Black Prelacy !" " Tell it not in Gath : pub
lish it not in the streets of Askelon."
But to return to the Scotch chapels in Lon
don. The .ministers belong, in every instance,
to the Evangelical party in their own church.
That indeed follows as a necessary consequence
ofthe congregations having the exclusive right
of appointing their preachers. I never knew an
instance, and I believe the annals of the Church
oifScotland do not furnish one, in which any
clergyman not entertaining evangelical views
was chosen as their minister, by any promiscu
ous congregation. I do not think the ministers
ofthe Scotch Church in London, are so strictin
their admission of persons to the communion
table, as are their evangelical brethren on the
other side of the Tweed. My opinion is, that
in such a place as this great metropolis they
ought, in this respect, to be more particular. I
simply throw out this suggestion without dwell
ing on it.
The other class of Presbyterians in London
are connected with a very numerous and rapidly
increasing body in Scotland, called Secedeks.
This denomination received, or rather took to
pel, who stated on his death»bed, when recommending
these Letters, to a friend, that there would be found in
one letter, that, if I remember rightly, to Mr. John Meine,
a greater amount of sound divinity than would be found in
other large volumes on religious subjects. In this remark
I concur, though the letter only occupies a page and a half.
A new edition of these Letters was published a few years
ago, in two volumes, with a glossary explanatory of ScoU
ticisms, by Mr. Baisler, of Oxford Street.

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 123
themselves, the appellation of Seceders, in con
sequence of their having seceded from the Estab
lished Church in Scotland. It is now about one
hundred yards since this secession took place.
The separation arose from the circumstance of
Mr. Ebenezer Erskine, minister of Stirling, hav
ing in 1732, preached a sermon before the clergy
belonging to the Synod of that place ; in which
sermon he denounced the law of patronage as
unscriptural, and made some Very severe remarks
on the conduct of the ecclesiastical courts in forc
ing on the parishioners of Scotland, contrary to
their expressed wishes, the clergymen whom
patrons appointed to vacant churches. In the
same sermon he pointed out and Condemned in
the most unqualified terms, other abuses in the
discipline, and heterodoxies in the doctrines, of
the Scottish Church. For his temerity and bold
ness, Mr. Erskine was censured by his reverend
brethren constituting the Synod of Stirling, and
ordered to be rebuked at their bar. Against their
vote of censure and sentence, which was carried
by a majority pf six, he appealed to the General
Assembly ; and in so doing was backed by three
other ministers, who expressed their approbation
of his conduct and made Common cause with him.
The General Assemblyaffirmed the decision of
the Synod of Stirling, and Mr. Erskine and the
other three ministers, refusing to retract or to
submit to be rebuked, were deprived of their liv
ings, and excommunicated from the church. The
names of Mr. Erskihe's companions in this re
sistance to the authority of the church, were Mr.
Ralph Erskinej his brother ; Mr. Fisher, and Mr.
Moncrieff. They immediately began preaching

124 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
on the voluntary principle, and being soon joined
by other popular preachers, formed themselves
into a new body under the name of Seceders.
There are four congregations in London be
longing to this class of Presbyterians. One of
these is in Well's Street, Oxford Street, and was
for about fifty years under the pastoral superin
tendence of the late Rev. Dr. Waugh. The pre
sent minister is the Rev. Mr. Redpath. There
is another congregation in Oxenden Street, Coven
try Street, for. many years under the pastoral
charge of the late Rey. Mr. Broadfoot, but now
under the spiritual care of the Rev. Mr. Archer.
The third congregation belonging to this body,
meets in Albion Chapel, Moorfields, and is minis
tered to in divine things by the Rev. Mr. Young.
The numbers that attend these three chapels are
pretty nearly equal. The lowest is not under
300, and the highest is not more than 450. The
other congregation belonging to this body is that
which meets in Finsbury Chapel, of which the
Rev. Alexander Fletcher is pastor. I am aware
that Mr. Fletcher's connection with the Seceders
of Scotland has, in name, been broken off for
some time, but I know from the verbal testimony
of some of the Secession ministers themselves,
made to me when in Scotland about three months
ago, that a general desire exists among that body,
that advances should be made to him with the
view of getting him to rejoin their communion.
Mr. Fletcher was an ornament to the Seceders,
as he would be to any denomination of Christians.
His congregation is large. I should think the
average attendance is not under 1500. Mr.
Fletcher's is the only Scottish place of worship

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 125
in which the English hearers are numerous. I
should Suppose that at least one-fourth of his
audience consists of persons of English descent
as well as of English birth.
The Seceders were not in the first instance,
nor for many years after, opposed to religious
establishments. Their great objection was to, the
law of patronage. Now, however, they are al
most to a man opposed from principle to religious
establishments. Perhaps fully three-fourths of
the Voluntaries of Scotland consist of Seceders.
And with an indomitable spirit and a vigorous
arm, are these Voluntaries carrying on the war
against religious establishments. They have given
the Church of Scotland such a fright as she never
experienced since the time of the Stuart dynasty,
when the attempt was made to force " Black
Prelacy" on the people of that country.
I now come to the Wesletan Methodists ;
and in selecting them immediately after the es
tablishments of England and Scotland, I may
mention that my reason for doing so is, that they
claim a closer connection with the Church of the
former country, than any of the other denomina
tions of Dissenters. The Wesleyans divide Lon
don into six districts. In the first or western
circuit there are nine chapels ; in the second, or
City Road circuit, there are fourteen ; in the
third, or Spitalfield's circuit, there is only one
place of worship ; in the fourth, or Southwark
circuit, there are three chapels ; in the Lambeth
circuit, forming the fifth, there is but one chapel;
in the Hinde Street, or sixth circuit, there are
twelve chapels. The Wesleyans have also a
VOL. n. — 12

126 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
chapel in Deptford,and another inHammersmith;
making the entire number of Wesleyan places of
worship in the metropolis and its suburbs, thirty-
two. The number of members in London be
longing to the Wesleyan body, is close on 12,000.
As regards the numbers who are not members
that attend their places of worship, we have no
correct data which could enable us to form a
confident conjecture. Supposing the members,
which is by no means an improbable supposition,
to constitute one half of the congregation, that
would give the aggregate attendance , at the
Wesleyan chapels in London and its suburbs, as
24,000. The Wesleyan Methodist ministers in London,
as every where else, are a most laborious and
zealous body of men. They are remarkable for
their self-denial, and for the frequency and fami
liarity, where practicable, of their intercourse
with their people. There can be no question
that here, as in the manufacturing districts and
collieries of England, they have been the means
of doing great good among the lower orders of
the population ; for their congregations chiefly
consist of the humbler classes of society.
In several of the Wesleyan Methodist congre
gations in the country, there is occasionally a good
deal of excitement during tbe services, especially
if the party praying or preaching be zealous and
animated in his manner. In such cases a con
tinued succession of " Amens," and other ejacu
lations are heard from numbers of those present.
I never witnessed more than one such scene in
any of the Wesleyan chapels in London, and I
believe such manifestations of feeling are happily

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 127
rare in the metropolis. The scene to which I
refer as having witnessed in, a Wesleyan chapel
in London, was one which I shall not soon forget.
It was exhibited in Great Queen Street Chapel
one Sunday evening in the end of July last. The
Hev. Mr. Dawson of Leeds, a very excellent and
pious man, but one who is possessed of some
peculiar if not eccentric notions on the subject of
experimental religion, had preached on the even
ing in question. , When the sermon was over, he
descended from the pulpit, and stationing himself
in the clerk's* . desk, got up a scene of which it
were impossible by any description to convey
any adequate idea to the minds of those who did
hot witness it. The seryices resolved themselves
into the same kind, apart from the excitement,
as are usually observed at prayer meetings. Mr.
Dawson having called on one of the persons in
the vicinity ofthe pulpit to give a word of prayer,
and the party appealed to having at once compli
ed with the Rev. Gentleman's wishes, the latter
immediately set the congregation a-going by the
energy with which he every eight or ten seconds
pronounced the word " Ameri." Hundreds
joined at once in responding to every distinct
petition of the party offering up the prayer, not
only by loudly exclaiming "Amen," but by
uttering ejaculations of considerable length. For
example, the individual praying, referring to a
particular Wesleyan minister, made use of the
petition, " 0 God, hear him and bless him,"
when in addition to a simultaneous shout, from
perhaps a hundred persons, of " Amen^ amen,
* In Scotland called the' Precentor.

128 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
amen!" one man exclaimed in a stentorian voice,
"God will hear him ; God will bless him ;"
while Mr. Dawson, as if responding to the excla
mations of the latter, shouted aloud, " 0 yes, yes,
yes!" Several persons prayed in this way in
succession, and similar exclamations, accompa
nied with deep groans, were uttered during the
whole of the time. Many hundreds worked
themselves up into such a state of excitement
as to impart to their arms and bodies a con
stant motion. But in this respect Mr. Dawson
himself, not content with setting the exam
ple to the congregation, which, I should say,
consisted of at least 2500 persons, far sur
passed every one around him. He threw his
body backwards and forwards, suddenly placed
his elbows on the desk and buried his face in his
hands, and as suddenly started up and resumed a
perpendicular position. At one time he violently
wrung his hands and shut his eyes, all the while,
be it remembered, giving utterance to various
loud exclamations : at another time he seized the
hair of his head with such an energy, and with
both hands at once, that the' wonder was he did
not tear it out by the roots. This scene was kept
up for a full hour, during which time the deepest
feeling was depicted in the countenances of many
who did not join in the thing either by audible
exclamations or by bodily gesticulation. At
length Mr. Dawson, literally exhausted from the
violence of his physical exertions, gasped out, on
the conclusion of a particular prayer, " Oh I
must give in! I can hold out no longer!" Four
lines of a hymn were then sung; the blessing
was pronounced, and in two or three minutes

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 129
after the close of the seene, the congregation were
dismissed. Will it be believed, that notwith
standing the intensity of the excitement display
ed by the congregation but a few minutes before,
the impression had been so evanescent, as that
some of the admirers of Mr. Dawson, immediate
ly on getting outside, were heard to make the
remark in the coolest manner, " Oh, Mr. Daw^
son is just the old man." One who had witnessed
Such a scene and did not know that such ebulli
tions of the feelings are always but temporary,
would have supposed that those at least who had
taken a part in that scene, would have gone home
in the most serious frame of mind, and continued
in that frame during the whole ofthe evening,;,
Let me here distinctly state, that so far from
exaggerating the scene I witnessed on the even
ing in question in Great Queen Street Chapel,
my description of it falls far short of the reality.
I appeal to any of the 2500 persons who were
present, whether the fact be not as I have stated.
And now let, me ask, What would the late Dr.
Adam Clarke have thought of such a scene had
he been present ? What would the late Samuel
Drew, a man who blended the deepest piety with
the soundest discretion, and with whom it was
my'happiness to have an intimate correspondence
for some years before his death ; what would he
have thought had he witnessed such an exhibi
tion ? Or what did the Rev. Dr. Jabez Bunting,
or the Rev. Mr. Jackson, the editor of the Wes
leyan Methodist Magazine think of it, when they
first heard of the circumstance ? for I presume
that as such a thing is so unusual in Great Queen
Street Chapel, intelligence of it must have reach-
12*

130 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
ed their ears. I much fear that, however well-
intentioned the parties may be who get up and
assist in such scenes, they are not attended with
beneficial results.
Far different was the sight which I witnessed
two or three months afterwards, in the same
chapel. I allude to the ordination which there
took place five or six weeks ago, of ten young
men* to the work of the ministry, prior to their
quitting their native country in the capacity of
Christian Missionaries to various parts of the
heathen world. One after another, did these in
teresting young men rise up and give a clear, an
unvarnished, and a most satisfactory account of
the circumstances under which they were brought
to a saving knowledge of the truth as it is in
Jesus, and of the dealings of Divine Providence
in leading them to adopt the resolution of de
voting themselves to the work ofthe ministry in
the far distant and dark places of the earth. It
was a solemn and impressive sight. Among the
vast concourse of persons present on the occa
sion, there was not one who had been made a
partaker of divine grace, whose soul did not
ascend1 to heaven in prayer for those who had
thus publicly consecrated themselves to the work
of the Lord.
I may be pardoned if I here go out of my way
to mention, that there is one feature in the Wes
leyan Methodist system which has always struck
* These young men had all been a longer or shorter
time at the Wesleyan Theological Academy, under the
presidentship of the Rev. Dr. Jabez Bunting, an institution
which promises to be of the greatest benefit not only to
Wesleyanism, but to true religion generally.

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 131
rne as one of the deepest interest. I allude to
that standing order in their rules for the regula
tion of worship in their congregations, which
enjoins them to close the old and commence the
new year by a series of devotional exercises in
their chapels; I have gone on some such occa
sions to Great Queen Street Chapel, where I
have been struck with the vast assemblage pre-.
sent. I should suppose that usually there are
about 3000 persons in the chapel. Though the
body be confined to the chapel, the mind at such
a time ranges over the length and breadth of the
Christian world, and thinks of the 1,500,000 of
persons who are similarly employed though scat-,
tered throughout the four quarters of the globe.
This is a thought which forces itself on the mind
at any period of the services, from entering the
chapel till quitting it ; and it is a thought of a
very solemn and interesting nature. But by far
the most solemn and interesting reflection which
can occur to one's mind at such a season — apart,
of course, from the thoughts which more imme
diately refer to the Supreme Being and one's
own soul — is that which arises when the old
year is within a few minutes of being swallowed
up by the eternity that is past, and when the en
tire congregation, at the request of the minister,
hold down their heads, and remain in silent com
munion with their Maker until the clock strikes
twelve. What could be more solemn than the
thought, that at the very same moment there are
myriads of immortal souls on earth, all occupied
with the same ideas — all influenced by the same
feelings — -all breathing the same spirit — all
ascending in devout supplication to the throne of

132 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
the same God ! That, indeed, is an exemplifica
tion ofthe communion of saints, which I believe
has no parallel on earth. Physically they are
scattered up and down the world ; seas and
oceans, and continents divide them ; but there
is as close a union of their spirits as if they were
all brought into bodily contact together. Who
.could help reflecting, on such occasions, on the
unity of feeling and purpose and employment,
which will exist through all eternity among the
ransomed throng in glory ?
In Great - Queen Street Chapel the singing is
led by an organ ; and a considerable portion of
the Liturgy of the Church is used. I do not
know any other Wesleyan Chapel in London in
which there is either an organ, or where any
portion of the forms of the Church are ob
served. The Wesleyans have two periodical organs of
their views in the metropolis. One is the "Wes
leyan Methodist Magazine," established by the
great founder of that system, under the title of
the " Arminian Magazine." It has now been
considerably more than half a century in exists
ence. Its, circulation is immense. I do not know
what it is at present ; but some time ago it was
nearly as high as 20,000. It is conducted by
the Rev. Mr. Jackson.
The other organ of Wesleyanism is the
" Watchman" newspaper published weekly. It
was established three or four years ago, and is
said to be under the influence of Dr. Jabez
Bunting, though conducted by, another gentle
man. Its circulation is between 2000 and 2500.
There are two other branches of Methodists

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 133
holding the same doctrinal views as the Wes
leyans, though not in communion with that
body. The one class are called the Primitive
Methodists, and the other the New Connexion.
The great peculiarity of the first class is their
partiality to female preaching, exhortation, and
prayer, in public ; and the importance they at
tach to appearing in a plain primitive kind of
dress. They are also for the most part exceed
ingly zealous, and so partial to violent excitement
in public worship, as to cause them in many
cases to be regarded as " Ranters." The Me
thodists of the New Connexion had their origin
in the secession of a considerable portion of the
Wesleyans from that body, because the confer
ence held at Leeds in 1797, refused to allow the
people to have any control in the management
of the chapels belonging to the society. They
wished that the laity should have the same voice
in',these matters as the preachers ; but the Con
ference determined to continue the control in
the hands of the preachers exclusively. The
number of chapels in London, belonging to these
two bodies conjointly is about 30. Perhaps the
average attendance in these places of worship is
about 200 ; making the aggregate number of
these persons in the metropolis, about 6000.
The Independents next claim my notice.
They are a body too well known to require any
statements respecting their origin, progress, or
opinions, either on the subject of doctrine or
church government. The great majority of those
excellent men, generally known by the designa
tion pf Puritans, were Independents. The num-

134 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
ber of the latter have of late greatly increased id
London as well as in the country ; and they are
still rapidly on the increase. The number of
chapels in the metropolis avowedly indepen
dent, is 112. There are several other places of
worship which are to all practical intents and
.purposes Independent, and in which pastors offi>
ciate,, who were educated at Independent col
leges, and have all their lives identified them
selves with that denomination, but which,
having been built by other denominations of Dis
senters are not classed among the Independent
chapels. The Tabernacle in the City Road, and
Tottenham Court Road Chapel, are instances in
point. These chapels were built under the aus
pices of the Rev. Mr. Whitefield, and strictly
speaking belong to that denomination of Me
thodists; but for more than half a century their
pulpits have been filled by Independent minis
ters. And where could a more rigid Independent
be found than the present pastor of the congre
gations meeting at these places ? Dr. Collyer's
chapel, at Peckham, affords another illustration
of the same fact. The doctor and his people are
usually classed among the Presbyterians, though
more thorough practical Independents are not to
be met with. I will mention one, and only one
more case of a similar kind, which is that of
Surrey Chapel. Ostensibly the people worship
ping in this chapel belong to the Countess of Hun*
tingdon's connexion, but every body knows that
the Rev. Mr. Sherman, their present pastor, is a
rigid Independent, and that the great body of
the congregation are equally attached to the
views of church government indicated by that

