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ESSEXHALL, ESSEX STREET, STRAND, LONDON, W.C. 2. i

S 4 , E,! , I m '5- <+ -4 c THE STORY

OF THEOPHILUS LINDSEY

AND HIS FRIENDS,

FRANCES E. COOKE i,' AUTHOR OF 'STORY OF THEODORE PARKER,' ' STORY OF DR. CHANNING,''AN ENGLISH HERO,' ETC.

" He fought his doubts and gather'd strength, He would not make his judgment blind, He faced the spectres of the mind And laid them ; thus he came at length To find a stronger faith his own ; And Power was with him in the night, Which makes the darkness and the light And dwells not in the light alone."- TENNYSON.

%onbun: THE SUNDAY SCHOOL ASSOCIATION, ESSEX HALL, ESSEX STREET, STRAND, W.C. I 890. PREFACE.

THEstories of Theophilus Lindsey and his friend Dr. Priestley, which are combined in this little volume, are almost unknown to young people of the present day. Yet, because of their faithfulness to duty and fearless search after truth, these men should be lasting examples for all time and PRINTED BY ELSOM AND CO., MARKET-PLACE, HULL. should appeal to the reverence even of those who differ from them in opinion. With this idea in view, I have tried to draw a bright attractive picture from the old biographies, but I have not made it my aim so much to give any minute description of the scientific discoveries we owe to Dr. Priestley, or of the theological controversies in which both were engaged, as to pourtray the deeply religious spirit of their lives, and their simple creed based on faith in God and love of their fellow-men.

- Oct., 1890. CONTENTS.

CHAP. PAGE I. 7 11. 111. IV.

v1 . VII. VIII. IX. THE STORY

CHAPTER I.

YORKSHIRE NEIGHBOURS.

N the year 1689, after the Revolution had I brought William of Orange to our English throne, a memorable Act was passed by the Houses of Parliament and received the royal assent. This was the ' Act of Tolera- tion,' which provided that no man should any longer be prosecuted on account of his religious worship, if he would take the oath of allegiance to the king, renounce all fellowship with the Roman Catholic Church, and hold firmly the THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. YORKSHIRE NEIGHBOURS. doctrine of the Trinity. May qth, the day away to prison all those who could not pay the when this new law came into operation, was a fine inflicted by the law. great day in England. Dissenters, or Non- No wonder life seemed to have a happier conformists, as people were called who dissented aspect to these persecuted people when the from or did not conform to the Established Toleration Act was passed. For the most part, Church, felt that at last they might, as it were, they were quite willing to serve the new King draw a long breath, and hope to live in peace William the Third faithfully, they had no doubts and safety. Many troubled years lay behind about the required doctrine of the Trinity, and them. From 1662, when the ' Act of Uni- they distrusted the Pope and all his followers. formity,' requiring unfeigned assent and con- By degrees, they ventured to build chapels of sent to all contained in the prayer book, had their own, erecting them at first in back driven over two thousand conscientious clergy- streets or obscure parts of towns, for they were men out of the Established Church, one still subject to outbursts of the old persecuting persecuting Act after another had been passed. spirit, and they still feared that the old evil It had been held a crime for any large body of days might return in full force. Numbers of worshippers to attend any other service than these old buildings are still standing in England, that which was held in a parish church, and all and the sight of them recalls the memory of who did so had been obliged to meet in secret. the time when men and women who dared to So the Nonconformist had never to be forgotten think for themselves in religion, began to hope memories of Sundays spent in fear and that they might worship God safely as their trembling, when little bands of people gathered consciences approved. together for prayer and praise in lonely farm From that time it came. to pass that the houses in the country, or in unsuspected hiding various bodies of dissenters,-Baptists, Inde- places in the town ; when none knew whether pendents, Presbyterians, &c. ,-entered on a constables and soldiers might not at any period of peace, and lived side by side with .o moment break in upon the meeting, and hurry Churchmen, meeting no longer with the perse- THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. YORKSHIRE NEIGHBOURS. cution which had once called forth their faith- Lindsey, too, had kept bright the memory of all fulness and courage. And it is said that a the kindnesses she had received, and when her slumber fell upon the religious life of England. youngest boy was born, on June zoth, I 723, she Men began to put their energies into trade and called him Theophilus, after the Earl's eldest manufactures ; material prosperity grew apace, son. As the child grew older, she told him and there was a lull in the disputes among the many tales of those old friends, so that he churches. learned to love his mother's kindred, and to Such was the aspect of affairs when early in feel a sort of pride in the noble name he bore. the 18th century, a Scotchman, named Robert In course of time, those high-born kinsmen Lindsey, was living at Middlewich, in Cheshire, sent the boy to school, first at Middlewich, then and struggling hard against many reverses to to the grammar school at Leeds. He spent his make a living in the town as a mercer. He had holidays at the great houses of his mother's shares in some of the great salt works of the relatives, and it was generally understood that place, and at one time had been a prosperous young Theophilus Lindsey might depend on man. But times had changed, and through the their help and encouragement in his future life. imprudence of other people he had lost much Perhaps some of his wiser friends were afraid money. Like many another Scotchman, he is that such prospects might lead to a lack of said to have been keen and cautious, and, as energy, and watched anxiously to see whether his business troubles increased, he was glad to the boy, trusting to the help that was held out remember that his wife was connected with a to him, seemed inclined to let his talents lie noble and wealthy family, and that her titled idle, and to waste his time. Happily, at the relatives,-the Earl and Countess of Hunting- Leeds school, he gained a love of learning for don, with whom she had spent her maiden life, its own sake ; and a longing dawned upon him -had lost none of their old affection for her to make his life a worthy one for better reasons since she left their sheltering care for married than because he would not sully a good old life in a very different sphe&. And Mrs. name. So, when his schooldays were over, and THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. YORKSHIRE NEIGHBOURS. he entered St. John's College, Cambridge, as a hour young Lindsey paced the college garden student, his new comrades found him as to ponder this question of his future work in courteous and well-bred as any among their life. The rooks cawed in the old buildings number, and there were few among them so above his head, and the waving branches of the firm to. principle and so resolute in making a leafy trees flecked with shadows the sunshine at stand against the evil habits and unrighteous his feet, and in those peaceful scenes, where so ways that had crept into the life of the many men before him had puzzled over the university in those days. More out of respect same problem, he chose his calling. ' How. than mockery, the idle, graceless youths of his can I best serve God and be useful to men ? ) college called him ' the old man,' because he was the question he asked himself. In answer held himself so far aloof from their company he resolved to fall in with the wish of his and pastimes ; but hard-working, high-minded patrons, because he believed that as a clergy- students found him a good companion in their man in the Church of England he could do the leisure hours. It was well-known that he most good in the world. deserved the high honours he gained at the There was no lack of valuable offers made to close of his college course, and there were him. More than one rich man had a living many prophecies made of the renown he would waiting his acceptance, or an honourable post obtain if he gave himself up to a life of learning in the Church to bestow. Truly the lines might and research. be said to have fallen in pleasant places for Such a course was open to him, and it had Theophilus Lindsey, and a fair future seemed to its temptations. The learned leisure of a lie before his opening manhood. Conscience fellowship at Cambridge was pressed upon him did not trouble him as he signed the Articles by the professors who knew his powers. On and declared his assent to all contained in the other hand, his noble relatives and patrons, them. The prayer book had been his daily who had good livings in their gift, were eager food for long, and the doctrine of the Trinity that he should enter the church." For many an he accepted as a matter of course. None of YORKSHIRE NEIGHBOURS. THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. after his own heart, and made him welcome. his studies had led him to question the creed of Many a pleasant ride did Theophilus Lindsey his forefathers. So all was smooth sailing. take along the moorland road and by the banks He was ordained, and presented to a chapel in of the winding river Swale, to talk with the London where a rich and pr~~p&~~~congrega- Archdeacon in his library, or spend a few happy tion gathered every Sunday, and his work as a hours with the young people and their mother clergyman began. Not long after, he became in the beautiful garden which lay round the private chaplain to the Duke of Somerset. Archdeacon's house. The young Rector of Then he travelled abroad with the Duke's Kirkby grew fond of his new surroundings, and grandson for a couple of years, and on his would have been glad to know that his life return the Duke of Northumberland gave him would be passed among his Yorkshire friends, the living of Kirkby Whiske, in Yorkshire, and but this was not to be his lot. In three years' he entered on a quiet country life with plain- time his mother's relatives, the Huntingdons, to spoken, hard-working men and women for his whom he owed so much, besought him to floqk and daily companions. This was a great remove to the large, neglected parish of change. He had been so long the favoured Piddletown, in Dorsetshire, where there was a associate of nobles, with all the aims and rich living in the gift of the family. Their claim interests of cultured life open to him. Yet he upon him was so strong that he could not found the change a welcome one, and for the refuse their request. In 1756, he said good- first time saw the chance of leading the worthy, bye with sorrow to the worthy northern useful life he had longed for. farmers who had received him so warmly ; but By and by a new interest arose for him. he carried with him to his southern destination Archdeacon Blackburne, well known in those a hope that had gradually grown up within him days as an earnest and thoughtful Churchman, in his visits to the pleasant Richmond house- was living at Richmond, some miles from hold, that some day Hannah Elsworth, the Kirkby Whiske. The Archdeacon soon dis- Archdeacon's step-daughter, who seemed to covered that his new neighbol.0. was a man THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. YORKSHIRE NEIGHBOURS. him to make sunshine wherever she went, would at the bottom of which ran a merry brook. come to him and brighten his lonely home. Beyond this, the land sloped gently upwards While this bond of union was growing up till it was bounded by the great Pendle Hill, between Richmond and Kirkby Whiske, there which stood like a mighty guardian of the place, were dwellers not far away in the same county and from the Vicarage windows could be seen of Yorkshire so isolated that communication the changing lights and shadows made by the with the world that lay below the rocky heights on flying clouds across its slopes. The Vicar's which their homes were placed, was a matter of children, Catherine and her brother, found famous rare occurrence. Such a district was to be play-places in their father's garden and glebe found in the west of Yorkshire, high up among land. In summer the flowers and living the hills of Craven, where quaint, old-fashioned creatures of the fields were their companions. people lived, each man in the midst of All the country sounds were dear to them, the unenclosed lands that had been in possession cuckoos and the croaking bitterns, the rippling of his ancestors for centuries past. Old brook, and tinkling bells of the pack-horses as customs and sayings had descended with the they passed along the shady lane beside the lands, and ancient disputes also, and among Vicarage garden on their way to and from the these proud, self-willed ' Statesmen ' as they deep valleys below. Catherine was a pet called themselves, there was little knowledge among the wives of the ' Statesmen ' who lived and much strife. in her father's parish, and thus the first happy Almost the only educated man among the years of her childhood passed away. In this dwellers at Long Preston was the Vicar, the secluded life parents and children dwelt in Rev. Jeremiah Harrison, who had taken up his peace, and if there were no excitements and abode in the Vicarage House some years before. changes in their lot it had also few cares. It was an old dwelling to which new rooms had But before Catherine was five years old, her been added, a grey stone house with a little mother's relations besought the Vicar to leave lawn in front divided by palings?rom a meadow, Long Preston. Some of them were people of C THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. YORKSHIRE NEIGHBOURS. rank and wealth, and they were possessed by the influences. For a short time she was sent to notion that a member of their family should fill school ; but while there, though she became a more important place in the world than was skilful in embroidery and needlework, the to be found in a lonely village among the hills. needful training of her intellect was neglected. At last, Mr. Harrison fell in with their wishes, She paid visits, and when at home led an idle though he felt much regret at leaving his life, her thoughts bent only on excitements and country home, and he and his family removed pleasures, never even dreaming of the interests to Catterick where a living was presented to and ways of usefulness which were open to her, him not five miles away from Richmond, where if she sought for them. Archdeacon Blackburne lived. The best influence in her life came to her At Catterick, a new life opened before the from Archdeacon Blackburne's family. Some- Vicar and his family. Mr. and Mrs. Harrison times she was invited to spend a few days at went ' into society,' they were sought' by Richmond, and the Archdeacon's children, the well-to-do people of the neighbourhood. always busy and happy as the day was long, Catherine and her brother heard much about were very kind to the lonely child. But their mother's wealthy relatives and were taught Catherine cared for the Archdeacon's step- to form great expectations from their help and daughter Hannah Elsworth more than for any interest in the future. The innocent country one else in the household. It was true that she pleasures which had helped to keep a child-like was grown up and never joined in the games heart within the girl were at an end. She was which went on among the children : but her flattered by new acquaintances and began to gentle, kindly ways attracted Catherine to her ; long for notice and admiration. To make and when in course of time, she married Mr. matters worse her father had an old-fashioned Lindsey and went away to her new home in prejudice against the education of girls ; and Dorsetshire, the chief attraction for Catherine Catherine's little mind, in absence of better had gone from the Archdeacon's house. nourishment, was fed by aH kinds of foolish QUESTIONINGS.