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 135'
term. I believe the number of congregations
which are practically Independent, though in
name connected with some other body, is about
20. If then 20 be added to 112, that will make
the entire number of Independent Chapels in
London, 132.
Though independent places of worship in
London are for the most part considerably
smaller in their external appearance than the
Churches, they are so arranged inside as to contain
a much greater number of hearers than churches
of the same length and breadth do. And, taking
them as a whole, it must be admitted by all who
are acquainted with the subject, that they are
better filled, than the places belonging to the
Establishment. If churchmen should ask me,
can I instance any Independent chapels that are
as well attended as the places of worship in
which the ReV. Mr. Mortimer, the Rev. Mr.
Dale, the Rev. Mr. Melyille, the Hon. and Rev.
Baptist Noel, and two or three others officiate, —
I answer unhesitatingly, I can; and lat once
refer to Surrey Chapel, to Craven Chapel, to the
Rev. Dr. Reed's chapel, Commercial Road ; to
the Rev. Dr. Fletcher's chapel, Stepney ; to the
Rev. Mr. Blackburn's chapel, Pentonville, and
various others I could name. If upwards of
2500 habitually attend the ministrations of Mr.
Mortimer more than that number statedly hear
the gospel from the lips of Mr. Sherman. If
Dale can boast of an average attendance in St.
Bride's of about 2000, Mr. Leifchild Can boast
of an attendance ih Craven Chapel exceeding
that number by at least 200 or 300. If Mr.
Melville computes the worshippers in Camden

136 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
Chapel, Camberwell, as the same number as Ml"..
Dale, namely, 2000, Dr. A. Reed can safely say
that the average attendance in his chapel is still
greater. If the number of Mr. Noel's hearers
be 1700, both Dr. Fletcher of Stepney, and Mr.
Blackburn of Pentonville, can state with confi
dence, that the average attendance in their places
of worship is nearer 2000 than 1700. And so
great is the superiority as, to numbers in the
majority of the remaining ¦ Independent chapels,
as compared with the attendance in the churches
and chapels belonging to the Establishment, that
I feel assured I am doing no injustice to the
church, when, after allowing her 500 overhead as
the number of persons attending the places of
worship in her communion, in London, I give
600 as the average attendance in Independent
chapels. Assuming, then, the average number
of hearers in each Independent place of worship
in the metropolis to be 600, that would, accord
ing to the afore-mentioned number of chapels
belonging to that body, give the number of Inde
pendents in London, at 79,200.
The greatest number of grown-up persons I
haveever seen in a placeof worship,is about 4000.
This was in Surrey Chapel, three or four years
ago. The Rev. Mr. James of Birmingham was
preaching on the occasion, and so struck was he
with the appearance ofthe immense concouse of
persons present, that when he rose up to pray,
the first words he made use of — and most im
pressively did he use them — were, " Lord have
mercy on the vast mass of immortal souls now
assembled before Thee !" I have seen from
3000 to 3500 adults in the Rev. Alexander

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 137
Fletcher's chapel, when it was known beforehand
that he was to preach a funeral sermon, or a ser
mon on any other topicpossessing peculiar interest.*
I should here observe that Mr. Fletcher's chapel
is the most commodious place of worship in
London, being seated to contain 150 more than
Surrey Chapel, which is the next most commo
dious of all the London chapels. Speaking of
the largest number of persons I have seen at
one time, in a place of worship, I must not omit
to mention, that in Mr. Fletcher's chapel. I have
seen, every Christmas morning, for the last five
years, 5000 children, and from 2500 to 3000
adults, making from 7500 to 8000 persons
altogether. Mr. Fletcher, I should here remark,
always preaches on Christmas morning,. except
when the day happens to be on a Sunday, to
children ; on which occasions the scholars from
almost every Sabbath School in the metropolis
are, attended by their teachers, invariably pre
sent. Perhaps I am right when I say, that on
no other occasion in the history of the Christian
church, was there ever such a number of persons
congregated together in a place pf worship. Cer
tainly I have never witnessed so truly interesting
a sight. Who could hear with feelings unmoved,
5000 young immortals simultaneously engaged
in singing the praises of their Maker and Re
deemer, in hymns suited to their circumstances
and prepared for the occasion ? And who could
witnesswithoutathrillofemotionpassingthrough his breast the little eyes of this vast throng of
children fixed on the preacher from the begin
ning to the end-of the sermon ? Of all the min
isters I ever heard, Mr. Fletcher is the most
vol. n. — 13

138 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
Successful in arresting and keeping up the atten-
tionof a youthfulaudience. I havesaid in private,
and I here repeat it, that in addressing a juvenile
auditory, Mr. Fle,tcher is in prose, what Dr.
Watts was in poetry. Dr. Watts' hymns for
children are unrivalled ; so are Mr. Fletcher's
sermons. As a proof of his singular powers, in
adapting himself to the capacity of the young, I
may mention that I have known him on several
occasions divide his sermon into five or six heads,
and subdivide those headsinto as many particulars,
and then after the conclusion of the discourse,
have heard scores of the young innocents, when
questioned with that view, repeat simultaneously
every one of those heads and particulars, with
the leading ideas contained in each of the latter.
Who shall estimate the vast amount of good pro
duced through the instrumentality of Mr. Fletcher
on such occasions : eternity alone shall fully dis
close it. Never did the world exhibit a more
truly interesting moral spectacle than does Fins-
bury Chapel on the morning of a Christmas day.
Among the metropolitan Independent preach
ers, there is a wonderful unanimity of opinion
on all matters of doctrine. They are almost all
moderate Calvinists. I need hardly say they
are all evangelical. They systematically assign,
in all their ministrations, a peculiar prominency
to the distinctive doctrines of the gospel. The
Cross is the grand theme of their preaching ; it
is brought forward with a greater or less promi
nence in every sermon they deliver.
On minor points there is necessarily some
slight diversity of sentiment among them, as
there is among every other class of Christians

SKETCHES OF LONDON. ' 139
here and everywhere else. For example the
Rev. Caleb Morris, the successor of the late
Rev. George Burder, of Fetter Lane Chapel,
holds the somewhat peculiar opinion, that the
world will last for some hundreds of thousands
of years, if not for -a much longer period, — after
Christianity has become the universal religion.
This seems to be a favourite notion of Mr.
Morris ; for I heard him give utterance to it in
the pulpit twice in the course of a few months.
I am aware there have been some distinguished
divines of a former period, who have held essen
tially the same opinion as Mr. Morris. They
grounded the notion on the supposition, that we
ought to interpret each day of the 1000 years
spoken of in the Bible as the period of the mille-
nium, as intended to signify a scripture year,
which as many of my readers are aware con
sists of 360 days. This would consequently
extend the duration ofthe millenium to 360,000
years. Drs. Hartley, Priestly, and others, were
of this opinion. I have never, however, heard
Mr. Morris give utterance to anything which
could lead me to suppose that he has adopted this
notion regarding the millenium. I rather think,
from what I have heard him state, that he grounds
his theory of a very protracted existence of the
world on the goodness gf God, and his desire to
display his grace and glory through the' atone
ment of Christ, more fully and to a greater num
ber of persons, than could be done on our globe,
were the popular hypothesis that the world will
be of a comparatively short existence the correct
one. Mr. Morris, who ' is in some respects
an original thinker, also holds, or very lately
held, the peculiar opinion, that ministers of the

140 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
gospel in this country, ought not to spend their
whole lives iu discharging the duties connected.
with one pastoral charge ; but that after being,
a certain time the ministers of one church and
congregation, and having brought them into a
prosperous state, they ought to relinquish their
charge, and go out to heathen countries, or other
places spiritually destitute, and seek to convert
sinners and form churches there.
There may, though unknown to me, be other
pastors of metropolitan Independent churehes
who hold peculiar opinions on other minor or
speculative points, but as regards matters of
doctrine, the unanimity of their sentiments is
wonderful. In the forms of conducting, public worship,
there is the same unanimity of practice. They
all begin,,wijh, the exception ofthe few who use
the.Liturgy of the Church, so far as my observa
tion extends, with praise, which is followed by
reading a portion of the Bible, and then by prayer.
The sermon comes next,and whenit is concluded,
a few lines of some hymn or the Doxology, are
sung, when a short prayer is offered up and the
parting blessing pronounced.
The only two Independent ministers in whose
manner of conducting the public worship, any
thing peculiar would be observed, are the
Rev. Mr. Leifchild, and the Rev. Dr. Collyer.
Mr. Leifchild almost invariably concludes his
sermons quite unexpectedly, — at least to a
Stranger. During the delivery of his last twenty
or thirty sentences, he becomes much more
animated, and speaks in a much louder key,
than at any previous part of his discourse. So
animated and energetic indeed does he then be-

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 141
come, that you fancy he is just only getting into
the heart of his subject. AH of a sudden he stops
short, without saying, " Amen,'' or invoking a
blessing on the word spoken, or giving any other
indication of having concluded. What misleads
a stranger the more readily, is, that he does not
immediately after finishing his sermon, sit down,
but stands for some seconds earnestly looking at
his people, as if just about to resume again. And
when he does sit down, the stranger is as much
disappointed as he is surprised. Mr. Liefchild,
I should also state, almost in every instance con
cludes his sermons with a few lines of poetry.
The only peculiarity in Dr. Collyer's services
is that of giving out a hymn, of his own compo
sition, to be sung by his congregation at the
conclusion of each sermon. These1 hymns are
always grounded on, or in conformity with, the
tenor of his discourse. They extend, according
to circumstances, from twelve to thirty lines.
He reads them himself, in two lines at a time,
from his manuscript, and all the congregation
join in the act of singing, the same as if they
sung from their hymn books. The following is
the hymn which Dr. Collyer wrote on the death
of his friend, Dr. Rippon, and which he caused
the church and congregation over which Dr.
Rippon presided for more than half a century,
to sing, immediately after he had preached the
funeral sermon of his deceased friend : —
As, at first, apostates falling,
All the churches felt the shock,
Death, the aged pastor calling,
Now with sorrow veils his flock —
13*

142 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
Yet we see a dawning day,
That shall chase the cloud away.
Soon the judgment trumpet sounding,
Will our coming Lord declare ;
All the hosts of heaven surrounding,
Countless myriads fill the air ;
Quick and dead alike shall rise,
Caught up to Him in the skies.
Not the second time appearing,
As a victim to be slain,
All His robes of glory wearing,
God our Saviour comes again ;
Foes are crushed beneath His feet,
Saints are call'd to share His seat.
Then it is the faithful pastor
His account with joy shall give ;
In the welcome of his Master,
His full recompense receive;
Meet his gathered flock again
Gladly following in his train.
Oh ! amidst this scene of wonders,
When the heavens and earth shall flee,
Midst ten thousand thousand thunders,
Jesus let me cling to Thee ;
While Thy lightnings round me play,
Grant me mercy in that day.
The incomes of the Independent ministers in
London necessarily vary wilh the number and
respectability of their respective congregations.
There is none, I believe, who receive less than
100/. per annum ; while the highest salary given
is 800/. Those ministers whose incomes are the
highest, are the Rev. John Clayton of the Poultry
Chapel ; his brother, the Rev. George Clayton of
Walworth ; the Rev. Mr. Binney of Weigh

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 143
House Chapel ; Dr. Fletcher, of Stepney *; the
Rev. Mr. Blackburn of Claremont Chapel, Pen-
tonville ; and one or two others. Neither Mr.
Binney's nor Mr. John Clayton's congregatiqn
is so numerous as the congregations of several
other ministers who receive less salary ; but the
hearers of the two reverend gentlemen in ques
tion, are in most cases in affluent circumstances.
It. is due to Mr. Binney to say that the fault of
his congregation not being larger, does not lie
with the minister, but with the chapel ; for it is
always very unpleasantly crowded. Though
only made to accommodate 1250, I should think
there is seldom less in it than 1500 or 1600 per
sons. Were it double the size, I believe Mr.
Binney would fill it ; that is to say, provided he
could make himself heard in all parts, of it. I
may mention as a fact, which at once attests the
crowded state of Mr. Binney's chapel, and the
respectability of his congregation, that I heard
him four or five years ago, caution his people,
after the conclusion of the service, to take care
of their pockets in going out ; assigning as a
reason for giving them the caution, that for several
Sundays before, the swell mob, taking advantage
ofthe crowded state of the chapel, had committed
several robberies to a very considerable amount
on particular individuals, while the congregation
were going out.
But what is the highest sum whichany minister
among the Independents receives, compared with
the incomes of many ofthe clergy in the Church?
Dr. Spry, for instance, the Rector of the parish
of St. Marylebone, receives within a few pounds
of 2000/. per annum as regular salary, indepen-

144 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
dently of burial fees and other sources of emolu
ment. Altogether, this reverend gentleman's
annual income cannot be under 2500/. While
the Independent minister preaches twice every
Sunday, and at least once in some week-night, to
say nothing of his other arduous pastoral duties,
Dr. Spry preaches so seldom, that I have re
peatedly heard Mr. Glazier, a somewhat eccen
tric Marylebone vestryman, calculate that he
receives at the rate of 31. 3s. for every minute he
preaches. This is preaching to some purpose, in
so far as the clergyman himself is concerned.
Mr. Glazier is so astounded and indignant at the
excessive pay which theRector of St. Marylebone
receives for his pulpit ministrations, that he
always makes the matter the subject of remark in
the vestry, when at a loss for a speech.
There is one thing which is much to be re
gretted in the conduct of some ministers among
the metropolitan Independents ; I allude to their
sanctioning the use ofthe Litany of the Church
of England in their form of service in their
chapels. How a genuine Independent can re
concile himself to this, has always appeared to
me a most extraordinary thing. It is virtually
to express an approval ofthe Church herself ;' and
is, assuredly, at utter variance with the first prin
ciples of Congregationalism. That such men as
the Rev. Mr- Sherman, of Surrey Chapel ; the
Rev. Mr. Dobson, of Orange Street Chapel, Hay-
market ; and the Rev. Mr. Campbell, of the
Tabernacle and Tottenham Court Road Chapels,
should, Sabbath after Sabbath, sanction the use
ofthe Liturgy in their chapels, appears to me as
surprising, as I know it is painful to many of

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 145
their friends. -It is idle to urge, in justification
of their passive permission of the observance of
this part of the Episcopalian ritual, that they
found it in use when they accepted the pastoral
charge of their respective congregations. They
ought never to have accepted those charges with
such conditions attached to them. I believe I
do not speak without book, when I say that in
one case at least the reverend gentleman has had
repeated qualms of conscience in consequence of
his tacitly acquiescing in the use of the Liturgy
in his chapel.
The Independent ministers in the metropolis
are, with very few exceptions, members of the
Congregational Board. The object of this Board,
which was formed in 1779, is to protect and pro
mote the interests of the general body. It has
been of great advantage to the denomination, by
bringing, the leading ministers into frequent con
tact with each other, and thereby enabling them
to act with a unity of purpose and plan in all im
portant matters affecting the general prosperity
ofthe denomination. The number of members
of 'this Congregational Board, is upwards of one
hundred. In addition to the " Patriot" newspaper, pub
lished twice a-week, a journal of which I have
spoken in my first series of "The Great Me
tropolis," the Independents have two monthly
organs. The one is the "Evangelical Maga
zine," and the other the "Congregational Maga
zine." It is now upwards of forty years since the
"Evangelical Magazine" was started. It
owes its existence to that sacred band of men,

146 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
now, with one or two exceptions, sleeping with
their fathers, with whom originated the London
Missionary Society; a society which, let me
observe in passing, has beeri productive of an
amount of good to heathen nations, which exceeds
all calculation. Nor will the full extent of spi
ritual benefit, of which the " Evangelical Maga
zine" itself has been the instrument, be ever
known in this world. That it is great, is esta
blished beyond all question. There are, perhaps,
hundreds alive at this moment, not to speak of
those who have quitted the present for the un
seen state, who can date their first religious im
pressions to their perusal of the "Evangelical
Magazine." How many have had their faith
strengthened, their piety increased, and their
drooping spirits revived by the excellent papers
which from time to time appear in its pages — is
a matter on which it were improper to form any
specific conjecture. That the number is large,
very large, is a fact which is happily satisfacto
rily attested by thousands of the parties them
selves. , The late Dr. Hamilton, of Strathblane, one of
the most pious and useful ministers of the Church
of Scotland, used to say, that he believed the
"Evangelical Magazine" had done more to
spread the savour of Evangelical religion through
out the length and breadth of the land, than all
the scholastic treatises on theology extant. In
this opinion I believe Dr. Hamilton was correct.
The "Evangelical Magazine" has, from the first,
had a very extensive circulation : the cheapness
of its price* has always placed it within the
* Sixpence.