It would not be easy to say how much young Lindsey missed his intercourse with Archdeacon Blackburne after he left Kirkby Whiske. There was little congenial society about his new home in Dorsetshire, and he sought in books the CHAPTER 11. companionship he could not find in men. The QUESTIONINGS. generality of people thought little in those days about the creeds their fathers had held so dear BETWEENthe ranges of hills which lie in the and took for granted the truth of the beliefs North and South of Dorsetshire there stretched they had inherited. As has been already said, a hundred years ago a wide district partly a slumber had fallen on the religious life of pasture land, partly overgrown with heather. England. Mr. Lindsey found, however, that his The plain was varied by hills and dales and parish work left him leisure for study, and in his patches of forest trees. Its picturesque villages quiet parsonage, with its fair view over the wide and growing towns were connected by old Roman common whence the soft winds brought scents roads and wild country lanes, strange mingling of heather and sounds of birds and bees, he was of the life of past and present times. In in the mood for reading certain books which, moorland surroundings lay Piddletown when though written by thoughtful men many years Theophilus Lindsey took up his abode there, a before, had not yet gained the attention they country parish, where the last Vicar had been were destined to receive. These writers were content to leave his people to their own devices afterwards known by the name of ' Free- while he played billiards or bowls with the thinkers.' They were among the first neighbouring squires. Not so this new parson. Englishmen who thought and wrote freely He soon learned about the joys and sorrows of on religious subjects. Their ' freethinking ' his flock, and was gladly welcomed in all the arose from a reverent wish to see Christianity as country homes of his scatterebparish. Christ taught it, to clear away from the THEOPHILUS 1,INDSEk. QUESTIONINGS. doctrines held by men in their own times all opportunity to help and teach his fellow-men, the corruptions and additions u~hich had and he and his wife, who was a true helpmate gathered in course of ages round the words of to him, worked among their people, and Christ. gradually fresh light dawned on his mind from Probably Theophilus Lindsey read these the companionship of his books. books and pondered over them as he read. By One day, he was reading the Bible with the and by he began to see a new meaning in the wish that was always present with him now to get old Bible words that had been so familiar to to the original meaning of the words he read, him from his boyhood. when his eye fell upon the text, ' To us there is Meanwhile, he married the daughter of his one God the Father.' There was nothing old friend the Archdeacon, and she brought new in it. He had read it a thousand times such sunshine into his once lonely home that it before : but suddenly there flashed into his mind seemed as if no cloud could ever fall upon their the doubt whether the doctrine of the Trinity happiness. Only one wish remained ungratified. which he had been holding all his life, which Both husband and wife hoped that some day the Church Articles taught and the law of the they might go back to Yorkshire to the scenes land enforced, could be made to harmonize with where they had first met, and the neighbourhood those plain words written by St. Paul in the of their old friends. Now came a new offer early Christian days. from the Duke of Northumberland to Mr. It came like a thunderbolt, this startling Lindsey ; fresh honours in the Church of question, into the peaceful channel of his England, were in store for him if he would thoughts. Hitherto, he had taken all for agree to this new proposal made by the granted, now he began to search through the Duke. But no effort was needed to decide Bible for more light on the subject, and the upon the reply to be sent. Theophilus more he read the more sure did he become that men ought to worship the one God, their Lindsey wished to remain sthe hard working Vicar of an English Parish, all he wanted was Father in Heaven ; and that the doctrine of THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. QUESTIONINGS. the Trinity had never been taught by Christ and While Theophilus Lindsey was still doubtful his Apostles. about the course he should take, ready for any What was he to do? Through sleepless sacrifice at any moment if he could only see nights and anxious days he asked himself this what was right, news came to him from York- question. Must he give up the chosen work of shire which seemed to throw some light upon his life and leave the church because he could his hesitation. The Rev. Jeremiah Harrison, not any longer believe all the ancient articles Vicar of Catterick, was dead, and the large and creeds that had been framed in her church parish of poor and ignorant souls was without a councils during the long lapse of years ? Per- teacher and guide. Mr. Lindsey had refused haps, he thought, these new difficulties of mine promotion, no wish for honour or personal gain may disperse in time, or I may find a solution to ever moved him,, and when he heard of this new them. He consulted the Archdeacon and field for work, with its poor stipend, but great other wise and earnest Churchmen, and found chances of doing good, his whole heart went that similar scruples to his own were not out towards it. There would be much more unknown to them. But they comforted them- parish work there than at Piddletown, his time selves with the thought that they had had would be fully occupied in teaching and helping nothing to do with the formation of these doubt- the poor people of Catterick. Perhaps, he said ful creeds, that there was no perfection to be to himself, ' as I go on to do God's will I shall found in any system in the world. These men learn to understand the doctrines that puzzle (far better and wiser than himself as he believed) me now.' So he asked leave to exchange his interpreted the old words with a new meaning of rich living and beautiful home in Dorsetshire for their own ; and, while they tried to do their duty the much poorer benefice of Catterick, and where God had placed them, they lived in hope neither he nor his wife felt any regret for the of better days to come, when a change should step they were about to take. gradually be made in those dockines which they It was in the month of November, 1763, when had outgrown. they made their journey northwards. As they THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. QUESTIONINGS. neared their destination the autumn leaves whom Paulinus had baptised so many centuries rustled beneath the horses' feet, and the bleak before. For Catterick was a great thoroughfare, winds whistled round them, telling them that and, at akertain season of the year, the resort they were coming into wintry regions out of of fox-hunting squires, who, with their grooms, their balmy southern home. While still at some frequented the inn, and by their evil example did distance frotn Catterick they came in sight of much injury to the morals of the towns-people. the ancient steeple of the parish church, which Before the vicarage lay a lawn with flower- was built upon a hill. A venerable old building, beds, at the back of the house stood out-build- famous through that part of the country for the ings, and at the side a shrubbery, through which old memories that clustered round it. It had a winding path led to the churchyard gate ; and been built I loo years, and history told the rise round the churchyard and vicarage garden ran of the Catterick Church, how in the far-away a wall separating them from the road, on the past a missionary from Rome had gathered the other side of which a great part of the parish of heathen people together out of the little Roman- Catterick extended. The Vicar and his wife founded town and had baptised them in the formed for themselves rules for a very simple river which flowed through the neighbouring mode of life. They could not afford, as the meadows ; thus founding an early Christian Rev. Jeremiah Harrison had done, to visit and church. But so large was the parish in this entertain the wealthy people who lived in the 18th century that smaller chapels had been neighbourhood of Catterick, for their plans for built in outlying places, connected with the the parish welfare would require all the money mother church and under the Vicar's care. they could save. There was a reading room to Round about the hill on which stood the old be established, and a library for the use of the building, with the vicarage by its side, lay the working men, schools for the children, books, poor homes of the people of Catterick, who clothing and medicines, and countless other were perhaps, some of them, needing spiritual requirements, for which all that could be saved .a help no less than than did the pagan tribes from the Vicar's stipend was little enough. It THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. QUESTIONINGS. was a life of great self-denial that Theophilus about, was the one God and Father men should Lindsey laid out for himself. By nature he was love and worship to-day. In this way the Vicar a kindly, social man, and it was somewhat pain- put aside for a time the doubts he could not ful to him to have to decline the advances of solve, and hoped that while trying to do the will his neighbours. At Piddletown he had enjoyed of God he might learn what was true and what much leisure for study, now he resolved to give was false in doctrine. When obliged on Sundays up time, money, and talents, in the constant to repeat phrases in the church service which effort to make straight the rough ways of now had no true meaning to him, he consoled Catterick, and bring Christianity into the homes himself with the belief that by his pulpit teach- of its people. ing he was constantly preparing the way for a All sorts and conditions of men marvelled change to more wisely chosen forms of words. how their new Vicar found time to enter into In course of time he saw that outspoken the cares and interests of the poor hard-working sincerity in speech and act, perfect truthfulness dwellers in his new parish. He tried to show before God and man, were first of all to be them how the commonest work might be made maintained ; but that time had not yet come, high and noble if the right spirit were put into and he had to grope his way step by step to it, and that in their daily occupations they the light he longed to reach. might all the time be serving great ends. In Meanwhile, Catherine Harrison, the the church he preached to them no hard, daughter of the late Vicar of Catterick, had abstruse doctrines, but held up to them high been passing through many sad experiences. aims to guide their lives, and for his simple Her father had left little property for the religious teaching went back to the words of support of his widow and children, and Mrs. Christ himself. Above all, he laid stress on his Harrison, on his death, took a small house in newly-found belief in the unity of God, and lost Bedale, seven miles away from Catterick, ana no opportunity of telling his hearers that the settled there with Catherine ; her son being still -Heavenly Father, whom ~hiJlst taught men at Oxford studying for the church. At Bedale, QUESTIONINGS.