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 147
reach of all classes of the community, and one
copy, to my own individual knowledge, has been
often read by fifty or sixty persons. There has
always been this very great recommendation of
the " Evangelical Magazine," that its contents,
whatever their form; whether memoir, essay,
letter, poetry, reviews, or intelligence, have been
strictly orthodox. The soundness, indeed, of
the theology of the " Evangelical Magazine,"
mingled with the fervency of the spirit of piety
which its pages have invariably breathed, has
always appeared to me the greatest merit of the
work. Every successive Editor has been most
careful to exclude from the "Evangelical Maga
zine" any thing suspected in the least degree to
have a questionable tendency. Its memoirs
generally unite, with a merited tribute to the
memory of the deceased, good taste and sound
judgment. Its essays are short and plain, and
eminently replete with practical piety. The
humblest capacity can comprehend them ; while
the most cultivated intellect will seldom or never
discover in them any instances of bad taste.
The contributors are almost invariably the most
popular ministers among the Independents. Let
me not, however, be understood as wishing to
convey the idea, that this periodical is, strictly
speaking, conducted with ability ; its plan does
not admit; of that ; nor is it the ambition of those
intrusted with its management to earn for it a
character for talent ; what they desire is, that it
should be made a useful work. That their
wishes have been realised to a most gratifying
extent, will be inferred from what I have already
stated. If I were disposed to hint a fault, I

148 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
would say that there is a disposition to be some
what too commendatory visible in the review
department. The reviews are followed by the
"Missionary Chronicje," which occupies the
remaining space. In order that this interesting
department of the work might more adequately
answer the purpose for which it is intended, —
that, namely, of giving an epitome of intelli
gence respecting the progress of religion at home
and abroad, eight pages were added to it ,in July
1836 — making the entire space appropriated to
missionary intelligence thirty pages, closely
printed, in a small type. The size ofthe Maga
zine is now fifty-two pages. Exclusive of the
well-executed portrait of some eminent evangeli
cal minister, given in every number, this peri
odical is by far the cheapest in this day of cheap
publications. It was in 1813 that the "Evan
gelical Magazine" first gave an extra sheet, in
order to admit of the publication of missionary
intelligence. Since then, that department alone
has incurred an expense of upwards of 14,000/.
The management of the "Evangelical Maga
zine" is vested in the hands of twenty or thirty
of the leading Dissenting ministers in England
and Scotland, who are called trustees. The
profits are appropriated to the support of the
widows' of deceased ministers of evangelical
principles; but no case is attended to unless pro
perly recommended by one of the trustees. The
sums thus given vary, according to circumstances,
from 51. to 6/. at a time. Hundreds of widows
have, from first to last, been relieved in this
way. The entire sum distributed among them,
is little short of 20,000/. Nearly one hundred

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 149
widows of ministers are at, this time receiving
assistance from it.
The trustees select an editor for the work, to
whom a small salary — 10^/. has been mentioned
to me as the sum — is allowed. The late Rev.
George Burder, minister of Fetter Lane Chapel,
conducted it fqr many years before his. death.
He was succeeded by the Rev. Dr. Morison, of
Brompton, who is still the editor-
One ample source of profit to the " Evangeli
cal Magazine," is the advertisements. They are
numerous, and the charges for them are very
high. The smallest in size are charged half-
a-guinea ; one of seven or. eight lines comes to
twelve or fourteen shillings, and so on according
to length. I am sure the editor is most anxious
to guard against the insertion of any improper
adyertiesments ; and the trustees had, for many
years, a notice on the cover, to the effect that
they did npt hold themselves responsible, legally
or morally, for the advertisements which might
appear, on the wrapper ofthe magazine. Still, I
think, that a little more care might be, advan
tageously exercised in the admission of adver
tisements. This I know, that the foes of Chris
tianity often take occasion to sneer at the religion
of Jesus, because of the injudicious notifications
which occasionally appear on the wrapper of the
"Evangelical" and other religious magazines.
For example, what could be more ridiculous than
the following, which I am assured, though I did
not see it, was published some tjme ago on the
coyer qf a religious periodical, which I will not
name : — "Wanted, a porter who fears his Maker,
and, can carry two hundred weight." The asso-
vol. n. — 14

150 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
ciation of piety, made in this public way, with
the weight which a man's back can bear without
breaking, is, to say the least of it, odd and out of
place. It reminds me of the advertisements of
the following kind, which are quite common
among the Dutch : — " Van Roost died on the
15th instant. He was the best of husbands, and
his relict is inconsoleable at her loss. God rest
his soul in peace, is the earnest prayer of his
deeply afflicted widow — who will, as usual, con
tinue to supply her friends with the best articles
in the grocery and cheesemongery line, on the
most reasonable terms." What I would suggest,
in order to shut the mouths of those who are
so anxious to get any thing of which they can
make a handle against the truth, is, that some
person of piety and sound judgment should be
appointed carefully to examine all the advertise
ments sent for insertion, with full power to reject
those which he thought of a nature which it
would be unwise to admit. I say not this exclu
sively to gentlemen entrusted with the manage
ment of the "Evangelical Magazine,"* I would
say the same thing to those who have the charge
of the advertisements of any of the religious
periodicals ; and I should say it especially to

* Since the above was written, I have been informed
that a new arrangement has been made by the trustees, as
to the business part of this periodical. Instead of, as
formerly, publishing it on their own account, the trustees
have given Messrs. Thomas Ward & Co. a right to all
the profits of the work, on paying them 1500/. a-year.
The magazine, however, is still conducted by Dr. Mori
son, and is as much under the influence of the trustees as
to the matter which shall appear in its pages, as before.

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 151
those who have the control, as to what adver
tisements shall or shall not appear on the wrap
per of the " WeSleyan Methodist Magazine."
The other metropolitan monthly organ of In
dependency is the " Congregational Maga
zine." Strictly speaking, however, it does not
belong to them as a body. It was started as a
private speculation, not so much with the view
of making money by it, as for the purposes of
more faithfully and more fully representing the
Independent body, than the necessarily miscella
neous character of the " Evangelical Magazine"
could admit of. It was started, I think, in 1818,
under the title of the " London Christian In
structor," which title it afterwards changed for
that which it now bears. At first it was con
ducted by several gentlemen. It displayed con
siderable general talent, and was distinguished
for the acuteness of its reviews when dealing
with an opponent ; but its success was by no
means great. Its circulation did not reach, for
many years, 700. The late Rev. Mr. Orme, of
Camberwell Chapel, soon after coming to the
metropolis, undertook the editorship of the
" Congregational Magazine," in the hope of
raising its circulation to such an extent as would
insure its permanency. Mr. Orme brought great
zeal, and talent, and learning to the discharge, of
his editorial functions ; but still the circulation
did not materially improve. After he had con
ducted it for two or three years, he began to
despair of being able to increase its circulation
to any extent ; and the proprietors had some
thoughts of discontinuing it. An appeal, how
ever, having been made to the Congregation-

152 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
alists, on the commencement of the next volume,
in favour of the magazine, and reproaching them,
by implication, with the indifference they had
hitherto shown towards the fortunes of a perio
dical which had laboured so long and zealously
and unremittingly in their cause, — an additional
number of subscribers was the answer to the
appeal. Still the increase was not so great as to
make the magazine any thing more than a barely
paying concern. The Rev. Mr. Blackburn, of
Pentonville, is the present editor. Originally,
and for some years, the " Congregational Maga7
zine" gave portraits and engravings, but it was
found that the proceeds would not warrant a
continuance ofthe embellishments. They were
consequently given up. The '•' Congregational"
is published at one shilling. It has on several
occasions given, at great trouble and expense,
some valuable statistical documents. Its typo
graphical appearance has been improved within
the last two years. It is conducted with learning
and ability, and has strong claims to the support
of the denominations whose views it represents*
and whose interests it advocates.
The Baptists naturally follow the Indepen
dents in my notice of the leading religious deno
minations in the metropolis ; the only point on
which the two bodies differ being that of bap
tism. The Baptist's not only hold that believers
alone are proper subjects for receiving the ordi
nance of baptism, but they also mamtain that
the only scriptural mode, of administering that
ordinance is by the entire immersion of the
body. The Baptists are divided into two classes:

«

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 153
Particular and General Baptists.* The first class
are Calvinistic in their creed. A remarkable
unanimity of sentiment has always existed among
them, except on one particular point. That point
is the propriety of sitting down at the commu
nion table with those who reject believers' or
adult baptism. Those who deem it improper to
partake of the Lord's Supper with Christians
belonging to other denominations, are called
Particular Baptists, in a double sense ; while
such as deem it right to sit down at the commu
nion table with all who hold the distinctive doc
trines ofthe gospel: and give evidence of a holy
life, are called the advocates or friends of an
open communion." The subject some years
ago excited great interest, and led tp much un
friendly feeling, in the denomination. The late
Rev. Robert Hall, was the great champion of
open or mixed cpmmunion, while the late Rev.
* The General Baptists are not numerous. They have
only six pr seven chapels, and the average attendance at
these does not exceed 150. Their aggregate number is
about 1000. They are divided into two sections — one
section being either Arians or Unitarians ; and the other
section being Arminians. The late Rev. Dr- Evans, au
thor of the well known " Sketch of the Histdry of all
Religious Denominations," belonged to the former class
of General Baptists. He was for many years the pastor
of a small congregation in Finsbury ; but I believe neither
chapel nor congregation any longer exists. The man of
greatest note among the metropolitan General Baptists of
the Arminian section, was the late Rev. Daniel Taylor,
pastor of a chapel in a street the name of which I forget,
leading from Whitechapel to the Commercial Road. Mr.
Taylor had a good deal of eccentricity about him ; but he
was a zealous and useful minister, and a man of great
natural talents. 14*

154 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
Mr. Kjjnghorn of Norwich, and the late Rev.
Mr. Ivimey, of Eagle Street Chapel, distinguish
ed themselves by the zeal and pertinacity with
which they stood up for the exclusion of all
from communion with their denomination, when
at the Lord's table, who did not recognize be
lievers' baptism. Happily, the controversy has
ceased for a considerable time to distract the
Baptist churches ; and still more gratifying is
the fact, that the almost universal feeling- among
the Baptist body is now in favour of holding
communion with all who love the Lord Jesus
Christ in sincerity and in truth. How an oppo
site opinion could ever have been entertained,
does appear to me, and always has done so,
passing strange.
The Particular or Evangelical Baptists in
London, are a numerous and respectable body.
The number of their chapels is about 60. From
an intimate knowledge of many of their places
of worship, I should be disposed to estimate the
average attendance at these places of worship at
400. This would give the aggregate number of
Evangelical Baptists in London at 24,000. By
far the largest congregation is that of the Rev.
Mr. Evans, of John Street Chapel, King's Road.
The chapel is built to accommodate 1500, but as
it is always full, often inconveniently so, I am
sure I do not exaggerate when I estimate the
average attendance at 1700 or 1800. The Rev.
Dr. Cox's chapel, at Hackney; the Rev. Mr.
Hinton's chapel, in Devonshire Square, Bishops^
gate Street ; the Rev. Mr. Steven's chapel,
Mead's Court, Regent Street ; and the Rev. Mr.
Davis's chapel, in Church Street, Blackfriars'

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 155
Road, are the next most numerously attended
places of worship in connection with the Baptist
denomination. , *
I have referred to the remarkable unanimity
of sentiment which exists among the Evangelical
Baptists of the metropolis. Mr. Stevens of Salem
Chapel, Mead's Court, is one of the Only two or
three I know who differ on any important point
from the rest of the body. Mr. Stevens is a
believer in the pre-existence of the human soul
of Christ. But let no one go away with the idea,
that he denies or doubts the divinity of Jesus.
That would be to do him the greatest injustice.
I am satisfied that there is not a minister, or any
other person in London, that more firmly be
lieves in the deity of the Son of God, or who
more exclusively or entirely rests his hopes for
eternity on the atonement ofthe Redeemer.
Mr. Evans, of John Street Chapel, once re
nounced strict Trinitarianism, and went into the
opinion that there was a sort' of inferiority or
subordination, though inexplicable, on the part
of Christ towards the Father ; and that the Holy
Spirit was not a personal agent in man's redemp
tion. Mr. Evans, however, still adhered to the
hypothesis that Christ was a divine person, and
the eternal Son of God. I hardly know how to
characterise the views he then adopted. They
could not be called Sabellian, neither were they
those known by the name of the Indwelling
Scheme ; and yet they strongly resembled these
notions. This change in Mr. Eyans's sentiments
took place in 1818. He immediately announced
it from the pulpit, and in the following year
published an octavo work, of between 200 and

156 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
250 pages, under the title of '? Dialogues on the
Trinity." In this work he stated, and replied
at length to all the objections which he could
anticipate as likely to be urged against his newly
adopted theory. This work excited great atten
tion, from the weight of his personal character,
his great popularity as a minister of the gospel,
and from the circumstance of his being one of
the four clergymen, whose simultaneous seces
sion, in 1815, from the Church of England, made
so much noise at the time. Mr. Evans, how
ever, did not long adhere to the new hypothesis
he had embraced. In 1823, he entirely re
nounced that hypothesis, and returned to his
former strictly Trinitarian principles. The first
thing he did on re-embracing his previous views,
was to acknowledge the errors into which he had
fallen, in the religious magazines ofthe day, and
to purchase up and destroy all the remaining
copies of his "Dialogues on the Trinity." One
of the letters in which this acknowledgment is
made, is now before me. It begins thus : "Be
ing painfully convinced that the views of our
Lord contained in my ' Dialogues on the Trinity'
are derogatory to his real glory and divinity,
little aware as I was at the time of such a con
clusion, so foreign to my heart ; and as I believe
the Holy Spirit of God to be a divine personal
Agent in the economy of redemption, I shall be
much obliged by your insertion of this acknow
ledgment in your magazine." In two years
afterwards, Mr. Evans replied to his "Dia
logues," in a small work in the form of " Letters
to a Friend in Ireland ;" and from that time up
to the present, has been one of the most zealous

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 157
asserters in the metropolis, of the co-eternity and
perfect co-equality of the Son and the Holy
Spirit with the Father: *
I have referred thus particularly to the changes
which Mr. Evans's mind has experienced on this
momentous question, because of, the opportunity
with which it furnishes me, of stating in the most
explicit terms which language can suggest-, that
he has, for the last fifteen years, been a firm be
liever in the entire Godhead, or proper Deity of
the Son and Holy Ghost. I think this the more
necessary to be stated, because I occasionally
meet with persons who have heard of his "Dia
logues on the Trinity," without being aware of
his entire, his unreserved retraction of the opi
nions therein expressed. The subject is one which
has occupied much of my most anxious thoughts
for some years past, and it is my intention to
seize on the first leisure moment which may be
afforded me, to submit to the religious public
some considerations on it.
In one or two instances I think I can recognize
some indications of Sandemanianism among the
Baptist ministers of London ; not however in its
more objectionable features. But the most dan
gerous sort of preaching I have heard in a Baptist
place of worship in London, was on, one week
day evening last winter, in a chapel in West
minster. The great object of the preacher seem
ed to be to cdnvince, if possible, his hearers, that
the calls and invitations of the gospel to repent,
are not addressed to sinners,. but only to the elect;
and that to the latter only ought ministers to
address themselves. Finding that passage in the
Acts of the Apostles which says, " For God now

158 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
commandeth all men every. where to repent," —
finding this passage to stand somewhat in his
way, he first complained of the general miscon
struction rof the passage by commentators and
others, and then, to make it convenient for his
own purpose, interpreted it thus : — " God com
mandeth not all men, every where, but men of
all classes in every country to repent." I won
dered at the time whether there were any person
present who knew anything of the spirit of the
gospel dispensation, that was not shocked at hear
ing so awful a perversion of divine truth. The
preacher did not, on the occasion in question,
touch on the commission of Christ to his Apostles.
Let me recommend it to his serious attention :
" Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel
to every creature." If this plain and explicit
injunction do not convince him that the calls and
invitations of the gospel are to be addressed to
all men indiscriminately, nothing else which it -
were possible to urge would have that effect.
About thirty years ago, there were several
ministers in London, in whose mode of preaching
there was a great deal of eccentricity. Perhaps
the most popular of these ministers was the late
Rev. Mr. Huntington, the modern apostle of An
tinomianism. A friend of mine, who was in the
habit of hearing him — for I never heard him
myself — has mentioned to me, that he would
sometimes, when about to prove any position he
advanced, by some passage in the Bible, call by
name on the writer of the book containing it, to
come and speak to him for a few seconds. For
instance, if he wished to establish the doctrine
that men are justified by faith only, he would

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 159
thus apostrophize the apostle Paul, as if bodily
present : — " I say, St. Paul, just come here for a
few seconds. I want to hear what you have got
to say o'n the subject of justification. Just step
into the witness-box for a little: I won't detain
you long. Have you not repeatedly said in your
epistles, that man is justified by faith alone, and
not by works?" Mr, . Huntington having thus
put the, question, would give the answer as from
St. Paul, and then say. — " Now, Paul, you may
go : I don't want you any more at present." I
mention this trait in the character of Mr. Hunt
ington, as a preacher, by way of preface to the
statement of the, fact, that though there is, happily,
so far as I am aware, no metropolitan minister at
present who introduces oddities into the pulpit to
the same extent as he and some other preachers
of his day did, there are still some who are in the
practice of making use of expressions and illus
trations of a very ludicrous kind. The two
preachers whom I know as being most in the
habit of doing this, are both pastors of Baptist
churches. I forget at this moment the name of
the first, but he was the pastor, until very lately,
ofthe church at Storey's Gate, Westminster, and
still preaches in a chapel not far distant from that
place. Among the odd phrases and illustrations
I have heard him make use of, was the following :
" The devil is a cowardly wolf: he does all his
mischief on the sly. He never attacks any one
but when the party's back is about : only once
turn your face to him, and away he scampers like
one that is terribky frightened." This is as near
the phraseology as 1 can give it ; but the oddity
of the thing is always much heightened by his

160 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
manner of delivery. The Rev. Mr. Williams,
of Grafton Street. Chapel, Soho, is the other minis
ter to whom I allude. About twelve months
ago, I heard him, when speaking of what Christ
had done to satisfy the claims of the divine law,
make use of the following curious illustration of
the position he sought to establish :^-" When
Satan finds me grieved at the thought of the in
numerable instances and the great variety of ways
in which I have broken the law of God, he thrusts
his head over my shoulder, and looking me in the
face, puts a large slip of paper into myhand, and
says, — 'Look at this bill, old Williams, which
Moses has got against you : what have you got
to say to it?' I look at the bill, and seeing it to
be accurately made out, make answer, ' It's all
quite right, Satan ; perfectly correct; but I have
got nothing to do wjth it — Christ has settled the
matter for me ; go to him with it."' Now, there
can be no question that both in this case and in
the one before-mentioned, the ideas conveyed
are perfectly scriptural : nor can there be any
doubt that both the preachers are truly pious
men ;* still, such a mode of preaching betrays,
in effect, though the parties themselves do not
intend it, and are unconscious of it, a degree of
levity which is very unbecoming the pulpit, and
is altogether inconsistent with the serious nature
ofthe truths themselves which are sought to be
inculcated in the minds of the audience. My
decided conviction is, that under no circumstances
* With some of the members of Mr. Williams' church
I am personally acquainted, and from' the decided way in
which they speak of him, I have reason to believe that a
more excellent man is not to be met with.

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 161
ought any expressions to be made use of in the
pulpit which are either calculated to create a
smile, or to lessen the solemnity of feeling which
ought, in a special manner, to pervade the minds
of Christians when publicly met together to wor
ship the "high and lofty One who inhabitest
eternity and the praises thereof."
The London Baptists1 have a Board, similar
in constitution and design to that of the Congre
gational Board, to which I referred when speak
ing of the independents. The number of mem->
bers of the Baptist Board is upwards of fifty.
The Baptists have also a monthly organ of
their sentiments. I allude to the "Baptist
Magazine." For many years they had two.
The " New Evangelical Magazine" started in
1815, and continued till 1823; and the " New
Baptist Magazine." and " Baptist Miscellany,"
both of which succeeded the " New Evangelical
Magazine" were severally Baptist publications.
They were conducted by Mr. Williarii Jones,
the well-known author of the " Biblical Cyclo
paedia ;" the "History of the Albigenses and
Waldenses," and various other works. Mr.
Jones belongs to the Scotch Baptists, and
preaches in a small chapel in Windmill Street,
Finsbury Square. The principal point on which
the Scotch Baptists differ from the English Bap
tists relates to the constitution of a church, and
the mode of conducting public worship. The
Scotch Baptists contend for weekly communion
— that there should be a plurality of pastors in
every church — that the pastors should not be
paid for their ' labours — and that those of the
. brethren who feel themselves qualified for the
vol. n. — 15

162 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
task, should exhort each other in the churches'/
There is another Scotch Baptist chapel in Buttesj
land Street, East Road, under the pastoral care
of Mr. J. Rothery ; and there is a third in
Northampton Street, St. Pancras. The number
of persons that attend the three chapels, taken
together, does not exceed 200. It is right to
state that the majority of Baptists in Scotland,
hold the same views as the English Baptists.
The term Scotch Baptists, only strictly applies
to the section of Baptists of whom the late Mr.
Archibald Maclean of Edinburgh was for so
many years the able champion.
But to return to the " Baptist Magazine." It
was established in 1810, by the leading ministers.
belonging to that body. It was started in con
sequence of a proposal, made to that effect by
four of those ministers, who had been trustees of
the "Evangelical Magazine." The reason why
they made the proposal, was the appearance of
an article in the Supplement to the latter maga
zine, for the previous year : which article gave
great offence to them, and to others of the Bap
tist body, in consequence of the spirit in which.
the Psedobaptist views were advocated. • The
property of the new periodical, as in the case of
the "Evangelical Magazine," was vested in the
hands of trustees. The Rev. Dr. Cox, of Hack
ney, was one of the first editors. He filled the
office for some years, and was succeeded by the
late Rev. Mr. Ivimey, pastor of Eagle Street
Chapel, who continued to conduct the "Magazine
till a little before his death, in 1S34.
Mr. Ivimey was an excellent character : he
was one of the most open and straightforward

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 163
men that ever lived. He would not have com
promised his principles for worlds without num
ber. He was bold as a lion ; his energy of cha
racter was so great, that those who knew him
intimately used to compare him in every thing
but his intellectual attainments, to John Knox,
the celebrated Scotch reformer. His friends
say that hadihe lived in times similar to those in
which the lot of the great apostle of the Scotch
Reformation, was east, he would have attracted
the attention of the whole nation. His education
was imperfect : his style wanted polish ; and he
had little relish for the, graces, in any shape of
literature. The consequence was, that the Maga
zine, during the many years it was under his
control, though distinguished for its piety and
the orthodoxy of , its principles, was quite
unworthy, in an intellectual point of view,
of the very numerous , and respectable de
nomination whose organ it was. I have often
thought it a great pity that some steps were not
taken by some of the more talented and influen
tial Baptists to remodel the character of the
magazine in such a way as to make it a more
worthy representative of their sentiments and
interests. Mr. Jones felt that the body was not
by any means adequately represented by the
" Baptist Magazine," and it was with the view
of supplying the want, that he stacked "The New
Evangelical Magazine ;" which • he conducted
for ten years with so much spirit and ability,
that any denomination might have been proud
of it as their organ ; but it was altogether a pri
vate speculation, and consequently could not be

164 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
formally recognised by the Baptists, in their col
lective capacity, as their work.
Since Mr. Ivimey's death, until the commence
ment of the present year, the editorial manage
ment of the (i Baptist Magazine," was entrusted
to several ministers belonging to the persuasion,
who conducted it conjointly. The principal
editor, however, was the Rev. Mr. Steane of
Camberwell. The Rev. Mr. Groser, of Maid
stone, assumed the editorial management of the
magazine at the commencement of the present
year, and in that gentleman'shands it has become
a worthy representative of the sentiments and
interests of a rapidly prospering denomination.
It is conducted with great ability and much good
taste. In the course of the twenty-eight years
it has been in existence, upwards of 4000/. from
the profits derived from it have been distributed
among the widows of deceased Baptist ministers.
Before proceeding to the next religious de
nomination which claims our attention, let me
make two or three observations which equally
apply to the Baptists and Independents of the
metropolis. In all of the churches of both de
nominations the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper
is dispensed once a month. In many chapels
the evening of the Sunday is chosen for the pur
pose, as affording an opportunity to domestics or
others in dependent situations, to be present,
who cannot get to a place of worship in the
morning. In most other chapels the time for
administering this ordinance of the Christian
church, is the morning ; in some few cases it is
the afternoon. In all the Independent and Baptist
chapels, there is worship twice every Sunday,

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 165
beginning in the morning in no instance earlier
than half-past ten, and not later than eleven.
In a few cases there is an afternoon service at
three o'clock, without any service in the evening ;
but in forty-nine cases out of fifty there is an
evening service, beginning a\ half-past six, with
out any service in the afternoon. In a very few
cases there are three services on the Sabbath ;
one at eleven in the morning, another at three
in the afternoon, and the third at half-past six in
the evening. The Rev. Mr. Stovell, the pastor
of the Baptist church in little Prescot Street,
Goodman's Fields, preaches three times every
Sunday. Mr. Stovell's chapel, it is worthy of
remark, is the one in which the celebrated Abra
ham Booth, author of the " Reign of Grace,"
preached for so many years, and over the people
of which he was the pastor when he closed his
long and eminently useful life.
All the Independent and Baptist ministers,
like the evangelical clergy in the Church, and
also, I should have before remarked, the Pres
byterian and Wesleyan pastors, have an evening
week-day service. The days of the week chosen
for this purpose vary in different places ; but in
no case is it earlier in the week than Tuesday,
and in no instance later than Friday. Many of
these week-day services are exceedingly well
attended. They are so, in various instances) •
where the preacher is popular, by ministers of
different denominations, who being engaged in
their own places" of worship on the Sundays, have
not otherwise an opportunity of gratifying their
curiosity to hear eminent preachers. It is no
uncommon thing to see evangelical clergymen
15*

166 SKETCHES. OF LONDON.
of the Establishment in the despised "meeting
houses," as the Church calls Dissenting chapels,
on such occasions. I know of no chapel in which
so many ministers are to be found during the
week-day evening service, as in that of Mr.
Evans' of John Street, King's Road. The Rev.
Mr. M'Donald, the late minister of the Scotch
Church, River Terrace, Islington, now in Cal
cutta, mentioned to me, that he seldom missed
an opportunity of hearing Mr. Evans on the
Tuesday evenings. I can easily account for a
Scotch minister being particularly partial to Mr.
Evans' preaching ; for the matter of his sermons
appears to me to bear a stronger' resemblance to
the divinity of Rutherford, and Guthrie, and
Flavel, and Boston, and Hallyburton, and other
luminaries of the Scottish Church, than that of
any other preacher I ever heard, either in Scot
land or any where else.
Some of our London ministers bestow very
little preparation on their week-day discourses :
others, again, are "at much greater pains with
them than with their sermons for the Sabbath. I
know one very excellent minister — and of the
very highest celebrity as a preacher too — who
lately told a friend of mine that he "just only
talks" to his people when preaching on 'the
week-nights ; " but," he added, " they are
pleased, and that's every thing." Let me, in
justice to that distinguished minister, mention
that his out-of-door pastoral duties are so numer
ous and arduous, that it would be quite impossi
ble for him to prepare, with any care, a week
day discourse in addition to his two sermons on
the Sunday. Among those who carefully pre-

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 167
pare their week-day addresses to their people,
Mr. Caleb Morris, of Fetter Lane Chapel, ought,
I am confident, to be placed the very first in the
first rank ; for I have heard; him m entjeS^rfcrF "^>.,v
his week-day lectures cost him. jus^qo^|l©tBft ,f ^ ^n;.,.
time and trouble in the prepivaftjKuWfiich his ''* \\
Sunday sermons do.. He preface^ we-staWmerit"""^ ij
of the fact, by, observing that to exo^o^rifl -.a, P£rjk"^\j */jf
ticular passage of Scripture, which is- what" JJt*f*" ^-^"
Morris does on the week-day evening, appeared""'
to those who knew no better, a comparatively
easy matter, whereas he found it the most diffi
cult of his ministerial duties. Then followed
the statemennt I have already given. Mr. Mor
ris' w6ek-day services used to be on the Wed
nesdays, but latterly, I think, they have been on
the Thursdays.
I mentioned, in the first series of my " Ran
dom Recollections ofthe Lords and Commons,"
that there were several cases in which the voices
of two or more members ofthe Lower House so
strongly resembled each other, that it would
have been difficult for parties regularly attend
ing Parliament, to say which of the parties in
question were speaking, had he gone into the
House blindfolded, while one of them was on
his legs. I cannot point out so great a similarity
in the case of any two or more of our metropo
litan ministers ; but I have often thought, that in
many of the intonations of their voices, as well
as in their pronunciation of particular words,
there is a marked resemblance to each other ih
the Rev. Mr. Liefchild, of Craven Chapel ; the
Rev. Mr. Sherman, of Surrey Chapel ; and the
Rev. Mr. Davies, of Salter's, Hall Chapel, Can-

168 , SKETCHES OF LONDON.
non Row. These three reverend gentlemen are,
too, all animated and rather rapid speakers.*
I now come to the Countess of Hunting
don's Connection, as the next body of evange
lical Christians of any note in the metropolis. It
is exceedingly difficult to speak with precision
of their numbers, or even what may be strictly
called their chapels, in consequence of the cir
cumstance before referred to, of some congrega
tions retaining the name of that body, and some
* The Rev. Mr. Davies is, perhaps, the most continu
ously animated and rapid of the three. Mr. DavieS was
formerly Baptist minister in Weymouth, and only, came
to London as the successor of the Rev. Mr. Giles, of
Salter's Hall Chapel, now of Leeds, about eighteen or
twenty months ago. He has already considerably in
creased the congregation, and I am greatly mistaken if he
does not, in the course of two or three years, fill the chapel
in every part. I had been told by one of his fellow-students
at college, the very high opinion which the late Robert Hall
had of his talents, and was anxious to judge for myself.
This I had done several years ago, considered as a writer;
now I wished to form my own opinion of him as a preacher.
I accordingly went to hear him preach one evening in
October last. His text was, " Who hath believed our
report, and to whom is the aTm ofthe Lord revealed?" I
was not disappointed in Mr. Davies as a preacher, any
more than as an author. His sermon was able and lumi
nous, and the intrinsic value of the matter was equalled
by the effectiveness of its delivery. Every sentence of
the discourse bore evidence of careful preparation. Mr.
Davies' sermons — assuming the one I heard to be a fair
specimen — evince qualities of a very superior intellectual
order in close union with evangelical piety. It is a fact
sufficiently curious to be worthy of mention, that Mr.
Davies' brother is his successor in Weymouth, . and that
bis father is also the pastor of a respectable Baptist
church in the country.

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 169
of the forms common to it, while in fact they are
decided Independents. There are four or five
chapels, called. Huntingdonian,, that are in this
predicament. The number of chapels really in
the Countess's connection, in London, is only
four, though I believe there are upwards of thirty
in the country altogether. The four chapels are
Gate Street Chapel, Lincoln's Inn Fields; Rane-
lagh Chapel, Chelsea ; and two chapels in Spa-
fields. The congregation worshipping in one
of the last chapels, seceded from the other,
about two years ago, owing to some minor disa
greements among the members. The number
of persons attending the Huntingdonian chapels
is not great. In no case does it exceed 350.'
The average number is under 300 ; so that the
entire number of individuals in this connexion,
in the metropolis, does not exceed 12,00. In
matters of doctrine this denomination are Calvin-
istic ; and the sermons of, their preachers are
deeply imbued with evangelical sentiment. The
Liturgy is regularly read in all their chapels, in
the same way as in the Church of England. In
deed, the singularly excellent and" self-denying
lady who founded the body, always evinced a
strong attachment to the Church, and some of
her disciples look upon themselves as being more
of Churchmen than Dissenters. The Countess'
connexion has a college of their own at Cheshunt,
in which their ministers are trained up. They
haye also a monthly organ of their sentiments in
the " Evangelical Register," a periodical pub
lished at sixpence. It is a magazine of some
standing, having been, established ih 1824. Its
circulation. is, of course, chiefly confined to the

170 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
denomination whose organ it is. , Among them
it is largely read ; but I am unable to give any
definite idea of the extent of its circulation. It
is conducted with respectable talent ; and few
magazines belonging to the religious world
breathe a more devotional spirit. Its matter is
generally readable. It gives portraits ; but they
are not always executed in a superior mapner.
The expenditure of a few pounds on each por
trait would make a great difference in the quality
of the engraving, and would soon tell in the in
creased circulation of the work.
The above are the leading Evangelical deno
minations in London. There are various con
gregations which cannot with propriety be classed
Under either of these which, on all doctrinal
matters, hold the same sentiments. The only
designation which can be given them, is the very
general one of Calvinistic Methodists. Perhaps
there are a dozen congregations of this descrip
tion in London, each, on an average, consisting
of about 400 persons ; making the entire number
4800. There are three other places of worship!
in which the^congregations go by the distinctive
title of "Bible Christians." Their doctrinal
views are strictly evangelical, and their only
ground of difference from the Congregationalists,
relates to matters of church government. The
number of persons belonging to this denomina
tion is very small. Altogether it does not ex-:
eeed 500. One of their chapels is in Old
Street, St. Luke's ; another is in Webb Street;
and the third is in a court near Shoreditch
church. There is another small congregation of

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 171
Evangelical Dissenters, who go by the name of
" Separatists." They meet, as they have done
for some years past, in the Assembly Rooms,
Lincoln's Inn Fields. They have only service
once each Sunday, beginning at eleven' o'clock,
and ending at one. Outside the door they put
a small boa,rd during the time of service, with
the words written on it, "A Christian Meeting
held here." Their number is very small. It
does not exceed twenty or twenty-five. Some
highly respectable persons belong to this congre
gation. It was here that the late1 Re v^ John
Walker regularly worshipped for many years
before his death. Mr. Walker's history was a
very singular one. He was not only a fellow of
Trinity College,* Dublin, but held a valuable liv
ing in one of the established churches in that
city. From conscientious scruples he resigned
his living, seceded from the Church of England,
and became an Independent. As a pastor, in
the latter denominationy he preached for a long
time to crowded audiences. He was a man of
very superior talents. Highly as these were
appreciated at one time, I do not^ believe they
were ever sufficiently so. His " Address to the
^Methodists"* has always appeared to me one of
jfthe most masterly controversial works which
|have been written in modern times.
* After remaining for some time in communion
with the Independents, Mr. Walker detached'
himself from them, and embraced some peculiar
views on the subject of church government.
One of his notions was, that there ought to be no
* The Wesleyan Methodists of Ireland.