Catherine led a dull, unhappy life, regretting the poor little home in Bedale, sadder and wiser lost pleasures, and dreaming over joys and than when she left them. excitements which were now out of reach. Greatly did Catherine Harrison need help to After a time, to her great joy, an invitation came show her how to make the best of her surround- to her to visit her mother's relatives, on whose ings, and how to find worthy objects for her help she had always been taught to place so energy. Exactly this kind of help awaited her much dependence. Filled with great expecta- in the next visit she was asked to pay. One tions, she set forth on her journey to Nostel, a day, a letter came from her old friend Mrs. country seat in Yorkshire, where her host and Lindsey, whom Catherine had known and loved hostess lived, and where her brother was to as Archdeacon Blackburne's step-daughter at meet her. ' Surely, if happiness is to be found, Richmond, and this letter contained an invita- it may be expected here,' thought Catherine ; tion to her old home, the vicarage at Catterick, but week after week of her visit passed away, which she had left two years before. Catherine and her dreams faded one by one. She not was delighted with the prospect of seeing her only saw that no help wa3 to be expected from old friend again, and on the appointed day she her relatives' position and wealth, but foolish mounted the horse that, according to the fashion and frivolous though she was, she shrank from of the times, was to carry her and her saddle- the evil-doing that went on in her cousin's bags over the few miles of country road that lay household. There was no effort at Nostel after between Bedale and her destination. anything true and noble in life and character. In due time came the first sight of the Low motives and poor ideals were uppermost, ancient steeple ; soon she was riding along the failings and weak points in each individual were road among the Catterick houses, and shortly encouraged. Her brother was tempted into afterwards she dismounted at the low wall of the intemperate habits, and his weak nature fell vicarage garden, and all the well-known trees of easily into the snare. Catherine hastily took the shrubbery and the flowerbeds on the lawn her departure and went back t'8 her mother and lay before her. THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. QUESTIONINGS.

Catherine knew nothing of the husband of gained the thought of pthe responsibility of her friend. Such a man as Theophilus Lindsey every human being for the time and talents it had probably never been her fortune to meet granted to him. When she saw how the before, and the home life she now entered upon smallest chance of usefulness was seized upon, opened a new world of ideas to her. The and how a little seed sown by the hands of this simple daily round of duties, the work for other wise husband and wife brought forth a great people that began early in the morning and harvest of good, she began to think more hope- never seemed to end all day, and the motives fully of her own home life and its possibilities. for which all was done were a revelation of By and by, as will be told hereafter, the narrow something undreamed of before to Catherine. back streets and shabby little houses of Bedale Neglected village children were taught so felt the influence that Theophilus Lindsey and patiently, sick people were visited and nursed, his wife had exercised over Catherine Harrison. kindly, cheering words were always ready for Sometimes, as he went about his work in this those who were in trouble. There was never busy, useful life at Catterick, the Vicar asked any question of what was most pleasant to himself, was it a dreary dream that had visited do, or of what other people would say, only of him years ago at Piddletown. Where had the what was right, and what was the next thing that fear gone that he must leave his work in the ought to be done. Yet all was purest happiness. church, because of the doubts he could not It was plain that the Vicar and his wife had solve ? Sometimes he and his wife used to learned to love their life at Catterick, and that walk together in the meadows and refresh them- Theophilus Lindsey hoped to end his days as selves with the sound of the rushing river and the hard-working vicar of the parish. Every the sight of the wild flowers on its banks, and day Catherine learned some fresh lesson from thank God for the hard work which seemed to her friends. She told then1 of her sad experi- make their lives so glad. Sometimes they went ences at Nostel, and from Mr. Lindsey's to Richmond to the Archdeacon's house, and comments, for the first time dn her life, she the welcome they received there was always a D THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. hearty one. Probably the Archdeacon spoke more of parish interests with his visitor than of difficulties concerning the doctrines of the Trinity or any matters of belief, for he would rather lull to sleep the doubts and speculations CHAPTER 111. of an inquiring mind than lose a hard worker and a good pastor out of the Established JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. Church. WHILEyoung Lindsey in his boyhood was still studying in the Leeds grammar school, a boy named Joseph Priestley, destined to be his friend in later years, was beginning life at Field- head, a hamlet of half-;-dozen houses, lying a few miles away from the busy Yorkshire town. His home was a little house of three rooms, strongly built of stone, and roofed with flags, with a few wind-blown trees about it, standing close to the hilly road which ran across the moors to Leeds. His father was a maker and dresser of cloth,-his mother's girlhood had been spent among farming people. Both parents came of hard-working, honest stock, added to this they were Nonconformists and their memories reached back to the dreary days before the Act of Toleration was passed, while life for the elders living in their child- THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. hood had been filled with care and danger. land insects. While he was still only a little lad They called themselves Independents, and his mother died. Then his aunt, Mrs. Keighley, gloried in the creed which their fathers had a kind-hearted, well-to-do woman, took pity on endured many struggles to uphold. So this the motherless, old-fashioned child and adopted little lad, Joseph Priestley, was taught the him as her son. Westminster catechism, and he learned from After this, wider interests began to open it that all men had fallen under a curse because before young Priestley. He was sent to school of Adam's sin, and were enemies to God from and there he worked so diligently that Latin, their birth. He was taught that Christ's Greek, and Hebrew studies soon became a atoning sacrifice upon the cross would only pleasure to him. His aunt, observing his save a chosen few from this curse-those who thoughtful character and love of reading, said were converted and believed this creed with to him ' Joseph, you must be a minister,' and so their whole heart and soul. A dreary lesson to the course of his future life was settled. teach a little child who should have had happy, Mrs. Keighley held the same creed as her loving thoughts of a tender Father and a cloth-making brother who lived in the old moor- heavenly home. land cottage at Fieldhead, but she was broad- While the older members of the family spent minded enough to value people who were good the busy day in cloth-making and household and honest even if they did not hold all the work, Joseph acted as guardian to the little items of her own narrow belief. So, in his flock of younger brothers and sisters. Picture Aunt's house, Joseph used to see men who were him, a delicate boy with stammering speech, not quite free from heresy, and to listen to their watching the antics of the merry children on the talk as they spoke of certain milder doctrines the breezy common, thoughtful beyond his which they ventured to hope gave purer and years when he should have been light-hearted tenderer thoughts of God and His dealings and full of play, and finding his greatest towards men than did the creed held by the pleasure in the study of the habits of the moor- Calvinists. THEOPH ILUS LINDSEY. JOSEPH PRIESTLEY.

Perhaps it was for that reason that Joseph Spanish merchant's office ; preparations for the began, while still a boy, to doubt whether men voyage were begun, when his health showed were really doomed to everlasting wrath, and signs of improvement, and the decision was for cast away from God because of Adam's sin. a time postponed. So, it came to pass, when he wanted to be made In Mrs. Keighley's quiet, well-ordered house- a member of the congregation to which his aunt hold the days passed with little variety. The belonged, the Elders of the little meeting-house chapel and the various meetings connected with refused to admit him to their communion, it formed a large part of the interests of the because he could not honestly say that he firmly little family. Sundays were almost as strictly believed in all the doctrines they held. kept as the Sabbath had been among the Jews No wonder that the boy who was only in ancient days ; no unnecessary work was done, beginning to grope after religious life went even a walk in the pleasant sunshine was through great conflicts in those days. It was discouraged, and the lagging hours were spent no easy matter to dare to differ from the wise either in silent reading and meditation, or in Elders who were held in such respect, and it class and worship. Life in general went on needed courage to question the beliefs he had .-- within very narrow limits ; the love of beauty l been brought dp to hold. Sometimes he was and art found no congenial soil in this Puritan seized with terror lest, after all, he should be household, and Joseph was taught to look upon among the God-forsaken of whom he heard so plays and romances with aversion. much, and he longed for some sign to prove to Time passed, and after he left school he himself that his conversion had truly taken read by himself for a couple of years, studied place. Troubled in mind, he began to suffer a ,geometry, algebra, and mathematics with the also in body,-was declared consumptive, and for dissenting minister who lived in the neighbour- a time the plans for his future were changed. hood, and taught Hebrew to a local preacher of All idea of his being a minister was abandoned ; no education, who was glad to learn from Mrs. arrangements were made for,a clerkship in a Keighley's studious nephew. Then the ques- THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. tion arose where should he go for the further large party among them held firmly to the studies which were to fit him for the ministry. Westminster confession and the creeds which For Theophilus Lindsey this question had been Joseph Priestley had been taught in his early easily settled, but Cambridge would not open days; they framed various trust-deeds for their her doors to a dissenter. However, the Noncon- chapels to enforce the same beliefs on future formists had academies of their own in various generations who should meet to worship there parts of England, and the choice by and by was when they had passed away, and they required made of one in Daventry, a Northamptonshire a confession of faith from every minister and town. Doubtless the Elders of his aunt's member of their congregations. chapel had had a word to say about this matter, On the other hand, there were many thought- and for the following reason. ful men among the Nonconformists, who It will be remembered that when the days of questioned the wisdom of this requirement, who persecution were ended by the passing of the desired to give liberty to all to read and interpret Act of Toleration, the Dissenters had joined the Bible teachings as they chose, and to form together to build chapels which should take the their belief accordingly, who wished to pass down place of the hiding-places in town and country no narrow trust-deed to the future owners of where they had so long met to worship in fear their chapels, and were trying to think out for and trembling. For some years harmony themselves thoughts about God and Christ and endured, but when the danger of a common foe the future destiny of men such as they could was over, these dissentients from the Established hold with a wise mind and a loving heart. Church had began to differ again among them- Independents and Presbyterians were the names selves. In a few words it is enough to say that these two great divisions of the Nonconformists varieties of opinion such as Joseph Priestley had were known by, and though there were other met with in the Elders and the heretics who sects besides these, they do not enter into the visited at his aunt's house were to be found story of Joseph Priestley and need not be men- among the Nonconformists all over England. A tioned here. b THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. JOSEPH PRIESTLEY.

A little contest arose before the choice of think for themselves and to search after truth Joseph's academy was finally settled. His with reverent minds. Young Priestley found Aunt, who would have sent him to London to himself more and more inclined to differ from an academy where her own opinions were the theology taught to him in his childhood. taught, had to give way to Joseph's more liberal Slowly he was growing into a higher and happier friends who made choice of Daventry. Then, faith, and all the time he kept in view his future one day, he said good-bye to the little world calling and only one trouble drew a cloud over where his youth had been spent and set out on the sunshine of those years at Daventry. his journey to Northamptonshire. Daventry How could he ever make an eloquent preacher was a busy town even in those days, and and draw crowds to listen to all he longed to picturesquely situated, lying among wooded say when he could only speak with a stammering hills. In these new scenes Joseph Priestley tongue? In vain he tried various modes of found the little seat of learning which was to be cure. There were the thoughts within him his home for the next three years. ready to be uttered, the good tidings to tell, yet He entered on a happy life, made friendships the words only came forth so slowly! The among his fellow-students which grew firmer ir poor youth thought he knew the meaning of the succeeding years, and marvelled at the free words ' a thorn in the flesh.' When the time thought and open discussions which were came for him to leave college, he was thankful, permitted among them. For in this unpre- on account of this impediment in his speech, to tending academy, hidden away among the accept an invitation to a little chapel at Northamptonshire hills, were to be found the Needham Market, in Suffolk, and to begin his varieties of creed which obtained among the ministry there to a small congregation. differing Nonconformists in England. The two The arrival of a new preacher in a quiet tutors who were at the head of the academy country-town made a sensation among the encouraged free discussion on all subjects inhabitants. For six months many. people among their students, led them to read and came to hear what he had to say. He gathered THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. the children together in classes, he lectured to creed. To his other burdens was now added, the grown-up people, and kept back nothing of the anxious search for a means of living. It the new light that had altered his religious was a lonely time for a youth with life's work creed. The elders of the chapel in his opening before him-despised and neglected Yorkshire home would have missed in his by his fellow-men, so poor as sometimes preaching a great deal that they used to think to doubt where he should find food and needful to salvation ; and when it was found clothing and harassed by the impediment in that no mention of the doctrine of the Trinity his speech which hindered his usefulness. Yet nor of the dreadful doom for men, nor the Joseph Priestley was not unhappy at Needham. ' scheme of salvation ' for a few chosen ones He was doing his best, though his sphere of was heard from his pulpit his hearers shook work might be small. Thanks to a good Quaker their heads, and declared him ' unsound.' By living near him, he had no lack of books-he and by as the Sundays came round, he began had time to study, and in his solitude he wrote to look down upon empty benches and to miss pamphlets on religious subjects which were sadly the faces that had greeted him at first. afterwards published, and he found hope and Partly because of his heresy, partly on courage in the thought that his own views were account of his stammering speech, young growing clearer every day, and that he was Priestley was not invited to preach in the pressing forward in his search after the truth. neighbouring chapels-ministers were wanted Meanwhile, Mrs. Keighley could not follow here and there; but few people asked his help. In 13er nephew in his change of creed. It troubled a while the promised stipend failed. This young her that he should throw off so completely all minister, who so much loved freedom of thought, connection with the Independent body to which would not accept the sum of money hitherto his relatives belonged, and she made it plain to granted for the support of the chapel from a him that for the future he must rely on his own fund held by the Independents, for such a grant efforts : she had given him an education and would require the maintenance of a special her money was needed elsewhere. It was quite .B THEOPHIL,US LINDSEY. TOSEPH PRIESTLEY. evident to him that he must depend upon and in time he determined to add to the himself : so his story tells how, step by step, usefulness of his life there by opening a school. he faithfully followed wherever duty seemed to It should be the very best school possible, on lead, and the hard lessons he learned in his that he was determined. He had no inclination uphill path formed for him a noble character in for the work to which he was partly driven by the end. poverty, as well as by the wish to be of use : Now it happened that a few poor industrious but as is always the case when a man throws and thoughtful men were members of a small his heart into what he is about, teaching became congregation at Nantwich, in Cheshire, and a great enjoyment to him and soon his school they sent an invitation to this liberal-minded promised to succeed. Then out of this step young minister at Needham to become their so wisely taken, there came before long a new teacher. The proposal came at the right time : chance in life to Joseph Priestley. For the news fortune was at a very low ebb with Joseph of his success as a schoolmaster spread beyond Priestley-sometimes he thought starvation the little town of Nantwich, and in 1761 he was threatened him : he had tried lecturing and had invited to Warrington to take the post of proposed lessons on very low terms in classics teacher of languages in an academy recently and mathematics-but pupils did not present established there. Here, surely, he would be themselves, for his heresy had given him a bad able to reap the harvest of all his industry in reputation. He gladly accepted the new youth, when hour after hour, with small help invitation to Nantwich ; and there, in the tiny and no encouragement but the love of learning Presbyterian chapel, built in an obscure part of for its own sake, he had laid the foundation, the town, he gave his best thoughts every while still living with his aunt in Yorkshire, for Sunday to the handful of hard-working men the knowledge of languages which he now who came thankfully to listen to him on their possessed. Few men were so well fitted for this one day of rest. post now offered to him at Warrington. Besides In Nantwich, he was not shunned as a heretic, D this, the experiences he had passed through JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. made him able to be a wise helper of young Priestley had been studying chemistry and students, to encourage them to think for electricity, and slowly and laboriously, self- themselves, to trust the workings of their own taught, he had been making experiments in the minds, but to think reverently and with great leisure he could save from his busy life, humility, remembering how vast a universe lay contenting himself with the simplest home- Franklin, fifty years before, round them and how little they could hope made instruments. He even to guess about had been a printer's errand boy in Boston. Another reason tempted Joseph Priestley to knew well the help of a friendly hand and accept the invitation. Liberal Presbyterians encouraging word, and when he became had founded this academy and they sought to acquainted with Joseph Priestley and saw how provide broad religious training for young men he was earnestly striving hard to gain knowledge, who were to be their future ministers, and who he willingly gave both his sympathy and help. were excluded by reason of their dissent Dr. Franklin encouraged him to persevere and from the University learning of Oxford and to write a history of the discoveries made in Cambridge. So for all these reasons Priestley electricity, and while still at Warrington, went to W3rrington Academy, an unpretending Priestley's successful labours were rewarded by little college in those days, but destined to be the title of Doctor of Laws conferred upon him very famous in the history of the Nonconformist by the University of Edinburgh. body. Time passed and there was a longing in Dr. One of the great events of his life happened Priestley, stronger even than his growing love of science, and this great desire grew and grew during his abode in Warrington. He went to London to spend a holiday and there met the and made itself felt through all the interests of celebrated Benjamin Franklin who, by that his busy life. Far away among the memories time had made his great discovery as to the of the past lay the narrow Calvinistic creed nature of lightning and was one of the most which he had been taught to believe when a famous electricians in the world..* Now Joseph child. Gradually, step by step, as in every P THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. JOSEPH PRIESTLEY.