172 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
paid pastors' in any Christian church, and that
the various male members who felt qualified for
the task, should successively exhort the brethren.
For nearly twenty years of the latter part of his
life, Mr. Walker resided in London, and during
all that time, acted on the views just mentioned.
He was a sort of virtual head' to the brethren in
their meetings at Lincoln's Inn Fields ; but there
was no formally acknowledged pastor; nor is
there any thing in the shape of a sermon given
by any one at their meetings. He had been
very unwell for some time before he died. He
was latterly of a very uncharitable frame of
mind towards those who differed from him ; but
there can be no question he was a decidedly
pious man. Truth, even on what are usually
considered minor points, always appeared to
him of infinite importance ; and no considera
tion on earth could induce him to compromise
it, or to conceal his opinions on the most trifling
matters, even of chureh government.
There is one other denomination, or, more
strictly speaking, congregation of evangelical
Christians in London, called Sabbatarians. They
meet in a small chapel in Mill Yard, Goodman's
Fields. They are Baptists and only differ from
the evangelical portion of that body with regard
to the day on which the Sabbath ought to be
observed. They maintain, in opposition to every
other denomination of Christians, that we have
no authority for changing the Sabbath-day from
the seventh to the first day of the week ; and
consequently they observe Saturday as the Sab
bath-day. In this respect they agree with the
Jews. The congregation in Goodman's Fields

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 17$
is the only one, I believe, in this country, who
hold the same views. In the seventeenth cen
tury there was another congregation of Sabbata
rians in the country — in Plymouth, if my
memory be not at fault ; and there was also a
very small one until within the last few years in
Pinner's Hall in this city. In America there
are several congregations which entertain and
act on the Sabbatarian notion. The pastor ofthe
Sabbatarian church in London, is the Rev. Mr.
Shenstone, a man of highly respectable talents
and general information. His predecessor was
the Rev. Mr. Burnside, a man of very considera
ble learning, an ingenious reasoner, and a deep
thinker. His work, in two volumes, entitled
" Essays on Mankind," at once bespeaks the
scholar and the man of talent. The congrega
tion in Goodman's Fields is but small. It does
not exceed thirty or forty.
I cannot close this account of the more strictly
evangelical denominations of the metropolis,
without bearing my testimony to the manner in
which the pastors of the various congregations
belonging to these denominations discharge the
duties of their office. They are, in almost every
instance, zealous and laborious men, devoting
themselves soul and body to the work of the
ministry, and the duties connected with that
ministry. Many of them are very inadequately
remunerated for their labours : their congrega*
tions are small and poor. , I know some of them
who have only 100/. a-year. And what is this
in such a place as London ? How they manage
to subsist, with their wives and families, on so
scanty a pittance, is to me an inexplicable mys-
vol. Ii. — 16

174 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
tery. A London pastor who has but a limited
income, is much worse off than the country pas
tor whose income may be a third or even a half
less ; for not only is living much more expensive
here than in the country, but in the country the
pastor of a church is always receiving presents
of various kinds, of provisions, from his people,
which render money less necessary to him ;
while in the metropolis the poor pastor rarely
receives any such proofs of kindness. There
are, at this moment, from 100 to 150 pastors in
London — I myself could name them in dozens —
whose privations, owing to their stinted incomes,
are so great as to amount to a species of living
martyrdom,. I know not a spectacle under hea
ven more worthy of our admiration than that of
a minister of Jesus, devoting his whole time and
talents to the service of his Master, without suf
fering one murmuring expression to escape his
lips, though not possessing even the necessaries
of life. Little, alas ! dothe world think — aye,
and little often do their own people think — of
the sacrifices which these excellent men are
making every day, nay, every hour of their
existence, in their anxiety to promote the divine
glory and the good of souls. There is not a man
on earth whom I hold in higher veneration, than
I do the poor self-denying Christian pastor.
But let the wealthier classes of Christians ask
themselves, whether, when they have given
these devoted men of God, their admiration or
veneration, they have done their duty towards
them ? Have not thege poor pastors, on the con^
trary, urgent claims on our pecuniary assistance ?
To me it appears that the wealthy part, or even

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 175
those in easy circumstances, of the religious
classes of London, have been awfully culpable
in this respect. I should like to see some society
formed, applicable to the metropolis only, for
the purpose of aiding those pastors in our
churches whose incomes are under 150/. Will
none of those hkving influence with the religious
public of London take up this matter ?
There are Several other denominations of
Christians, differing considerably from those I
have already referred to, which have one or
more congregations in London, and which, on
various accounts, are deserving of a distinct
though brief notice. The first of these sects is
the Sandemanians. This denomination was
founded by Mr. Robert Sandeman, a Scotchman,
about the middle of the last century. In doc
trinal matters, the only essential point on which
the Sandemanians differ from other evangelical
Christians, relates to that of saving faith. The
former hold,, that saving faith is nothing else
than a simple assent of the understanding or
mind to the great truth that Christ has come to
save sinners, and they strongly denounce those
divines who hold a personal appropriation of
Christ, on the part of the sinner, to be necessary
to justification.Mr. Sandeman first gave prominency to this
view of saving faith, in a series of letters to the
Rev. Mr. Harvey, in the shape of remarks on
certain portions of his " Theron and Aspasia."
Mr. Harvey replied, but Mr. Sandeman showed
himself by far the acuter controversialist of the
two. However, Mr. Sandeman soon found in

176 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
the Rev. Mr. Cudworth,an Independent minister
in London, an opponent who proved more than
a match for him. In regard to church govern
ment, the Sandemanians have not only no paid,
but ho recognised pastors.; They have elders,
who give exhortations in their places of wor
ship, in their turn. They observe no worship
in their families, on the ground that they ought
not to pray in the presence of unconverted per
sons, provided those persons be supposed to join
in worship with them.
Like the Scotch Independents, they take the
sacrament once a week. The only congregation
of Sandemanians in London, though there are
several of them in the country, is in Paul's Alley,
Barbican. It is in quite a hidden place, and I
had great difficulty in finding it out. This church
was founded by Sandeman himself, and some of
his descendants are still members of it. The
place is open for worship in the morning and
evening of every Sunday, and on Wednesday
evening in the week. The number that attends
on Sunday, is about 150. The Sandemanian
view of faith is entertained by several Indepen
dents and Baptists in England, but it prevails to
the greatest extent in Scotland.
I next come to the Irvingites. To advert to
them is to me a melancholy task, because 1 per
sonally know several excellent persons who have
gone into the views indicated by that term.
The scene which Newman Street Chapel pre
sented Sunday after Sunday before Mr. Irving
himself Was obliged through illness to give up
preaching, was one which might well have made

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 177
angels weep. I myself have repeatedly, in the
course of one morning's service, witnessed no
fewer than from four to seven exhibitions in the
way of speaking with tongues. There was one
young lady who, if I remember rightly, spoke
three different times in this way, in less than an
hour. And sounds more wild or unearthly than
those she uttered, it has never been my lot to
hear. Her voice, apart from her manner and
her words, was, from its piercing shrillness, cal
culated to cause, and did cause, a most painful
sensation in the mind of every one not inocu
lated with the vagaries which then constituted
the staple of the Newman Street theology.
And I even doubt whether the Irvingites them
selves did not often wish there had been fewer
of such exhibitions. Strangers were absolutely
frightened — in the case of females, in several
instances, into a sort of fits — when the unearthly
sounds first broke upon their ears. I know
cases in which a thrill of horror actually ran
through the veins of persons of strong nerves,
and in which their hair literally stood on end,
when the exhibition of speaking with tongues
was going on. The Rev. Mr. Irving himself
always, on such occasions, instantly paused in
his prayer or his sermons, whenever the first
sound of the tongues reached his ear, and Shut
ting his eyes, waited patiently until the party
speaking had ceased, when he would resume the
service in which he was engaged, and proceed in
it, as if nothing had happened. If I were asked
what were Mr. Irving's views on general di
vinity, before he was seized with the illness
which ended in his death, I should be obliged to
16*

178 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
answer that I scarcely know ; for he was in the
habit of changing his mind very much on reli
gious topics before he was obliged to give up
preaching. Among the last doctrinal points I heard him
insisting on, were the universality of the redemp
tion of Christ, in the same sense as the Arminians
preach it ; and the peccability of Christ's huma
nity. , For the information of those who may not
comprehend the import of the last phrase, I may
mention that it means, that though Christ's human
nature was perfectly sinless, yet that it was liable
to sin. He maintained, that had Christ's nature
been necessarily exempt from sin, he never could
have been the sympathising high-priest with his
people, which he is, — nor could, he'have had any
feeling of their infirmity. I once introduced, this
point in private conversation with him, but he
seemed unwilling to enter on it in the way of
discussion. I believe that Mr. Irving also, ad
hered to the last, to his views regarding the per
sonal reign of Christ on earth: I have some
reason to think, that, he latterly began to see his
error on the subject of speaking in the unknown
tongues, and that had he lived, those melancholy
exhibitions in that way, to which I have referred,
would have been entirely put an end to. At all
events, there were comparatively few " manifest
ations of tongues" for some months before he
was seized with his fatal illness. As regarded
the forms which ought to be observed in the pub
lic worship of God, Mr. Irving, for some time
before his death, did not seem to have the same
opinions for two consecutive days. He certainly
changed them with a frequency before unheard

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 179
of. He relinquished entirely the practice of re
gular preaching, "contenting himself in the morn
ings with giving a short address after Six or seven
of his elders had each given their exhortation in
succession. In the afternoon service, he made
some of his people pray, and after reading a chap
ter himself from the scriptures, usually offered
some remarks on it. In the evening, again, the
greater part of the services, as in the morning,
devolved on his elders. He established services
of one kind or other twice a-day in the week
days, in his chapel ; the first meeting taking place
all the year round at six in the morning ; and
the other in some cases at five, in others at seven
in the evening. These meetings — it may surprise
some of my readers to be informed — are still
kept up. One ofthe leading officers in Newman
Street Chapel, which is still the head-quarters of
Irvingism, informed me a few weeks ago, that
the morning meetings, even in the depth of win
ter, are attended by from forty to fifty persons,
and that in the evening, as might be expected,
the attendance is much greater. On the Sabbath
day there are four public services, the first begin
ning at half-past ten, and the last at seven in the
evening. The first is by far the most numerous
ly attended. I should think the average numbers
then present, may be between 300 and 400.
The attendance at the, other services varies
from 100 to 150. There is a nominal successor
to Mr. Irving, in, the chapel at Newman Street ;
but his duty is, not to take a prohiinent part in
public worship, but to visit the people, and to
look after the general interests of the body. —
Exhortations and addresses are, as in the latter

180 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
part of Mr. Irving's time, Substituted for regular
preaching ; the elders being the parties who give
these exhortations. It is a singular fact, that
they are almost in every instance exceedingly
fluent ; in one or two cases they are accomplish
ed speakers ; and yet their addresses are usually
unintelligible. They seem to aim at no definite
point, or, if they do, that point is not perceived
by the ordinary hearer. Their addresses are ex
ceedingly rambling and unconnected. They deal
largely in declamation. My impression is, that
they have in a great measure, lost sight of the
doctrinal peculiarities of Mr. Irving. The only
one of these they appear to me to have retained
— at all events the only one on which I have
lately heard them dwell — is that of the second
coming of Jesus Christ for the purpose of person
ally reigning on earth. The only point on which
I think they are all agreed,— and let me not be
understood as saying this sneeringly or jocularly,
; — is, that every other body of Christians are not
merely wrong, and they right, but that all others
are most grievously in error.
The Irvingites have six chapels in London,
beside the one in Newman Street. All the
others are a sort of branch places of worship.
They have one in Chelsea, where the Rev. Mr.
Owen, formerly a clergyman of the Church of
England in the same neighbourhood, presides.
They have another chapel in Islington, where a
Rev. Mr. Layton, also formerly a clergyman of
the Church of England, is the recognised minis
ter. There is a third in Westminster, and the
remaining three are in different parts of the town,
They are but thinly attended. Taking them to-

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 181
gefher, the average attendance in each is under
rather than above 200 ; so that the entire number
of' Irvingites in the metropolis is not now more
than 1400. A greater number than this constantly
attended Mr. Irving's, own chapel, so long as he
was able to officiate. One of his members men
tioned to me, some time before this death, that the
number of communicants was between 900 and
1000. The reason why the Irvingites have seven
chapels— ^churches they call them — is that seven
churches are often mentioned in the New Testa
ment. They also have, or had in Mr. Irving's
time, twelve office-bearers in Newman Street
Chapel, who were called the twelve, apostles.
Mr. Irving always called himself the angel °f
the Church. I have repeatedly heard him apply
this term to himself- In his time there were a
great number of young men belonging to New
man Street Chapel, who regularly preached in
the streets ; these Mr. Irving called evangelists.
At the time of his death, there were from thirty
to forty of these evangelists. They invariably
concluded their sermons, in which there was a
singular sameness, and which were purely decla
matory, with intimating that those who wished
to hear the true gospel preached, ought to go to
the Irvingite chapels ; the places in which they
are situated being duly pointed out. There are
still several of these evangelists who preach in
the street on the Sabbath-day ; but their number
is naturally reduced with the diminution which
has taken place in the numbers of the sect gene
rally. Some of Mr. Irving's disciples go to far greater

182 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
lengths than he ever dreamt of himself. I my
self have met with a lady of title who believes
that she shall never die, but that the advent of
Christ, to reign personally on earth, being at
hand, she shall undergo some mysterious change,
and reign with him. There are still two or three
persons of title, of both sexes, who identify them
selves with Mr. Irving's views. Mr. Drum
mond, the rich banker, and the Hon. Mr. Perce
val, son of the Mr. Perceval the prime minister,
who was assassinated in 1812, are still among the
stated worshippers in Newman Street Chapel.
Speaking in the unknown tongues, is now, I be
lieve, entirely given up among the metropolitan
disciples of Mr. Irving.
I never can look back on the latter part of Mr.
Irving's course without the deepest sorrow. No
one more sincerely regretted than myself, the
erroneous views he adopted on various important
points some years before his death ; but I cannot
refrain from saying that he was exceedingly ill-
used, even by the religious world. I do not here
speak of his ejection from the communion of the
Church of Scotland by the Synod to which he
belonged : constituted as that Church is, that was
an almost necessary result of his open avowal and
defence of certain doctrines which he embraced.
My reference is chiefly to some of the evangeli
cal party in London. They manifested towards
him but little of the spirit of Christian forbear
ance. Instead of grieving over his , departure
from particular portions of the truth as it is in
Jesus, and addressing to him the language of
reason and affectionate remonstrance, they spoke
of him in terms of bitterness which it was painful

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 183
to hear escape the lips of Christians. I know,
from private sources of information, as well as
from what fell from himself on one occasion in
my -presence, that the rancorous hostility shown
towards him by a portion of (he religious part of
the metropolitan community, preyed deeply on
his mind. I would go further than this: I be
lieve it went far to break his spirits and to pave
the way for his premature passage to the tomb.
A short time before his death, I was nearly
two hours in his company, at the house of a rela
tion of his own ; and I thought I then clearly saw
indications that his health was giving way under
a sense of the unchristian treatment he had re
ceived at the hands of those Of whom better things
might have been expected. I remember one
Dissenting minister saying to myself, that many,
of Mr. Irving's former friends believed him to
be an impostor. It was clear from the way in
which he made the remark, that he had formed
the same uncharitable judgment. I remonstrated
with him on the impropriety of forming such an
opinion of any one when he could not adduce a
single fact to substantiate it ; and before we
parted, I had every reason to think that he saw
his error, and that he would not readily repeat
the words, either as expressing his own opinion,
or as the opinion of any one else. Mr. Irving
an impostor! If there ever was a sincere and
single-hearted individual on earth, Mr. Irving, I
believe, was that man. Imposition of any kind
was as foreign to his nature as darkness is to light.
He who heard him speak, saw his heart : nay, I
would even say, that his heart was in his face as
well as in his words. It was impossible to look

184 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
on his fine open, placid, and benevolent coun
tenance, artd doubt the kindliness of his nature,
or the sincerity and uprightness of his mind.
Mr. Irving an impostor 1 The very supposition
is monstrous in the case of one who sacrificed
his pecuniary interests, his popularity, his station
in society, every thing, in short, that is dear to
man, rather than abjure or conceal his principles.
It were well, if all who were so forward to tra
duce the character of that great and good though
grievously mistaken man, had but a tithe of his
moral worth. Now he is for ever beyond the
reach of their calumnies. Whether or not he had
a presentiment Of his approaching dissolution
when I last saw him, 1 cannot undertake to say ;
but there was then something not only exceed
ingly impressive, but solemn in his manner. A
friend of his own having remarked in a half
playful manner, in reference to his excommuni
cation from the Church of Scotland, that he did
not seem to be frightened by them, (the Scotch
clergy,) he replied in accents of singular mild
ness, and with a countenance beaming with kind
liness, — " Perfect love casteth out fear." We
parted soon after this ; and though he preached
for some time afterwards, T never met with him
in private again. His character may be given
in one sentence. With a mind of the highest
order and literary attainments of a superior kind,
he blended the most fervent piety and the un
affected simplicity of a child.
The Moravians next demand a brief notice.
This denominatipn of Christians are so called in
consequence of the church to which they belong

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 185
having sprung up in Moravia. They trace their
history back, though under various names, to the
seventh century. They were almost extinct
when, nearly a hundred years ago, a Bohemian
count, of v the name of Zinzendorf took them
under his protection, and eventually joined him
self to them and became their head. In their
doctrinal views they are Arminian. The great
theme of their preaching is the Cross "of Christ.
From their guarded manner of speaking of the
Holy Spirit, it is doubtful whether they believe
in the third person of the Trinity in the same
way as strict Trinitarians do. In their form
of church-government, there is a mixture of
Episcopacy, Independency, and Presby terianism.
They have their bishops, like the Church of
England, though not investing them with the
same power, nor paying them at the same rate ;
they have their synods like the Presbyterians ;
and, the sacrament once a-month like the Inde
pendents. In their meetings together for public
worship, the males and females sit in separate
parts* of the chapel. Their form of worship is
simple, except in so far as regards the reading a
Liturgy of their own at the morning service.
They are a singularly mild and harmless people.
They shun publicity in every thing they do. Of
them it may truly be said, they " do good by
stealth and blush to find it fame." They are
distinguished for theiri missionary spirit and
missionary exertions. They have not many men
of eminence in their body ; indeed, they never
seek to obtain reputation of any kind among
men. The most celebrated individual among
them is Mr. James Montgomery, the Sheffield
vol. n. — 17

186 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
poet. They have six or seven congregations id
England, but they are small. They have only
one in London, which is in Fetter Lane. The
Rev. Mr. Rea is the minister. I was much
struck with his zeal and his manifest piety, on
hearing him preach two or three years ago! The
number of Moravians in London is under, rather
than above, 100.
The Society of Friends or Quakers, as they
are more generally termed, come next to be
briefly noticed. The peculiar notions of this
body are by no means generally understood. On
doctrinal matters they are in various cases mis
conceived. Some persons charge them With
virtually denying the atonement and the agency
of the Divine Spirit in the conversion of sinners.
The charge is groundless; and nothing pains
them more than to be thus virtually represented
as being Arians or Socinians. Here is a state
ment of their belief on the leading doctrines of
the Christian religion, as sanctioned by the whole
body : —
" We believe in God the Father Almighty, the
Creator and Preserver of the Universe, in Jesus
Christ his Son, the Messiah and Mediator of the
new Covenant, and in the Holy Spirit, the Com
forter, or Spirit of Truth.
" The Divinity of Christ, and his oneness with
the Father, we acknowledge and assert according
to the Scriptures ; we also believe in Him as
the Sacrifice and Propitiation for the sins of the
whole world, whereby mankind are placed in a
capacity for salvation ; and that as each indivi-

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 187
dual submits unreservedly |to the purifying opera
tions ofthe Holy Spirit, he comes fully to partake
of the benefits of Redemption, and to experience
'the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse him from all
ein.' " In expressing ourselves on the subject of the
gracious display of the love of God to mankind
in the coming of our Saviour, we include a belief
in his miraculous conception, birth, life, miracles,
death, resurrection, and ascension. We may add,
that in reference to these, to the foregoing, and
to other points of Christian doctrine, we prefer
the use of such terms as we find in Scripture ;
and contented with that knowledge which divine
wisdom hath seen meet to reveal, we attempt not
to explain those mysteries which remain under
the Veil."
The friends do not believe in water baptism,
nor do they administer the sacrament of the
Lord's Supper. They reverence the Scriptures
as in a certain sense inspired, but they setup the
influences of the Holy Spirit within them, as
being superior to the Scriptures. Their general
views are Arminian. In their public worship
they never have any singing ; neither, though
meeting regularly in their chapels twice every
Sunday, and once on a week-day, is it certain
they will have any vocal worship at all. There
is no certainty, when they assemble, that any
one will either pray or preach ; and it frequently
happens, that they leave the meeting-house, after
having been in it for an hour and a half, or even
longer, without a single word having been uttered
by any one present. Nothing could be more
solemn than one of these Silent Quaker meetings.