other progress in his life, he had been growing for his own deeds; and that forgiveness was freely into a nobler faith, and now he longed eagerly granted to every penitent soul who tried to to tell his fellow,men the religious creed to follow the loving example of Jesus Christ-in which he had attained. In the year I 767 came this way the Saviour of men in very deed. No the chance to do so. wonder that a preacher who believed these He had been six years at Warrington, when tenets, so seldom held in those days, should be a great Presbyterian Congregation worshipping willing if need be to put his much-loved in Mill Hill Chapel, Leeds, wanted a minister, scientific studies on one side, and if need be to and invited Dr. Priestley to take the post. At suffer persecution for their sake. one time, the impediment in his speech might So the Presbyterian congregation worshipping have stood in his way, but very wisely for some at Mill Hill, Leeds, had Dr. Priestley as its years past he had persevered in reading aloud leader, and he preached his liberal theology to for some time each day slowly word by ready listeners. Just across the hills along the word, and this wearisome effort had, to some winding moorland road lay Fieldhead and the extent, lessened his stammering. At all little stone cottage where his childhood had events, his hearers ceased to remember that his been spent. Not far away stood the chapel words came less fluently than did those of other where the good elders had refused him member- preachers, when they found the doctrines that ship when a boy and the home where his aunt's he preached so helpful to their lives. Was it kindness had given him an education. Tender not a wonderful change for them, instead of the memories were all of them and sacred too doctrine of the Trinity, to be told of one God the were all the experiences of the uphill path he had Heavenly Father; instead of the curse laid on trodden since those days. Step by step he had fallen man for Adam's sin, to be told that aN been led out of difficulty: if greater perils were men were the children of God ; instead of the still to come surely he had gained confidence atonement offered by Christ upon the cross for and trust enough to face them bravely. human sin, to hear that each one must account .OS THE PARTING OF THE WAYS.

of Bedale on Sunday. There were no Sunday schools then, and the little ones might get into mischief and spend the long day as they chose. Catherine called to mind how she had seen the CHAPTER IV. boys and girls of Catterick gather round Mr. Lindsey on a Sunday afternoon, to listen with THE PARTING OF THE WAYS. eager interest to the lessons he taught them in the intervals between the church services. She WHENCatherine Harrison returned to Bedale would do the same kind of work in Bedale, after her visit to Mr. and Mrs. Lindsey at though it must be on a very much smaller scale. Catterick, the whole aspect of the place seemed It was true that the only room in which she changed to her. She lived in the same shabby could call her scholars together was the tiny little house as before, and the commonplace back kitchen in her mother's house, and there market town, with its dull, narrow streets, was was space in it for only three or four children at unaltered; but a new light shone over every- a time. But where there's a will there's a way. thing. For her friends had given her higher new spirit had entered into Catherine aims and new objects in life, and now her one A Harrison, and she gathered the little ones in inspiring thought was to find some ways by from the streets,-one class succeeding another which she could make the corner of the world during the afternoon, and Sundays lost their she lived in better and happier for her presence there. She had brought home with her a store dreariness to both teacher and pupils. But so unusual a deed was soon discussed of books to read ; but better still she had brought a wish to be of use. So she asked by the idle people in that little country town. herself, ' What can I do to help other people ? ' Catherine was said to be a very singular young and she soon found an answer to her question. woman. No doubt she was well-meaning ; but Idle, untaught children ran about the streets she was quixotic and ridiculous,-a person to be 4 avoided, and the young people of Bedale ceased THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. THE PARTING OF THE WAYS.

to associate with her. Not a very long time In course of time, however, he fell ill. An had elapsed since this treatment would have attack of rheumatic fever confined him to his made her very unhappy. Now, she ceased to room ; his active life for the time was at an ask or to care what other people said or end, and from being a worker he became again thought about her actions, if she were trying to a student and a thinker. In the silence of his do right. So the Sunday classes went on week chamber the old difficulties and doubts, that after week. She learned to know the parents had ceased to assert themselves as he went of her scholars. They welcomed her to their about his active parish work, pressed again into poor homes, and she found many ways of his mind and would not be silenced. ' What helping them, and learned many lessons from right have I,' he asked himself, ' Sunday after them in return. She could no longer say that Sunday, to make use of words in the Church there was nothing useful or profitable to be service that I do not believe are true ? ' ' Is it done in her dull life. Happily, Catherine was possible,' so he asked himself, 'to worship the only seven miles away from Catterick. The Father in spirit and in truth, when I say one short distance was soon accomplished, and she thing and mean another, when, for instance, I was often invited for a few days to the Vicarage, believe in one God the Father, but use the whence she never failed to carry home with printed words that plainly speak of the Trinity, her a fresh stock of hope and courage. of three Gods in one? ' No man ought to du Meanwhile Theophilus Lindsey and his wife evil even though it may seem to lead to good were becoming every year more attached to results; and a voice within seemed to say to their people and their work. The wants of his him that all his good work among his people parishioners left the Vicar little time for medita- could not atone for any want of honesty in tion. He was constantly at work for them. words. His thoughts went back to the day No wonder that in return they loved him when he had promised ' to conform to the heartily. He wished for nothing better than to liturgy of the Church of England as it is now spend his days in their service. by law established.' Was he faithful to his THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. THE PARTING OF THE WAYS. promise when he said the phrases of the liturgy the people he loved; on the other, the loss of with his lips, but gave another meaning to them all these treasures, the pain of breaking from in his heart? One after another the arguments the ties which had always bound him to the used by the Archdeacon and the other wise Church of England, the anger and derision of Churchmen whom he had consulted when he his friends, and the agony of bringing this lived at Piddletown, rose up before him ; but sorrow also on his wife. Yet the true-hearted they seemed no longer to give ease to his couple faced this trouble bravely, and they conscience, and at length he sadly told his wife agreed together to do their duty whatever it of the great trouble that oppressed him. With might cost them. But as one chance still the quick insight of a good, loving woman remained whereby it might be possible even for Mrs. Lindsey entered into her husband's Theophilus Lindsey, with his changed views, to thoughts. She encouraged him to make any remain in the Church of England, they resolved sacrifice for the sake of honesty. She was to say nothing at present of their intentions to ready to leave their happy home and go with the Archdeacon or their other friends, but to him, if need be, into solitude and poverty ; and wait and hold themselves in readiness to act no fear of the hardships that must befal them, when the time came. if he were to resign his benefice, influenced her While Mr. and Mrs. Lindsey were in this thoughts. uncertainty about their future, an invitation The Vicar of Catterick stood at the parting came to them to spend a few days at Arch- of the ways. Before him, on one side, lay the deacon Blackburne's home at Richmond. They narrow path of self-sacrifice for righteousness' were to meet there Dr. Priestley, of Leeds, and sake; on the other, the broad path of assured his friend the Rev. William Turner, of Wake- ease and comfort, with the honour of his fellow- field, both Nonconformist ministers, and well- men. Think of the choice which lay before known men. The Archdeacon was a liberal- him ! On the one side, his deab old church and minded man. Though a Churchman, he found home, his interest and work and livelihood, and pleasure in associating with the thoughtful g- - - . ". THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. b THE PARTING OF THE WAYS. 59 Dissenters of the time, and had lately made : Independents, in whose boundaries Dr. Priest- himself known to them by writing a book which ley's youth had been spent, in granting to their he had called ' The Confessional,' in which he . .ministers greater freedom of belief and speech. upheld liberty of belief for every man, and :-Dr. Priestley had only, therefore, to pass over protested against the law which required sub- from one sect to the other to gain comparative scription from the clergy to the liturgy and liberty to preach according to the dictates of articles of the Church of England. his conscience, if he could find a congregation So it came about that during the summer of that would give him a hearing ; whereas Mr. I 769, Theophilus Lindsey met Joseph Priestley, = Lindsey could find no refuge in the Established at Richmond, for the first time, and such a Church free from the subscription which had friendship sprang up between the two men, who, bound him to hold the orthodox faith. For unknown to each other, had been following out this reason it came to pass that Dr. Priestley, somewhat of the same line of religious thought, falling back on his own experience, gave this that the anxious vicar opened his heart to the advice to his troubled friend, ' Make what heretical dissenting minister, and told him about changes you wish in the liturgy of your Church, the trouble he was in. Deep in talk they and leave it to your superiors to dismiss you if wandered up and down the sunny garden paths, they will ; ' and, by reason of this difference in and Dr. Priestley listened to his new friend's the two cases, the advice was not suited to the talk, and as he listened his respect and admira- Vicar of Catterick's position. tion grew apace. But though he had broken The little visit to Richmond came to an end, away from the narrow bondage of his early and the Vicar and his wife went home ta creed, the experiences through which he had Catterick. There they talked over the new coun- passed had been different from those which sel Dr. Priestley had given ; but the more he Theophilus Lindsey was then meeting. For, thought about it the more certain did Theo- among the Nonconformists, the Presbyterians, philus Lindsey become that if matters remained as has been already said, dmered from the as they were he must give up his benefice, if he THE PARTING OF THE WAYS. THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. change that might if all went well release him wished to retain peace of mind and a pure from his perplexities. For the freer religious conscience. thought beginning to dawn again among the More than a hundred years behind us lie the Nonconformists, and showing itself among a days of which this story tells,-days when the few liberal Churchmen, as in Archdeacon's comforts of life were much fewer than they are Blackburne's book, ' The Confessional.' was now ; when clumsy stage-coaches carried rousing certain men to see the need of greater travellers where railways now run ; when freedom for the clergy. A plan was on foot to belated foot-passengers went at risk of their petition Parliament for relief in the matter of lives along the dimly-lighted streets of towns ; subscription, so that it might become lawful for and there were few links to bind even the a clergyman to declare his assent to the suffi- members of the same nation together. More ciency of the Holy Scriptures, instead of being marked still than the progress in material compelled to sign his belief of the Articles and comforts, as we look back a hundred years, is the Book of Common Prayer. the contrast to be found in the state of opinion With all his heart, Theophilus Lindsey wished prevailing in those days and in our own time. success to this scheme. With joy he heard Then, the nation at large was only beginning that a number of earnest-minded men had met to awaken out of the slumber which had fallen together in London to consult as to ways and upon it as regards theological interests, after means, and had established a band of workers William the Third's Act of Toleration was in the cause, under the title of the ' Feathers' passed. It was not then as now a matter of Tavern Association.' Their plans were formed ; every-day occurrence for a man to think for they had framed a petition to Parliament ; but himself on all points, and even to formulate a the hardest work still remained to be done. new creed if he chose, unchallenged by the Signatures must be gained to their petition, and rebukes of his fellow-men who share an equal few men were willing to travel through the liberty. Yet even then, Theophilus Lindsey, winter's snow over bleak moors and dangerous looking into the future, ~ould,~seesigns of roads on such an errand. THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. THE PARTING OF THE WAYS.