188 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
I remember, a great many yearaiago, having been
at one of these meetings in their place of worship
in Bishopsgate Street, and the only words spoken,
during the hour and a half the meeting lasted,
were a very few indistinctly heard sentences
uttered by a young female belonging to the
society. It is impossible for those who have
never been present in a Quaker place of worship,
to form any conception of the solemnity of feeling
produced by the unbroken stillness which pre
vails in the place though there may be two or
three hundred persons present. I am convinced
that the most thoughtless and giddy could not,
at such a time and in such a place, help being
impressed with feelings of a most serious nature.
The Society of Friends have no paid pastors,
neither have they any pastors at all in the ordi
nary acceptation of the term. What I mean is,
that no particular person has any greater right
than another to speak. They are all on a perfect
equality in this respect ; all speak as they con
ceive they are moved by the Holy Ghost, and
no one speaks at all unless when the Spirit- is
supposed to be operating on their hearts. They
have, however, ministers who, have a sort of
superiority among them ; and to whom all mat
ters respecting the meeting-house or body, are,
in the first instance, referred. These ministers
consist of females as well as males ; only that
the female ministers sit in a pew by themselves ;
and the male ministers in the same way. The
rising ofthe male ministers to quit their seats, is
the signal for the congregation.leaving the chapel.
The women, I should state, have an equal right
to speak with the men. They have also meet-

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 189
ings of their own for discussing and deciding on
matters of discipline in the case of their own
sex. In the administration of the affairs of the
Society of Friends, there are various other
things which it would require too much space to
detail. It is a fact which deserves to be mentioned,
that at the business meetings of the Society of
Friends, no one is ever allowed to make a
speech. They must simply state' facts, and in
the fewest possible words assign their reasons
for any particular course they intend to take on
any question that is before them. All display of
every kind is strictly enjoined to be avoided';
and all are required to attend simply to the
transaction of the business before the meeting.
This is, no doubt, one of the chief causes why
they exceed all other bodies of men in managing
the business part of public associations.
It will surprise most persons to be told that
not one of themselves know what their numbers
are in London, though that number is very
limited. The cause of this is, that an injunction
is laid on them not to count their numbers. A
very close approximation, however, can be made
as to their numbers in the metropolis. They
have eleven chapels,- and the attendance at each
of these places of meeting, taking all together,
does not exceed 150. Their aggregate number
in London, therefore, does not exeeed 1650.
They have considerably decreased in the metro
polis, and I believe generally, since the days of
George Fox, their celebrated founder, and they
are still on the decrease.
The Friends are, as a body, undoubtedly the
17*

190 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
most exemplary in all the private relations of
life, and the best members of society of any de
nomination that can be named. It is my happi
ness to be on terms of the greatest intimacy with
some of their number ; and so far as my observa
tion goes, I can sincerely say, that if there be
one denomination of Christians among whom
there is a greater number of Nathaniels without
guile, than another, that denomination is the
Society of Friends.
The Roman Catholics next claim my at
tention. They are much more numerous in the
metropolis than is generally supposed. The Ro
man Catholic chapels are twenty-six in number,
and nearly all of them are well attended. Taken
as a whole, the attendance is much greater than
in the chapels belonging to any other denomina
tion. I think I am fully justified in assuming
that taking the attendance at one Roman Catholic
chapel with the attendance at another, the average
ateach chapel is 1000. Thiswould givethe aggre
gate number of persons attending the Roman
Catholic chapels of London at 26,000. This is
an immense number. It is far greater than I had
any conception of before my attention was turned
to the subject. The most magnificent of the
Roman Catholic chapels in the metropolis, whe
ther as regards the fitting-up of the building, Or
the way in which the services are performed, is
that at Finsbury. To this chapel hundreds of
Protestants are attracted every Sunday, simply
for the purpose of seeing the interior of the
place, and witnessing the celebration of mass
and the other pageantry which forms so essen-

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 191
f ial a part .of the Romish ritual. If religion con
sisted in mere show, then there is more of it in
the Roman Catholic chapel in Finsbury than in
any other place of worship, no matter to what
denomination it belongs, in London. The con
trast between Finsbury Roman Catholic chapel
and that in Duke Street, Lincoln's-Inn Fields, in
so far as mere comfort and decoration ave con
cerned, is very striking. The latter, though
attended by, I should think, about 1500 persons,
is a dark, gloomy looking, uncomfortable place.
At night, being very badly lighted, it causes a
feeling almost amounting.to melancholy, to arise
in the breast of a stranger.
The more recently built of the remaining Ro
man Catholic chapels are more comfortable, and
fitted up with greater taste in the inside ; but in
several of lhe older ones, there is much ofthe dul-
ness which marks the chapel in Duke Street.
Among the Roman Catholic priesthood of Lon
don, there are some who possess highly respecta
ble talents; nearly all of them are characterised by
great devotion to their priestly duties. Several of
them make a very respectable appearance in the
pulpit. Their manner is mostly impressive, and
the effect is heightened by the remarkable zeal
they generally display in the delivery of their
discourses. Some years ago, I heard, in the chapel
in Finsbury, a priest of very superior talents,
and who possessed such high accomplishments as
a preacher as almost to entitle him to the appel
lation of a first-rate orator. I do not now re
member his name. But what particularly struck
me was the fact, that so entirely clear did he
steer of the peculiarities of the Romish creed,

192 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
that had he been in any other place, one would
have mistaken the preacher for a sound evahge-
lical divine. The subject of his sermon was
taking up the cross and following Christ, and a
better discourse I have seldom heard. As far,
however, as I remember, this was the only in
stance in which I have heard a Roman Catholic
priest preach, without the introduction of a
greater or less amount of Popish sentiment.
Among the most popular of the present Roman
Catholic priesthood of London, is the Rev. Mr.
Hearne, one of the priests of Duke Street Chapel.
He is a man of talent: sometimes he displays
eloquence of a high order ; he is always fluent
and impressive ; but it is impossible for him to
speak many minutes without revealing the cloven
foot of Popery. He is well versed in ecclesias
tical history, and sometimes makes a use of his
knowledge by appealing to the superstition and
bigotry of his hearers which he would hardly
venture to do in Finsbury Chapel, where the
audience are more intelligent. For instance, I
heard him, six or seven months ago, run over
the names of several distinguished Protestant
divines, and argue from the circumstance of some
of the parties having met their death by acci
dent, and others having suffered excruciating
pains before they died, that such accidents and
afflictions had befallen them because they were
Protestants ! Reasoning of this sort would not
be tolerated in any enlightened assembly even of
Roman Catholics.
We hear much of the degradation and super
stition caused by the Roman Catholic religion in
Ireland. It is not necessary to go so far to wit-

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 193
ness the debasing and superstitious influence
which Jhat religion has on the mind. It is tp be
witnessed in the very heart of London. Morn
ing after morning, on Sabbath-days, have I seen,
and this too on the coldest days of winter, poor
creatures kneeling on the hard stones, at the
door of Duke Street Chapel, and seemingly lost
in what they conceived to be true devotional
feeling, though ft was impossible they could
either see or hear any thing that was going fQr-
ward in the inside. I have seen, on such occa
sions, the poor creatures literally shivering from
the intensity of the cold ; and have thought with
myself, that they Were actually performing at
the time an act of severe penance without their
church giving them credit for it.
In some of the Roman Catholic chapels in
London, there are from four to five priests regu
larly set apart. There are five in Duke Street
Chapel, Lincoln's Inn Fields, and I believe there
are four in Finsbury Chapel. In Duke Street
Chapel, there is service four or five times every
day. The Roman Catholics are rapidly increasing
in London, as well as in every other part of the
country. It is. an astounding fact, nay, it is one
which may well alarm Protestants, that there are
at this moment, half as many chapels in the me
tropolis alone, as there were fifty years ago in
the whole of England, Wales, and Scotland put
together!. The number in the country has, in the
short space of half a century, increased from about
50 to 500. And here as elsewhere they are con
tinuing to increase. Several have been built
within the last few years; one was erected at St.

194 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
John's Wood, two or three years ago, by two
maiden ladies residing somewhere about Hanover
Square. They gave 10,000/. for the purpose of
building and endowing the chapel. They caused
one wing to be made into a house for the priest,
and another to be made into a house for them
selves, in which, I believe, they have vowed to
live and die. I was present at the opening, or,
as it is called, consecration of this chapel, and a
more imposing spectacle it has never been my
lot to witness. The Roman Catholic bishop of
London, assisted by another bishop, officiated on
the occasion. There were no fewer than thirty-
two priests present, all in full priestly dress.
High Mass was performed amidst a magnificence
of show, of which no one could have had any
previous conception. But my chief object in
referring thus particularly to the erection and
opening of this new Roman Catholic Chapel, is
to mention that the unusual display made on this
occasion — for it was admitted to have surpassed
any thing before witnessed in this country —was
in a great measure caused by the high spirits
which the Romish priesthood are in at the rapid
progress which their religion is making in Eng
land. Dr. Griffiths, who preached on the occa
sion, after having told the two ladies who built
the chapel, that they had thereby purchased a
right to heaven, proceeded to speak in exulting
terms of the extent to which Catholicism prevail
ed on the continent, and of the rapidity with
which the people of England were returning to
the religion of their forefathers — the religion, to
wit, of the Church of Rome. And his joy at the
rapid strides which this country is again making

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 193
towards Popery, is universally shared by the
priests and the intelligent laity There is not a
Sunday in which it is not exultingly asserted in
hundreds of Catholic pulpits in Great Britain
and Ireland,, that the Church.of Rome is destined
to triumph over and trample in the dust, the Pro
testantism of England. The popish journals in
Ireland, day after day, and week after week, re
echo the assertion, and the same conviction is
felt and fondly cherished by the Roman Catholics
on the Continent. The Church of Rome indeed
confidently expects that the time is at hand when
Popery shall again become universal wherever
civilization is known, and that she shall have the
nations of Europe as completely under the iron
sWay as they were in the long and dismal night
which preceded the dawning of the Reformation.* .
To me it appears as clear as can be, that it was
with this expectation, in this belief, and with the
view to prepare the way for the event, that
Guizot's late Jesuitical essay on Catholicism, Pro
testantism, and Infidelity was penned.
But to what causes are we to ascribe the rapid
strides which Popery is now making in this
country ? The causes are various. There have
of late been several associations of Catholics,
though their operatipns have not attained a tan
gible form, which have been most zealous and
active in spreading the tenets ofthe Romish faith.
There is at this moment a most formidable society
of this kind in Dublin, though invisible to the
Protestant eye, which is secre'tly sending its
emissaries throughout the . whole country, and
insidiously disseminating the principles of the
Romish Church. Popery, like the mole, works

196 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
under ground. It is a sort of spiritual free-ma
sonry. Every thing is done under the secrecy
of a vow, if not a formal oath, when it is deemed
advisable to conceal. matters from the public eye ;
and there is a unity of purpose, a brotherhood of
feeling, where the interests of Rome are involved,
which may well put us Protestants to the blush.
Even inFrance there are private prayer-meetings
— which is quite a novelty, I believe, in Popish
projects for prosyletizing Protestants-— held, at
stated intervals,for the special purpose of praying
that the inhabitants of this country may be re
converted to the Romish faith. Was it not stated
in most of the public journals a few weeks ago,
that the Hon. and Rev. Mr. Spencer, brother of
Earl Spencer ^ had been spending some days with
one of the Roman Catholic bishops in the neigh
bourhood of Paris, with the view of considering
the propriety of increasing the number of such
meetings ? If the truth were told, I have not a
doubt it would be found, that the principal object
of this Hon. and Rev. gentleman's visit to the
continent is to consult the leading Roman Catho
lics there, as to the best means of extending
Popery in Great Britain. In one word, there is
at this moment a most extensive machinery at
work in England, in Ireland, and on the Contin
ent, with the view of extinguishing Protestantism
and re-establishing Popish supremacy in this
country. Another cause ofthe rapid progress which the
Romish faith has of late made in Great Britain,
is to be found in the treachery of the professed
friends of Protestantism. I allude to the semi-
popish party who have lately started up'- in Ox-

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 197
ford. But, as I have already adverted at some
length to the principles and practices of this party,
when speaking of Episcopalians, I will not recur
to the subject now.
I proceed at once to another cause, which is
the only one to which I shall advert, of the alarm
ing advances which the Romish faith has recently
made in this country. That cause is to be found
in the conduct of the Melbourne Ministry. I
can easily imagine that some of the Dissenters,
the body to which I belong, will startle on hear
ing such a position advanced by me. I cannot
help it if they should ; and most thoroughly do
I feel assured, that if they will only look a little
below the surface of things, they will soon share
with me the conviction, that the present Minis
ters of Her Majesty, are deeply responsible for
the fearful strides which Popery has made in
Great Britain within the last few years. I have
no sympathy, and never had any, with the lead
ing performers in the crusade in which the " in
genious device" clique have been recently
engaged against the Church of Rome. I have
always regarded that, crusade— in this I may be
Wrong — as haying had its origin fully as much
in political considerations, as from an attachment
to pure undefiled religion. Besides, I have al
ways disliked the spirit in which this warfare
against Popery has beeq carried op :. and, lastly,
I exceedingly doubt its policy. . It never has
appeared to me the way in which the progress
of the Church of Rome was to be arrested. But
while thus reprobating the conduct of those who
would convert Protestantism into the means of
promoting the purposes of a political faction, and
vol. n. — 18

198 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
while disapproving of the recenf-Exeter Hall
exhibitions, I must not shut my eyes to the fact,
that there is much truth in the representations
made by the O'Sullivans and M'Ghees when
holding up the present Ministry as the abettors
of Popery. Is it not as clear as the noon-daj
sun, that the Melbourne Cabinet have evinced a
decided and uniform partiality to Roman Catho
lics, when making appointments to vacant situa
tions in the public service in Ireland ?
Let me not be here misunderstood. Ido not
say that where a Roman Catholic was qualified
for the vacant situation, he ought not to have
received the appointment. On the contrary, I
hold that no man's religious opinions ought to
exclude him from offices of state, Wherever I
saw a man possessing the necessary qualifications,
and he had by his public services established a
claim to an appointment, I would, unhesitatingly
give him that appointment, whether he were a
Protestant, a Roman Catholic, a Jew, or even a
Deist. I do not, therefore, arraign the conduct
ofthe Melbourne Ministry because they have
appointed some of the adherents of Popery to
civil 'or political offices. So far from this, I think
that forming as they do the majority of the popu
lation of Ireland, Roman Catholics should have
received the' majority of appointments. What I
complain of is, that Roman Catholics have, in
almost, every instance, received the lucrative and
influential appointments which have been made
in Ireland since the advent of the present Admi
nistration. It was part of the narrow and bigot
ed policy of Tory Governments to bestow all their
patronage on Orangemen : the Ministry of Lord

SKETCHES OF XONDON- 199
Melbourne have leaped to the other extreme,
and conferred all the loayes and fishes at their
disposal on the Roman Catholics. To be a Pro?
testant in Ireland is precisely the same thing as
if one had an inscription written on his forehead
— " Ineligible to any Government office under
the Marquis of Normanby^" If there have been
one or two exceptions ; if one or two Protestants
have been appointed to vacant Government situ
ations under the presenf Ministry, the circum
stance might be easily traced to tbe personal in
fluence of the parties making or seconding the
application. It is not, however, to the mere
appointment of Roman Catholics to Government
situations, while Protestants are systematically
proscribed, that I attribute much of the progress
which Popery has recently made in these realms:
it is chiefly to the impression which this marked
partiality towards the adherents, of *h,e Church of
Rome, has creajed in the public mind, that Mi
nisters are in their hearts friendly to Popery, —
that the increase of that religion is to be ascribed.
And this impression has been strengthened by
the contemptuous way in which Ministers have
repeatedly spoken of Protestantism, and by the
compliments they have lavished on Popery, in
their 'places in Parliament. Ever, in short, since
Ministers came into office, their language and
conduct have had the effect of "giving 'a heavy
blow and great discouragement" to the Protes
tant religion ; while they have had the Opposite
effect of fostering and extending the Romish
faith. The Roman Catholics thus taught to re
gard the present Administration as the special
patrons of their religion, have, as might have

200 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
been expected, taken fresh courage, and been
stimulated to make those extraordinary efforts
for the spread of their religion to which I have
already' alluded, and which are at this moment
being crowned with such astounding success.
No one will venture to deny, that since the
accession ofthe present Administration to office,
Popery has made more extensive progress than
it had done for the fifteen or sixteen years pre
viously. Neither will it be questioned, that the
Church of Rome has, since that accession,
assumed a bearing of haughty defiance towards
Protestantism, unknown among us since the sub
version of the Stuart dynasty. Intoxicated with
its recent success under the auspices ofthe Mel
bourne Ministry, Popery is now putting on a
bold front, and is confidently looking forward to
still greater triumphs in Great Britain. Mr.
O'Connell is one of the most zealous and super
stitious of his Roman Catholic countrymen.
The fact of his having publicly fallen down on
his knees before a priest to express his venera
tion for the ghostly father, is sufficient proof of
this. Who can tell what influence the circum
stance of Ministers acting as a sort of nursing
fathers to Popery, may have had in inducing
him of late to stand by and support these Minis
ters through thick and thin, — through evil report
and good report ?
The Roman Catholic priests in London, as
everywhere else, are, as I hinted a few moments
ago, a most zealous and laborious class of men.
They mix with the lowest of the low : they visit
on terms of friendship and familiarity the poor
est of the poor. • In this respect they set an

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 201
example worthy of imitation to the Protestants
themselves. Popish zeal, indeed, might in many
instances put Protestant zeal to the blush. In
inquiring into the causes why Popery is now so
rapidly increasing, the zeal and assiduity of the
priests in their attention to their duties, ought
not to be overlooked.
In thus adverting to the colossal strides which
the religion of Rome has recently made, and, is
now making in Great Britain generally, I may
be supposed by some to have been guilty of a
digression. Such is not the fact ; for in account
ing for the rapid pace at which Popery is ex
tending itself over the length and breadth of the
land, I have been accounting for its alarming
progress in London. The local, advancement
and the, general progress are to be traced to the
operation of precisely the same causes.
The Swedenborgians, or New Jerusalem
Church, are not sufficiently numerous in London
to call for a lengthened notice. This denomina
tion of Christians was founded by Count Emanuel
Swedenborg, a native of Sweden, who flourished
in the middle of last century. He maintained,
that in 1742 the Lord Jesus Christ appeaned per
sonally to him, and bpened his spiritual eyes, so
as to enable him constantly to see and converse
with angels. He stated that on every occasion
on which he held intercourse with the angelic
intelligences, they were intheir respective habi
tations, which resemble the houses of this world,
only that they are incomparably more beautiful.
He further remarked, that the part of heaven in
which the angels reside is arranged into streets,
18*

202 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
squares, walks, and gardens, just as with us>
His firm belief was — indeed he said he had the
fact communicated to him by special revelation
from heaven — that all the saints shall individu
ally have apartments to themselves, when they
are received up into glory. His views on this
point are stated at great length in his " Treatise
on Heaven and Hell," a work which I remem
ber reading when very young, with all the
avidity with which youthful persons usually
devour works of romance. The Baron affirmed
that when residing in London, he saw and con
versed with angels when passing through the
most bustling and crowded thoroughfares in the
metropolis. He mentioned one particular case,
in Which he held these personal interviews with
angels while passing along Cheapside. The
Swedenborgians reject the doctrine of the
Trinity in the sense in which it is usually re
ceived. They maintain, that there are not three
persons in the Godhead, but that there is a sort
of Trinity in the person of Christ alone, consist
ing of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, just as there
may be said to be a trinity in every man, con
sisting of soul and body and of the operations
which emanate upward therefrom. They deny
the doctrine of a vicarious sacrifice, and are Ar-
minian in their views respecting predestination,
free will, &c. , They contend that men are not
justified by faith alone ; and represent repentance
as essential to salvation. They hold, that there
are three separate senses or meanings in the
Scriptures— the celestial, spiritual, and natural,
but which are all united together by what are
called correspondences. Their religion is alto-

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 203
gether a religion of mystery : indeed, its very
mysteriousness would alone constitute an insur
mountable obstacle to its making any great pro
gress in the world ; for it requires an intellect
far above that ofthe average run of mankind, to
be able to master its leading peculiarities. In
their public worship the Sw.edenborgians use a
liturgy of their own : in other respects, their
Church service is simple enough. They have
eight or ten chapels in'Englarid, but only three
in London. One is ih Cross Street, Hatton Gar
den, where Mr. Irving first brought himself into
notice ; another is in Burton Street, New Road;
and the third is in Ireland Yard, Blackfriars.
The first chapel is better attended than the other
two put together. The Rev. Mr. Noble is the
minister of it. In Burton Street chapel various
persons preach. The Rev. Mr. Sibley has the
pastoral charge of the church in Blackfriars. In
Hatton Garden, chapel the attendance may be
about 300 : in either of the other two chapels it
is under 150. This would make their entire
numbers in London about 600 ; but one of the
leading men among them has assured me that
there are at least 1000 disciples of Baron Swe-
denborg in the metropolis, though the remainder
have not the moral courage publicly to avow a
creed which is so different from that entertained
by the majority ofthe religions world. Mr.
Noble is a scholar and a man of talent. I re
member hearing him some few ye'ars ago, preach
a sermon which, being entirely exempt from the
peculiarities of the denomination, was one which
any one might have heard With gratification.
He has a venerable and placid countenance; and

204 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
his manner of preaching is particularly mild and
quiet. At the time the apocrypha controversy
raged with so much violence, he wrote a rather
large pamphlet on the plenary inspiration of the
Scriptures, which the late Dr. Thomson, of Edin
burgh, demolished most effectually, in the
"Edinburgh Christian Instructor." In 1835
and 1836, the Swedenborgians of London made
great efforts to draw public attention to their
peculiar principles. They gave a series of lec
tures, first in Mr. Noble's, and then in Mr.
Sibley's chapel, on the points on which they dif
fered from other Christian denominations ; and
they afterwards opened the Blackfriars' chapel
on Tuesday evenings, once every fortnight, for
the purpose of ajlowing any one who chose, to
start objections to their views ; which objections
they engaged to answer. Several animated dis
cussions were the result. I recollect seeing a
young man, who had the appearance of a me
chanic, perplex them very considerably one
night, by the way in which he attacked some' of
their readings of the Scriptures. I am not aware
that they made a single proselyte by these lec
tures and discussions. The only zealous preacher
I ever heard among them, was a very old
man, a Rev. Mr. Donaldson. This was in Edin
burgh, in the year 1820. His congregation did
not exceed eighteen or twenty. After mourning
over, with great feeling and seeming sincerity,
the indifference of the public to the doctrines of
the New Jerusalem church, he actually shed
tears for a considerable time in the pulpit, be
cause of what he called the blindness of men's
minds on this point. The London Swedepbor-

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 205
gians have a monthly organ of their views in a
sixpenny publication, called " The New Jerusa
lem Magazine."
The Unitarians are the only other Chris
tian denomination of any consequence, in the
metropolis. They have ten chapels in London ;
but with the exception of the Rev. Mr. Fox's
chapel, South Street, Finsbury, none of them
can be said to be well attended. I should esti
mate' the numbers usually present in this reve
rend gentleman's chapel, at 600 or 700. The
Rev. Mr. Aspland of Hackney, has a fair con
gregation ; so has the Rev. Mr. Madge, of Essex
Street ; but in the other chapels you are struck
with the number of empty benches to which the
ministers have to address themselves. I am sure
I do the Unitarians of London full justice if I
allow 250 hearers for each of their chapels, which
would make their aggregate number 2500.
I am not sure, indeed whether I ought not
to deduct from this number those of the Rev.
Mr. Fox's chapel ; for every one knows that for
a year or two past there have been no services
in that chapel which even the general body of
Unitarians themselves would regard as religious;
Instead of what Mr. Fox used to call sermons,
he now gives a succession of essays on political
and other subjects. His favourite topics foi1 pul
pit discussion are now "The Liberty of the
Press," " Duelling," " Church Rates," "Corona
tions," "The Aristocracy," and those other
topics which constitute the Staple materials for
newspaper writing. Indeed, the lectures which
Mr. Fox has been giving in his chapel on Sun-

206 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
days, for a long time past, would have done
admirably well for leading articles in the " True
Sun" newspaper, of which he was latterly one
of the editors ; and the articles which he wrote
for that journal might with' equal propriety have
been interwoven into his pulpit orations. Indeed,
I am not sure whether part of what he spoke -in
the pulpit on the Sunday did not appear as a
leading article in the " True Sun" of Monday ;
and whether the leading article which was pub
lished in that journal on the Saturday, was , not
made to form a portion of the pulpit lectures on
the following morning. At all events, the trans
fer in either case would have been perfectly com
patible with the other matter of the lecture or
newspaper article. Does not this look ver}' like
making amockery of revealed religion altogether?
Is it not, even in the Unitarian estimation^ pro
fanation of the Sabbath ? Do not even they
regard it as a fearful desecration of a place pro
fessedly set apart for the worship of the Deity ?
It is shocking to think that any one should thus ,
amuse people with politics, when professedly
met to worship their Maker. What increases
the pain with which every person — no matter
what be his creed, provided he reveres revealed
religion — must regard the way in which Mr.
Fox manages matters in his chapel, is the fact,
that these purely political disquisitions are pre
ceded by prayer and the singing of a hymn, just
as if thecongregation,whilehearingtheselectures,
were devotionally engaged. Mr. Fox was
appointed to South Street Chapel for the pur
pose of instructing the people there assembling,
in what they and he conceived to be religious

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 207
truths. Is it honest then to them, to say nothing
of the matter as it regards the Supreme Being,
to substitute mere politics for religion ? If Mr.
Fox has of late changed his opinions on the ques
tion of revealed religion : if he has turned scep
tical on points which he formerly believed, then
the course which honesty and true nobleness of
spirit would suggest, would either be to resign
his situation altogether as minister of South Street
Chapel, or intimate to his audience that he could
only henceforth lecture to them on those purely
political topics on which he had been in the habit
of addressing them for the last eighteen or twenty
months. The most respectably attended Unitarian chapel
in Lbndon, next to that of Mr. Fox, is that in
Essex Street, Strand. This chapel was the one
of which the Rev. Theophilus Lindsey became
the minister, when he quitted the Church of
England and embraced Unitarianism. Mr. Lind
sey was a most conscientious and upright man ;
willing, at all times, to make any personal or
pecuniary sacrifice for what he considered to be
the truth. I shall always hold such a man in
the highest veneration, howeyer much he may
differfrom me.1 Mr. Lindsey drew up a form of
Liturgy, suited^ to a Unitarian congregation,
which is still read in Essex Street Chapel. It is
not only grounded' on that of the Church of Eng
land, but preserves its very phraseology in all
cases where a principle at variance with Unita
rianism is not asserted. The congregation of
this chapel, however, have no organ ; nor have
they instrumental music of any kind. The late
.Rev. Mr. Belsham succeeded Mr. Lindsey as

208 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
minister of Essex Street Chapel. I was glad to
perceive, when hearing Mr. Madge a short time
ago, that he has a far higher opinion of the apos
tle Paul than his predecessor, Mr. Belsham, had.
The latter speaks of that apostle in his " Improved
Version of the Testament," as a bad logician,
and as a most inconclusive reasoner even from
the premises he had himself laid down. Mr.
Madge, on the other hand, spoke of the apostle
Paul on the occasion to' which I refer, not only as
an individual of great manliness, moral courage,
and lofty purpose, but as possessing great intel-,
lect, and as being a masterly reasoner. Might
not the Rev. Gentleman have gone a little further,
and spoken of the apostle of the Gentiles in
relation to his character as a preacher of the
Cross ?
Essex-street Chapel, instead of being on the
ground-floor, as all other chapels I have seen in
London are, is on the first floor, and is one of the
most comfortable places of worship I have ever
seen. The congregation consists of about 400
persons. I know of no Unitarian Chapel — and I believe
there is none in London — in which there is more
than one service on the Sunday ; and yet the
services of these places rarely occupy more than
half anhourinthedelivery. Asfor week-day wor
ship in a Unitarian chapel, such a thing was never
heard of ; neither did any one ever hear — at least
I never did — of a prayermeeting being held by
that body. Unitarianism is a cold and heartless
system. It is destructive of all vital piety.
How .cheerless the sermons which are delivered
in Unitarian pulpits ! They have no spiritual

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 209
life or Warmth1 in them. They chiefly consist,
even in the best of them, of common-place eulb-
lies on the moral beauty of virtue. Hear a Uni
tarian sermon and an essay of Socrates read, and
the probability is you will be unable to say
which of the discourses belongs to the heathen
philosopher, and which to him who ealls^ him
self a Christian minister. Look also at the
Unitarian hymn-books : why you may in many
cases say you are on a voyage of discovery,
if you are searching in them for the name
of JeSus, or any special reference to the Cross.
Unitarianism has a most blighting moral effect
on the mind. It is a system which never
can prevail to any extent. The late Dr. Marsh-
man, of Serampore, once made what struck
me as a singularly just remark, when he and I
were conversing on the subject of the general
thinness of the attendance at Unitarian places of
worship. That remark was this :— " Unitarian
places of worship will never be well attended ;
for the principles of that system will never dp
for men of real piety; and but comparatively
few of those who care not for true religion, will
put themselves to the trouble of attending any
place of worship at all." Dr.'Marshman pro
ceeded to illustrate the chilling effects which
Unitarianism has on the mind, by mentioning an
instance which occurred under his own observa
tion. ' He stated the ReV. Mr. Adams, who went
out to India many years ago as a Calvinistic mis
sionary, was one of the. most zealous and pious
men that ever lived in the East, so long as he
held his evangelical views. Mr. Adams unhap
pily, however, renounced Calvinism, and em-
vol. ii. — 19

210 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
braced the Unitarian'system. From that moment
his zeal for the conversion of the heathen declined.
Hitherto he had invariably preached three times
every Lord's day to crowded congregations ; for
some time after the change of his creed, he con
tinued to do so, but both he and his new hearers
eventually came to a mutual agreement that
worship twice a day was enough. In a short
time after that, once was thought sufficient. His
hearers dwindled down to fourteen or sixteen.
Eventually he gave up preaching altogether, and
betook himself to commercial pursuits. A nearly
similar instance consists with my own personal
knowledge. There is a Unitarian minister in
London, who commenced his public career as
an evangelical preacher, and while he continued
so was attended by numerous audiences. He
renounced his evangelical principles, and em
braced the Unitarian system. He was, of course,
obliged to resign his pastoral charge he then
held, and on doing so, came up to London. Two
years ago, I heard him preach what he would
call a sermon, but what I would call the fragment
of a treatise on astronomy, to about thirty or
forty people. The Unitarians have two organs
of their, views. The one is the " Christian
Teacher," published quarterly ; and the other,
the " Christian Reformer," published monthly.
There are several congregations in London
belonging to other denominations than those I
have mentioned ; but they are scarcely known
to any one but the parties attending them. An
tinomianism, so far as regards open professors of
it, is all but extinct in the metropolis. In Pro-

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 211
yidenee Chapel, Gray's Inn Lane, the chapel in
which the Rev. Mr. Huntingtbh, for many years
preached his ultra-Antinomianism every Sunday
to 2,000 hearers, " the cause," as the parties
themselves called it, expired on the death of the
Rev. Mr. Locke, the friend and successor of Mr.
Huntington. This was two year's ago ; for
several years previously, the number of hearers
did not exceed 100. The only professedly An
tinomian church now in London is that, meeting
in the chapel at the north end of Gower Street,
within a few yards of the New Road. The
minister is the Rev. Mr. Fowler. The number
of Mr. Fowler's hearers is about 250. I have
been told, but. cannot vouch for the fact, that on
the subject of baptism he holds views which, were
they generally entertained, would put an end at
once to the animated and1 often bitter controver
sies which" take place between the Baptists and
.Psedobaptist on that subject. His theory is said
to be this — that while himself entertaining the
opinion that adult, baptism is the baptism of the
Scriptures, yet that if any of his people think
differently, he is called on to baptise their child
ren. My authority in this, case was one of his,
own people ; but! am induced to think the party
must have been, somehow or other, labouring
under a misconception. It is in Mr. Fowler's
chapel, that the Rev. Mr. Gadsby, the well
known apostle of Antinomianism in Manchester,
preaches when he comes to London, which I
believe he does every August.
The Universalists — those who hold that all.
men will be finally saved, have one place of
meeting in London. It is a room in White Row,
Spitalfields ; their number is under thirty.