When Theophilus Lindsey heard what was Catterick, and the poor people learned to value wanted, he was ready to be the messenger. their Vicar and his wife more highly than ever before. Small-pox broke out, and spread Through biting winds and sweeping rain, over steep, rocky ways, by almost impassable paths quickly, especially among the children. Mr. he rode on his dangerous way two thousand and Mrs. Lindsey were constantly at work, administering medicine, nursing the sick, and miles through Yorkshire, and wherever there was a chance of gaining a signature to the comforting the dying. At their own cost, they petition he carried with him, he stopped and provided for the inoculation of those who were made his eager request. But, alas ! too many not yet attacked; and in their ceaseless work easy-going men saw no need of any change in for others they forgot their own anxieties for a time. the law ; others gave their good wishes ; but Before the epidemic was at an end, February when the question came whether 'they would add their names to the paper put before them came, and with it, Mr. Lindsey had to take his for their signature, the timid souls drew back, departure for London. His brave wife cheered fearing the consequences to themselves of such his failing courage. When he hesitated to an act. At many a dwelling, the weary leave her alone amid such peril and anxiety, her traveller, who sadly needed rest and sympathy, hopeful words consoled him as he parted from met with only abuse for daring to rouse a spirit her and went on his solitary journey southwards. of heresy and awaken new conflicts in the The 6th of February, 1772, was a memorable Church. In the end, the petition, with two day, for on that day the petition which had cost hundred and fifty names appended, lay awaiting so much labour was presented to the House of presentation to the House, and Theophilus Commons by Sir William Meredith, member Lindsey made preparations to travel in February for Liverpool. Theophilus Lindsey sat among to London, that he might be in Parliament the clergy, who were admitted to hear the when the debate on the subject took place. debate, and for eight hours he listened to the That winter there was %eat trouble in speakers who supported or condemned the THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. THE PARTING OF THE WAYS. cause he had at heart. How much those men another twelve months might bring forth. He had yet to learn who believed that the peace must be true to his convictions and help on the and safety of the Church of God depended on cause of religious liberty by his own example. the security of the Articles and creeds which Next day he began his homeward journey, but human councils, so prone to error, had drawn before he left London he thought of the sick children in his dear, old Catterick parish, and up. Thus the Vicar of Catterick thought and thanked God for the steadfast, simple faith turning from the great anxiety which, for many which lay behind them all, and which he knew other men, would have overpowered all trifling no honest doubt of all these could ever shake. matters, he paid a visit to the Tower, and The early dusk fell over London, the House was carried home with him some new, shining half- lighted, hour after hour passed, and still the pence to console the little ones recovering from debate went on. At last came the division, and the small-pox in their weariness and pain. the eager waiting for the result. Seventy-one had voted in favour of the petition,-two hundred and seventeen against it. The House rose, and with it the little company of clergy- men who had gathered for that night in London from many distant parts of England. As they interchanged their parting words beneath the midnight sky, the greater number of them, not- withstanding the defeat, were full of hope for the future. ' We will try again next year,' they said to each other, ' the right must surely win.' But Theophilus Lindsey, who knew how much he had at stake, turned sadly away, and felt that for him there was no wajting for what FAREWELL TO CATTERICK.

Trinity, an offence punishable by law, was a very different matter from a similar act by a Nonconformist minister like Dr. Priestley. Ifi Dr. Priestley's case, it might pass almost unnoticed beyond the circle of his immediate CHAPTER V. acquaintances, for the law had lately been FAREWELL TO CATTERICK. practically a dead letter: but he, a priest of the State Church, would draw all men's eyes upon THEwarm Spring sunshine was bringing out himself. So he began to write his ' Apology,' the young, green leaves in the Vicarage garden and again and again when about his task, in his at Catterick, before the small-pox epidemic had silent study, his heart used to sink within him disappeared from the parish. Then the Vicar at the prospect of the trouble he was bringing was at liberty to prepare for the great change on his wife : the homeless life, the poverty, the in his life which he had resolved to make. broken friendships, the loss of all the old And his first care was to make plain the reasons associations which were so dear to them both. for the step he was about to take. No one And yet, how grand was the cause in which must suppose that he was idly or carelessly they were to suffer! With this thought he giving up the work to which so many years would take fresh courage and thank God who before he had solemnly vowed to dedicate his had led him, as he believed, back from the life. He must prepare some written explanation creeds invented by men to the simple Christianity which the public at large could read, some plain of the New Testament gospels. statement of the change of view which led him Time had been passing quickly with to sever himself from the Established Church. Theophilus Lindsey. It was not easy to For this act could not remain unnoticed by believe that more than ten years had gone by his fellow-men. He knew well that for a since he had declined the Duke of Northumber- clergyman to renounce the doctrine of the land's offer of promotion in the Church for the THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. FAREWELL TO CATTERICK.

sake of remaining a hard-working Vicar in a ments of the grand Castle full in view. The country parish. Such was the case, however, Duke received the tired traveller hospitably and still after this long lapse of time, his noble and no kindness that could be shown to him friend and patron bore in mind the conscientious was wanting. Very soon he made it plain to clergyman who loved his work so well. So his visitor that honourable posts in the Church it happened, that just at this period when Mr. were still waiting his acceptance if he were Lindsey was engaged in writing his ' apology ' ready to take them. And this opened the way

* and preparing to take the new step that for Mr. Lindsey to give the account of his ' conscience commanded, a letter came from the change of views. The Duke and Duchess Duke inviting the Vicar to visit him at his seat listened with surprise. They could not under- in Northumberland. Perhaps it was a wish for stand how for a few ' trifling scruples ' he could sympathy, perhaps a feeling of gratitude that banish himself from home and position and led Theophilus Lindsey to lay down his pen and friends. In fact, it is said that ' his words set forth on a short visit to Alnwick Castle. seemed to them as idle tales ' and it never Perhaps, almost unknown to himself, the trouble entered the thoughts of the noble owner of about his wife's future partly led him there : Alnwick Castle that he could be of any use to and he, who cared nothing about the prospect him in such an emergency. of poverty for himself had a faint hope that His visit ended, and Theophilus Lindsey rode some new mode of making a livelihood might back again on his long journey to Catterick. be suggested by the powerful Duke when the One door of hope was closed, but though the story of his trouble was made known. future seemed dark, the duty of the immediate It was a wearisome journey through the wild present was still clear, and he wasted no time Northumberland country ; and when at last he in vain regrets. Soon afterwards, another crossed the bridge over the river Aln and important event happened. The Vicar of began to ascend the steep hill-side it was a Catterick was invited to preach the Assize cheerful prospect to see the towers and battle- sermons at York. A large congregation THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. FAPEWELI, TO CATTERICK. gathered together in the Minster, and he spoke a hard-working parish clergyman and had to them of the late petition to Parliament and learned to know the doubts and difficulties of touched all hearts by his solemn words on the ordinary hard-working men and women. His real test of membership in the Church of God. friend, the Rev. W. Mason, had lived under the Surely, he thought, as he looked round on the shadow of the venerable Church ; he had taken great assembly, there must be many souls here the truth of all her dogmas for granted and had who have learned like myself to turn back to never gone below the surface in the easy social the simple words of Christ about the Father in intercourse which he enjoyed in the drowsy Heaven-men and women who can find no rest Cathedral town. Mr. Lindsey's deep religious in the doctrines of the Trinity and the questionings seemed to this man the foolish Atonement which the Church enjoins, and who scruples of a visionary. It was his belief that need a reformed place of worship where mere forms of words could injure no one, and he Christians of all denominations who love God bade his scrupulous friend think of his wife and and their fellow-men and try to follow Christ's all the troubles he was bringing upon her. example, may find a religious home. What- There was no need to remind the tender- ever might be the risk, that was the work hearted husband of this prospect ; but the that lay before him, to establish such a warning of his old companion brought it more reformed Church and religious home. Yet only clearly than ever before him: it weighed upon to one person in York did he say anything of him through all his homeward journey, and the burden on his mind. This person was an a weary-hearted man he went back to finish old College friend, in residence at the Cathedral, his ' Apology.' a man who had been his companion in his Then came the time when he must send in youthful days, when full of fresh enthusiasm he his resignation to his Bishop. This brought had taken orders in the Church. Since then, forth a friendly letter in reply with an urgent the two men had gone very different ways in request that he would reconsider his decision life. Theophilus Lindsey, as we know, had been and if possible remain in the Church and hope THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. FAREWELL TO CATTERICK. for a return to his former views. It was useless of duty for its own sake, and high principles were advice to Theophilus Lindsey, who only now her guides to action. She walked alone wondered more every day why he had not in paths where formerly she would have shrunk given up his living a dozen years before. from following those who led. Now she could The hardest trouble of all had to be met encourage her former teachers. Mr. and Mrs. when he could no longer delay, but must break Lindsey heard no words of regret from her the painful news to the Archdeacon and his for the loss she would feel when they left family at Richmond. Mrs. Blackburne's grief Catterick, nor did she sadden them by any was acute. The close intercourse with her gloomy forebodings. She was proud of their daughter must be severed by the removal from courage and their faithfulness to conscience, Catterick ; not only so, there was no prospect and had resolved to declare herself also a that the breach between the Archdeacon and Unitarian and to accept all the inconveniences his son-in-law would be healed. So troubles and troubles that must follow such a deed. multiplied. As the news became known, other Many kind letters came to the Vicar and his friends turned coldly from the Vicar. He wife at this time from Mr. Turner at Wakefield. received letters of remonstrance and condemna- He was a minister of great influence among tion. Pity was showered upon his wife, and the Liberal Dissenters in the North of England, some of her old friends even ventured to ask and he offered to recommend Mr. Lindsey to her to leave her husband to his fallen fortunes the pulpit of the Octagon Chapel, in Liverpool, and seek a refuge with them. which was then unoccupied. This gave pro-

Meanwhile Catherine Harrison's visits from mise , of a livelihood, but it did not fall in Bedale went on at intervals, and it came to pass with Mr. Lindsey's views, who wrote thus in that both husband and wife began to find a reply :-' With regard to what you kindly valued friend in the young girl whose society suggest, I believe it will be best to wait and they had at first sought out of pity. For her not lay out for anything of this kind at present* character was strengthening; she felt a love My reason is that my design is to try to THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. FAREWELL TO CATTERICK. gather a Church of Unitarian Christians out by God ; and, while superstitious and timid of the Established Church, and when I go to men would forbid the labours of reverent town, which will be in the beginning of the winter, searchers after truth, he was always the fearless I shall do all I can to forward it. My duty defender of freedom in thought and speech. is to lead, those who are in the darkness I So he met with opponents who raised a fierce was brought up in, to worship the One True outcry against his daring, and all was not God, and not to attach myself to those who smooth sailing for the liberal minister of Mill are already free from darkness. As to our Hill Chapel. future provision, now and , then I feel gloomy,, When he had first made his home in Leeds, but no doubt our own industry and the friends Dr. Priestley was gladly welcomed by his large, God raises up will furnish what is needful.' liberal-minded congregation, and a wide field And where was Dr. Priestley all this time? of useful work apparently lay open to him. He who had been the first to show sympathy He set on foot classes for the young people, to Theophilus Lindsey in his perplexities? wrote books on religious subjects for their use, Dr. Priestley was no longer a resident in and encouraged in them the free and reverent Yorkshire, and the story of his experiences spirit of inquiry which had been granted to since their meeting in the Archdeacon's garden him at Daventry in his own young days. at Richmond must now be told, and will show While at Leeds, too, he edited a magazine of that he also had had disappointments and liberal religious thought called the ' Theological trials to bear. For he held a creed that many Repository.' In its columns he published men in those days called blasphemous. 'More- sermons and doctrinal tracts and new and over, he was a believer in granting liberty of corrected versions of wrongly translated thought to everyone: he held that human texts, and in all this work his friend reason must be used in religious questions no . the Rev. William Turner of Wakefield less than in all other inquiries ; that like all took an active part. Nor did this complete our other faculties this reason & given to us the story of his well-filled time. Dr. Priestley, THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. FAREWELL TO CATTERICK. as has been said, was a reverent searcher joy of Dr. Priestley, a similar chance was after truth. In his view there should be no apparently within his grasp, and he knew well conflict between religion and science, and how to value the worth of such a means of true to his belief that all our powers are God education. Captain Cook was about to start given, he threw himself earnestly into the on a second voyage of discovery in the studies which Dr. Franklin had encouraged Southern seas, and the proposal was made to him to pursue, and made experiments in Priestley that he should sail with the expedition chemistry which resulted in important in the position of Naturalist. What an discoveries concerning the air we breathe. opening for the man who had led such a For this work he needed instruments, and struggling life and who had gained his scientific poverty compelled him to make his own. His training through hard and thorny paths ! He apparatus, in consequence, was of so simple was delighted with the prospect. Arrange- and novel a kind that to insure accuracy, he ments were made with his congregation-on had to repeat his experiments again and again. his side all was ready : but, after all, the Yet this delay was not without its advantages, appointment was given to someone else ; for for it made each step in his progress very objections were raised against Dr. Priestley's correct, and being obliged to follow new modes ' religious principles ' by certain men in whose of operation, he was led to make discoveries hands the choice lay. which he could not have reached if he had Just at this time, Lord Shelburne, a well- followed closely in the footsteps of other known literary man, was living in retirement scientific men. near Calne, in Wiltshire. He made an offer Probably many readers of this story know to Dr. Priestley of leisure to carry out his how the famous Charles Darwin gained inspira- chemical studies, a good salary, and a tion and skill for his future scientific work comfortable home in return for his literary from his cruise round the world in the govern- companionship, a few hours every day. Dr. ment brig ' Beagle.' One day, ato the great Priestley had now two boys growing up, and THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. FAREWELL TO CATTERICK. a delicate wife, and there was little prospect year 1774, Dr. Priestle~set forth with Lord at Leeds that he could give them the education Shelburne to make a foreign tour. In course of and comforts they required. That was a time, they visited Paris, then the centre of a strong argument in favour of accepting Lord brilliant circle of eminent men-philosophers Shelburne's invitation ; but a still stronger and scientific investigators-who were all ready remained. He saw that this offer gave him with great enthusiasm to welcome the English the chance 'to help Providence to knock stranger; for his fame as Fellow of the Royal imposture on the head.' By this strange Society, Doctor of Edinburgh University, and phrase he meant to convey the idea that to Gold Medallist of the Philosophical Society of overthrow superstition and ignorance by the England, had already reached them. Now these discovery of clear, definite, scientific facts, eminent French philosophers had turned their and by proving the certainty of the Laws of thoughts solely to the teachings of the senses Nature and the unchanging relation of cause and the outside world. An unseen universe and and effect, as he hoped in his new leisure to spiritual influences did not enter into their con- help to do, was to do God's work among men. sideratiod. For the most part they were So, for these reasons, he gladly accepted Lord professed Atheists, knew and cared nothing Shelburne's proposal, and seven years of about the Christian religion, and could not stndious work, spent for the most part during comprehend that anyone, who occupied himself the summers in retirement at Calne, followed. with the subject, could deserve the name of a Chemistry was in its infancy as yet ; by his philosopher. patient labour, he established important facts in Dr. Priestley was well aware of their opinions, the science, and made his most important and with so many scientific interests in common, discovery of oxygen, one summer's day, when it was natural that he should wish to stand high throwing the heat of the sun by means of a in the regard of these strangers, who were burning glass, on special chemical substances. among the foremost philosophers in Europe. It was quite a new experience..when in the Yet to the unfeigned astonishment, and at first THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. FAREWELL TO CATTERICK. even to the contempt of this brilliant society, away from his old bonds. The two men in he at once declared himself a believer in their different spheres had been really doing Christianity. " Who is this curiosity from the similar kinds of work. Both were teaching