212 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
I am sure that many will be surprised when
they are informed that Johanna Southcot has still
her followers in London. I cannot state, with
certainty, what their exact number is, but I have
reason to believe it is at least 200 or 300. They
meet together on Sundays, but I have not been
able to discover in what place. I know they are
most numerous in the parishes of St. Luke's and
Shoreditch. I lately met with one of their
preachers, or prophets rather, and had some con
versation with him. He was evidently a man of
education ; and strenuously maintained the di
vine mission of Johanna. When 1 askfed him
how he got over the non-fulfilment of thepromise,
or rather assurance, which she made to her 50,000
followers, that she would rise from the dead on
the third day, — his answer was, that the expres
sion three days was not to be taken in a literal
sense, but as denoting certain periods of time.
Two of these periods, he said, had already passed,
and the third would, expire in the year 1842 ; in
which year he held it to be as certain, that the
prophetess would arise from the dead and give
birth to Shiloh, as that he was then a living man.
In the chapel in White Row, Spitalfields, in
which the Rev. Mr. Townley preached for
several years, there is a very large congregation
of persons calling themselves by the general.
designation of a " Christian Society." The pro
ceedings in this place of worship are of a nature
of which, so far as I am aware, there has been
no example in London for many years, i The
scenes of excitement, I fear I must add fanaticism,
which are exhibited every Sunday morning and
evening, especially in the evenings, at this chapel,

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 213
are of a truly painful nature. I shall endeavour
to give some idea of them by describing what
transpired in that chapel before my own eyes,on
the evening ofthe 10th of November last; simply
remarking, by way of preface, that What I then
saw and heard is a fair specimen of what is to be
heard and seen every Sabbath evening on which
the pastor himself preaches.
Shortly after six o'clock, one of the office
bearers in the church commenced the services
by prayer. He had not delivered many sen
tences when his petitions were responded lo by
loud groans, cries of Amen, and other exclama
tions from various persons in the chapel. He
having resumed his seat, the Rev. Mr. Aitkens,
the pastor of the church, gave out a hymn which
was sung by the whole congregation. I should
here observe, that so great is the anxiety to hear
Mr. Aitkens preach, that the chapel oh this, as
on every other occasion, was so densely crowded
that it was altogether impossible for any more
persons to force an entrance into it. Perhaps
there were 2500 present ; but I am certain, from
the numbers that I know go away every Sunday
evening in consequence of notheing able to get
in, there would be every night, were there room,
a congregation of at least 5000. The singing being
over, and a short portion of Scripture having been
read, the preacher proceeded to prayer; He had
not uttered many words, when heraised his very
powerful but somewhat husky voice to an ex
ceedingly loud key, and in that loud key con
tinued all the time. Every successive petition he
offered up, called forth simultaneous shouts of
" Amen !" and other audible expressions of con-
19*

214 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
currence with the preacher. If he made a con
fession of somespecific sin, as one of which the
congregation, or mankind generally, were guilty,
it was followed by exclamations of " That's
true !" &c. Before he had been many seconds
engaged in prayer, Mr. Aitkens, not content with
speaking in tones of deafeningloudness, displayed
the most violent bodily gesticulation. I have
never seen more violent action made use of, not
even by the most animated and energetic speakers
at political meetings. To what extent the reve
rend gentleman excited himself, both with respect
to his voice and his gesture, may be inferred from
the fact, that though his prayer did not last more
than ten minutes, he seemed completelyexhaust-
ed. The prayer concluded, another hymn was
sung, and then he rose up to preach. His text
was, " Lord, in the midst of wrath, remember
mercy." He had, not begun his sermon two
minutes, when his voice was again raised to the
highest pitch of which it was susceptible, and
when his gesticulation again became the most
violent which it was possible for a human being to
use. I thought he could not fail, by his excessive
exertion, to injure his body, if, indeed, he did not
fall out over the pulpit. The people were mostly
quiet during the sermon ; a deep sigh, an audible
groan, or some exclamation or other, were every
now and then to be heard ; but not with such a
frequency, nor so generally, as to present even
an approach to the scene exhibited during the
prayer. For some time his remarks appeared
judicious enough ; but when he got to the middle
of his sermon, he used expressions which might
well make one shudder to think of. He said,

SKETCHES OF LONDON. ¦' 215 '
that if the unconverted persons who were present
did not come to Christ and be saved that very
night', he having made so full and free an offer of
the Saviour to them, he thought " that they de
served to be damned !" Shortly afterwards he
remarked, that if the unconverted sinners who
were present did not come and be saved that
night, then he would " bid them farewell : he
did' not wish ever to see their faces in that
chapel any more ; he did not wish ever to see
them again until he met them at the judgment-
seat." Continuing the same strain of address,
he added — "If you refuse to come and be saved
this night, then I could almost wish that you
were damned now." Here the preacher paused
for some seconds, buried his face in his hand
kerchief, and appeared as if weeping. Then, as
if his breast were labouring under the most
violentemotion, he remarked — "Perhaps some
of you think I do not know what I am saying
when making use of such expressions. I do
know what I am saying ; for if you refuse to1 be
saved to-night, you will only so awfully1 add to
your guilt, that it were betteryou perished now."
Towards the conclusion of his sermon he im
plored, seemingly as if weeping, every person
present who felt that he was not in a saved state,
to go into the vestry and pray for mercy ; ad
dressing them as if their eternal ruin would be
the inevitable consequence of not complying
with his invitations. Eventually he sat down,
completelyexhausted by the excessive,, indeed,
almost superhuman exertions he had made, both
by voice and gesture ; and, on resuming his seat,
he continued for a few seconds to address the

216 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
audience in a sitting posture. About a minute or
so after he had fairly concluded, he rose up
again with great quickness, and said: — "I see
many persons in the gallery leaving the chapel
altogether, instead of going into the vestry, al
though but a few minutes before their eyes were
wet with tears under the sermon. It is," he
added with great emphasis, and looking to the
parties, " it is a sure proof you'll be damned."
He then stood for a few moments without saying
any thing ; when, all of a sudden, he pointed to
a particular seat under the gallery, and said, with
much emphasis of manner, to a female standing
in the passage; — "Sister Mayhew,* I know
there are two persons in that pew who are not
saved — look after them." By this time the
passages were full of persons going to the vestry,
but who were obstructed by the crowds that
stood at , the vestry door. Observing this, Mr.
Aitkens said to the obstructing parties, " Clear
the way there and allow the penitents to pass."
He then descended from the pulpit, and went
about from pew to pew, imploring those whose
curiosity prompted them to remain after the ser
vice, to go into the vestry, and " be saved." The
great body of the people had by this time left
the chapel : perhaps the number of persons who
went into the vestry was from 150 to 200. And
what shall I say of the scene which was there
exhibited? It was a shocking sight: scores of
persons were to be seen on their knees in differ
ent parts ofthe vestry ; some calling out "Mer
cy ! mercy !" only ; some offering up long
* So I understood the name to be.

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 217
prayers ; others making use of language which
was altogether unintelligible ; but all, except the
elders and teachers, either praying, in many in
stances screaming as loud as they could, or heav
ing such deep groans as that they might have
been heard a great distance. Then there was
the eXcited state of their manner and appearance.
The violence of some was so great that one
could have fancied they were in hysterics. The
scene of confusion, whether as regards the physi
cal motions of the parties or the discordancy of
the words, and phrases, and sounds, they uttered,
was such as I could not — and I am sure no one,
else could — have ever had any idea of before.
And what struck me as remarkable, was the
matter-of-course like way in which the indivi
duals took upon themselves the task, of comfort
ing the parties, viewed, the whole thing. They
seemed to think nothing of it; but with the
greatest coolness, and composure, went about
giving counsel to the various " penitents" — 'for
that is the term by which Mr. Aitkins always
calls them. I was much surprised to witness the
singular suddenness ofthe transition which took
place in, many cases, from a state of the most
awful seeming alarm about the condition of the
parties' souls, to the most perfect quiet and com
posure. One minute you saw a particular person
displaying the, most frightful gesticulations, and
literally shrieking while praying for mercy ; in
another minute the party rose from his or her*

* Three-fourths of the persons in the vestry were fe
males. >

218 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
knees, and sat down on a form, or it might be
walked through the vestry room, as tranquil,
and seemingly as much at ease, as if nothing had
happened. In several instances while dozens
were on their knees all praying aloud at the
same time, I saw others talking to one another,
their countenances occasionally exhibiting a
smile, and their whole appearance and manner
showing that they were accustomed to such
scenes, and looked upon them as a necessary
Conclusion to the services of the evening. 1 was
struck with the almost careless tone in which
some of the office-bearers spoke to one another
about particular penitents. ' " 0," said one to an
other in the same easy indifferent sort of manner
as if he had been speaking about a trifling matter
of business : "0, I sent that man away quite
satisfied, after all," evidently alluding, to some
person who had been alarmed about the state of
his soul. And to a little boy, apparently about
ten years of age, who presented himself at the
door ofthe vestry, the same person said, " Where
are you going, my little man ? Are you going
to pray ?" I presume the boy's answer was,
that such was his object ; for immediately after,
the elder, — for so I suppose he was, — patted the
boy on the head, and opening the door to him,
said, encouragingly, " Poor little fellow !" and
then ushered him into the vestry.
But the scenes to which I have referred were
not confined to the vestry, though that was the
principal theatre in which they were enacted.
In the body of the chapel, after the great bulk
of the congregation had left the place, there were

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 219
several instances of persons praying audibly., In
the very next pew to where I sat, which was
near the vestry door, there were four boys,-
seemingly from ten to fourteen years of age, all
of whom I saw on their knees at the same time.
Two of the boys, on one or two occasions, stop
ped in the middle of their praying, and spoke to
each other ; but whether their conversation was
of a serious nature or not I could not ascertain.
Having ended their conversation-, they each re
sumed praying again. ' In the passage, as I was
leaving the chapel, I found a man and woman,
the latter about thirty years of age, counselling
a man about sixty or seventy, who said he had
attended the chapel that day for the first time,
and felt that he was now saved. " Well, then,"
said the woman in a half-scolding, half-authb-
ritative tone, to the poor old simple man,
looking him in the face ; "well, then, you now
go home and take care you don't let the Devil
get you to doubt any more." " 0, thank you,
thank you," said the aged person, evidently in a
sort of ecstacy at the thought, that though he had
never troubled himself about his soul before, all
was now right. Indeed his experience seemed
to be the experience of all. All went into the
vestry, or remained in the body ofthe chapel, in
a state of great alarm, confessing they were great
sinners, and, having prayed for mercy, or had a
few minutes' conversation with some of the el
ders, came out again with the firm' conviction
that they were saved persons. And Mr. Aitkens
and his office-bearers strengthened this convic
tion ; for they all spoke as if the mere circum-

220 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
stance of going into the vestry to pray, were to
place their conversion beyond all doubt. The
scenes I have imperfectly described lasted from
eight o'clock till half past nine.
Mr. Aitkens is a real Scotchman. He was
brought up in the Church of Scotland ; but was
ordained in the Church of England, in which he
preached for some time. When he changed his
views, he left the Church entirely. He came to
London about twelve months ago,, where he is
exciting a great sensation.
In addition to the religious denominations I
have thus referred to, the Lutherans and other
bodies, more or less popular in foreign countries,
have various chapels in London. There are four
French Protestant churches, five German Pro
testant churches, two Dutch, one Swedish, and
one Swiss, making in all thirteen Foreign Pro
testant churches. If to each of these places we
allow, which I believe is about the mark, a con
gregation of 200 persons, that will give the en
tire number of foreign Protestants in London, in
the habit of attending a place of worship, at
2600. My notice of the Jews will be but brief.
Their numbers in London are supposed to be
about 9,000 or 10,000 ; I have heard it estimated
at 12,000, but I think that this is an exaggera
tion. They have five Synagogues. The two
principal ones are in Duke Street, Houndsditch,
and St. Alban's Place between the Haymarket
and Regent Street. The first-named synagogue
is most numerously attended; the other is fre-

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 221
quented by the most fashionable audience. Their
services are very imposing, especially on great
occasions, such as the Passover, the day of
Atonement, &c.
I was at one of their public dinners a few years
ago, when 150 of them were present. I -was
particularly struck with the mode in which one
of their priests chaunted grace. While grace-
was thus being chaunted, they all, as they do in
all their devotional services, kept their hats on
their heads ; their impression being that it
shows a want of reverence to the Deity to be
uncovered before him when engaged in his ser
vice. The Jew of 1838 is in every respect the Jew of
Moses's day. They are all most rigid observers of
the ceremonial law, while the great hody of them
live in the habitual violation of the moral law.
Their habits of living are precisely the same as
were those oFthe Jews spoken of by Moses and
the prophets. The infidel demands the working
of a miracle before his own eyes, previous to his
believing in Christianity ; his demand is com
plied with in the case of the Jews : they are a
living, a perpetual miracle to prove the truth of
the Christian faith. They are at this moment,
and ever have been since their expulsion from
Palestine in the first century, all that Jesus pre
dicted they would be. They are scattered
abroad through the whole world, and in every
place are despised and degraded, and a sort of
outcasts from society. They live as distinct,
even in London, from all other classes of men,
as if there were no other classes to be found.
vol. n. — 20

222 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
They are to be met with in different parts of
town, but, with very few exceptions, they all con
gregate together in little communities. They
still prefer the darkest and lowest districts, as
the places of their location. In proof of this,
see the Jewish community in Rosemary Lane,
in Rag Fair, and other places.
And not only are they thus marked out from
all around them, but there is something so very
peculiar in all their physiognomies, that any one
acquainted with the conformation of a Jewish
face would be able, in almost every instance, to
single out a Jew by his face alone, from among
a thousand other persons. Of late, a considera
ble number of conversions have taken place
among the London Jews, and those so converted
are, for the most part, in the habit of attending a
chapel in Spitalfields, called the Episcopal Jews'
Chapel, where, I believe, a converted Jew regu
larly preaches. From an intimate acquaintance
with various Jews, I am decidedly of opinion
that their conversion would not be so difficult as
is generally apprehended, could the means only
be got of obtaining access to them. It is, I am
satisfied, this difficulty of access, more than their
prejudices, though I admit these are great, that
has been the principal cause why more of their
number have not been converted to Christianity.
To show that their minds can be reached, and
their feelings influenced, when a Christian gets
access to them, I may mention an interesting
fact. About two years ago a friend of mine, who
was about to have a child baptized, asked a

SKETCHES OF LONDON. 223
Jewess lady with whom that friend was acquaint
ed, whether she would like to see a Christian
baptism. The Jewess said she would like it
exceedingly, and would esteem it a great favour
if allowed to be present. She was accordingly
invited to form one of the party. The Rev.
Alexander Fletcher administered "the ordinance
of baptism to the child. I was. not present, but
was told that his prayer, before applying the
water to the child's face, was remarkably im
pressive. At all events, it had such an effect on
the Jewess lady as to cause her to shed tears. I
saw her in less than an hour after the ceremony
was, over, and she mentioned to me how deeply
she was affected with what she had heard. This
strikes me as an important fact, inasmuch as it.
shows that the Jews are not quite so hard-heart
ed or so steeled against Christianity, provided
access could only be got to them, as is generally
Supposed. I wish that greater attention were
paid to these people, and that; greater efforts
were made for their conversion. When con
verted, they almost, in every instance, become
zealous and effective advocates of, the cross and
cause of Christ.'

I have thus adverted to all the religious deno
minations in London, The comparative numbers
of the various bodies will be found in the follow
ing page in the form of a tabular view.

224

SKETCHES OF LONDON.

Episcopalians . ' .

150,000

Presbyterians

4,500

Wesleyan Methodists .

.,

24,000

Other Arminian Methodists

6,000
Independents
79,200
Particular Baptists
24j000
General Baptists .
1,000
Huntingdonian Connexion
1,200
Various Evangelical Sects
4,800
Bible Christians
300
Sandemanians
150
Irvingites ' • . <
1,400
Moravians
100
Society of Friends
2,200
Roman Catholics .
26,000
Swedenborgians
600
Unitarians
3,000
Miscellaneous Bodies
3,000
Foreign Protestants
2,600
Jews . . ' .
ig in all
10,000
, .Makit
3,44,050
It will thus be seen that the number of Dissen
ters, taking them in all their varieties in London,
exceeds the number of persons belonging to the
Establishment, by 44,050. But the most inter
esting reflection which arises on looking at the
above tabular view of all the religious bodies in
the metropolis, is the fearful disproportion be
tween the number of persons who attend any
place of worship, and the number Who attend no
place of worship.
It will be Seen that only one in six of the inha
bitants of the metropolis are in the habit of attend-
SKETCHES OF LONDON. 225
ing any church or chapel, or other place for the
purpose of Worshipping the Divine Being, This
is an appalling fact. It is one which ought to
cause the Christian part of the community to
make immeasurably greater exertions than they
have yet made, for the conversion of the
1,650,000 and upwards of persons," who are liv
ing withodt hope and without God in the world,
within a radius of eight miles from St. Paul's. I
intended to have entered at some length into the
morally destitute state of the metropolis ; but it
has occurred to me, that this may be more effec
tually done in another work, if not in a separate
pamphlet. In the meantime, I would recom
mend those who are desirous of knowing what
that state is, to read the Rev. Mr- Ainslie's able
and excellent sermon on the " State and Claims
of London," Or the " City Mission Magazine,"
a little work which peculiarly deserves the sup
port, of the religious public in London.
It has been ascertained after the most careful
personal examination by the friends and agents
of the City Mission, that there are in the metro
polis within a few thousands of 1,000,000 indivi
duals who are visitable by Christian ministers
and teachers, and who are at this moment in a
state of as great spiritual darkness as are the in
habitants ofthe most benighted parts of Africa.
Never assuredly was a case made out that calls
in louder tones, or more urgent even for a great
and simultaneous effort on the part of the religi
ous public of London. The City Mission is
doing incalculable good ; and only wants the
means to do infinitely more. Never was institu
tion so adapted, did. it only possess the requisite

226 SKETCHES OF LONDON.
funds, to grapple with the spiritual ignorance and
indifference which prevail to so frightful an ex
tent in the metropolis ; but it is crippled in its
exertions for want of pecuniary means. It is only
able to maintain sixty agents or missionaries, and
400 are needed to meet the exigencies of the case.
Let then Christians of all denominations who
hold the Head, bury in the dust all their minor
differences, and make one great, and united, con
tinuous effort to evangelize the heathen part of
the population of London. And in thus appeal
ing to the religious part of the metropolitan com
munity on behalf of the vast masses of immortal
souls that are perishing at our very doors for
want of the bread of life ; may I be permitted to
suggest, that prayer meetings ought to be held at
stated intervals in various evangelical churches
and chapels of London, for the express purpose of
supplicating the throne of grace for their conver
sion. Monthly meetings are held in most of our
chapels for the purpose of praying for the con
version ofthe heathen of Africa and Asia : why
not hold similar meetings every month for the
specific purpose of praying for the conversion and
salvation of the heathen of London ? There is a
necessary connexion between prayer and exer
tion ; and were the prayer meetings I am recom
mending held, they would eventually lead to
greater exertions for the evangelization of the
metropolis than have yet been made.

THE END.

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