English shores ? " the Frenchmen asked each that ' the old order changes, and God fulfils other. A scientific discoverer, and at the same himself in many ways.' Dr. Priestley, by time a religious man and a Christian minister ! means of physical science, was bearing witness Stranger still, these French sceptics discovered to the truth that there is no standing still in that, compared with this religious faith, all his God's universe, that He is ever working through honours and titles and the possible friendship of the changes and orderly progress we see around the learned, were as nothing to Dr. Priestley. us ; Theophilus Lindsey, to the truth that men's By degrees, they were impressed by his earnest- knowledge of God does not remain stationary, ness, probably, also, by the novel teaching of that the pld narrow creeds are outgrown in one who upheld the use of reason and liberty course of time and pass away, that while out- of thought in religious matters, and who asked ward forms perish the inward faith may grow men to believe in the simple words spoken by only more steadfast. Christ, and not in the creeds made by after At Catterick, as the weeks passed, the ages and disputing councils of the Church. Not courage of the Vicar and his wife grew apace. long after this visit to Paris, Dr. Priestley wrote In one of his letters towards the end of his and published some ' Letters to a Philosophical residence there, Mr. Lindsey says, ' Though at Unbeliever in Proof of God and Providence,' first I was hardly master of myself to do any- and we may suppose that he used in - them the thing properly, all such trials are now over. I arguments which had won a hearing from some have found great difficulty and opposition of the sceptics in Paris. already, and expect to find more. My greatest While these events had been taking place in comfort and support under God, is my wife,. Dr. Priestley's life, the Vicar of Catterick, as who is a Christian indeed, and worthy of a we have seen, had been preparigg to break better fate in all worldly things than we can G THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. FAREWELL TO CATTERICK.

have a prospect of. For we leave a station of like a cheering message out of the far-away .ease and abundance, attended with many other past, like a voice from one of the brave men of agreeable circumstances. Thanks be to God, old, whose example he had dwelt upon so often we have not given way to ease and indulgence, in his trouble, that sometimes their silent forms and can be content with little.' had seemed to gather about him for his en- There were still times when the husband and couragement and help. And the writer of the wife could take their favourite walks together words had been one of those two thousand through the meadows by the river side, and noble, Nonconforming clergymen, who had still Mr. Lindsey could spend quiet hours in his given up their parishes and homes on St. study among his much-loved books, which Bartholomew's Day, in 1662, and gone forth would soon no longer be his own. One day, he with wivf s and children not knowing where to was turning over the leaves of an old volume, find their daily bread, rather than sign their when he came upon these words :- assent to all contained in the Book of Common ' When thou canst no longer continue in thy Prayer, as commanded by the ' Act of Uni- , work without dishonour to God, discredit to formity.' One hundred years before ! As he religion, foregoing thy integrity, and wounding read the sentence Theophilus Lindsey turned cconscience, thou must believe that God will in thought again to those true souls, felt himself turn thy very silence and suspension to his strengthened as by a great host of witnesses, glory and the advancement of his gospel. A and forgot that he was blamed and renounced soul that desires to serve and honour him shall by his friends, and that he was a lonely man as never want opportunity to do it. He can do it far as the sympathy of his living fellow-beings by his silence as well as by his preaching,-by was concerned. laying aside as well as by continuance in thy The year 1773 drew to a close, and in work.) November, one room after another at the The words were almost startling,-so closely Vicarage was dismantled, and plate and linen and did they apply to his own case,. They came furniture, and books which had been so lovingly FAREWELL TO CATTERICK. THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. it, with the bleak winds whistling round them, gathered together, were packed up and sent the dead leaves rustling beneath their feet, and away to be sold. The last Sunday at the old the mists gathering on the moors. And they church came. Strangers gathered there from went forth to their unknown destiny, with brave curiosity who had never heard the Vicar preach and trusting hearts. before, and they sat among the people of Catterick, whose hearts were aching and whose tears were flowing with sorrow for the parting so close at hand. ' How this man has made himself beloved ! ' they said to each other, as they watched the people pressing round the church porch to receive their old friend's blessing as he passed. These wondering strangers did not follow the Vicar to the outlying chapels on the moor, where it is said the simple-hearted farmers and peasants wept like little children when he took his leave of them. It was not easy to explain to them why he must say good-bye. A better man they'had never seen, and they were content to think as he told them he thought, and to trust that every change he made in his creed was for the better. It was a relief to Mr. and Mrs. Lindsey when all the leave-takings were over, and the door was closed for the last time on the dear old empty house. So they left Catterick, as theyJlad come to ' SUNSHINE IN A SHADY PLACE.'

public press discussed it and a fierce attack upon him appeared in the ' York Chronicle,' misrepresenting his motives and perverting the language he had used. In the next issue of the CHAPTER VI. paper, however, Catherine was delighted to read a warm defence of the Vicar, signed by ' A lover of all good men,' and she learned that 'SUNSHINE IN A SHADY PLACE.' this letter was written by Mr. Cappe, a non-con- CATHERINEHARRISON resolved to follow the formist minister in the city of -York. fortunes of her friends forone stage, at least,upon ' If I can do no more to help them,' thought their journey. They passed the first night in her Catherine, ' I can at least defend them when mother's little home at Bedale, and next day they are abused,' and following this course she she rode with them to Wakefield, where they soon began to share in their persecution. On were all invited by the Rev. William Turner to her way home from Wakefield she went, accord- be his guests. The short visit came to an end ing to invitation, to stay in the house of an only too soon, and at its close Mr. and Mrs. uncle in Yorkshire. She met with a kind Lindsey set forth alone to continue their welcome and was very happy with her aunt and pilgrimage up to London. To Catherine, the cousins ; but when, as soon happened, her uncle parting from her friends was the sadder from learned that Theophilus Lindsey was her friend, her knowledge that they were almost without and that she shared his religious views, she was the means of living, and that hard judgments told that she must take her leave at once, and were continually being passed upon the brave was forbidden to re-enter the house. Other Vicar of Catterick by the multitudes who could instances followed in which Catherine had to not understand his conscientious deed. His grieve over the loss of old friends for the same farewell sermon, which was published and reason. What had become of the Catherine widely read, was unsparingly abused. The Harrison who at one time had fixed her hopes THEOTHILUS LINDSEY. 'SUNSHINE IN A SHADY PLACE.' on the support of rich relations, and had been taught them in the tiny kitchen, and still her moved in all she did by the desire for the good neighbours shunned her as a singular young opinion of other people ? Now conscience was woman. Yet she sowed her good seed patiently the spring of all her actions, and for the sake of and never murmured because the plot was small being true she did not hesitate to declare her and the ground stony. Sometimes a friend, change of belief, and her determination to find living at a distance, well-knowing where to find a more congenial place of worship than the a willing helper, sent for Catherine, and she was Established Church on the first opportunity. away from home for a few weeks at a time. She now no longer asked herself, what will Then she would hasten back to her mother and other people think ? or, whom shall I offend ? put her whole heart into the narrow round of Catherine did not reach home till Spring had duties in Bedale. come, for she paid other visits on her way, and One day, startling news broke the monotony it was only when settled down in her old life at of her life there. The discontented young Bedale that she realized how much she had curate announced to his mother and sister that really lost in the departure of her Catterick the curacy was a thing of the past, that he had friends. Her brother, discontented with his bought a large farm at Stankhouse, seven miles poor curacy, and always on the anxious watch from Leeds, and was going to live there and for good fortune that never came, darkened the make his fortune by farming. Catherine had little house with his gloom and his complaints. no hope of his success, and it was a serious But there was more need now than ever for matter when a large share of her mother's little cheerfulness and courage and brave Catherine fortune went to stock the farm. By and by the resolved that she would not be wanting in these young farmer pressed them to come and live qualities. with him at Stankhouse. It is to be feared There is little to say about her life at Bedale. that he had selfish reasons for making this She still called the idle children in from the request. Certainly Mrs. Harrison and her streets on Sunday by two or three at a time and daughter did not consult their own wishes when THEOPHILUS LINDSEY.

they gave up their little home at Bedale and passengers. Catherine found, to her great went to the lonely farm, about the purchase of pleasure, that by help of the strong farm horses which they had not even been consulted. she could drive every Sunday the seven miles The farmhouse, with its out-buildings, was between Stankhouse and Leeds, and attend built of grey stone. Within were cold, rambling service in the Mill Hill chapel, where Dr. passages and cheerless looking rooms ; without, Priestley had been minister so long. So it views over a wide, desolate common, broken became a habit with her to do so, and Sunday only by the great mounds of rubbish and slack became as welcome a day at Stankhouse as it at the mouth of the yawning coal pits, and the had been unwelcome at Bedale. About a mile cluster of poor cottages where the colliers and from the farm across the common lay the village their families lived. But Catherine, who was of Lazencroft. In country places pleasant determined to make the best of everything, neighbours are often to be met with, and found unexpected blessings even here. Coal Catherine and her mother were glad when Mrs. was cheap at all events, and in winter they Edmonson, a resident at Lazencroft, came to see could have blazing fires to brighten the dull them, having heard of the arrival of two ladies rooms. Best of all, there were poor people at at Stankhouse. Mrs. Edmonson was between hand who needed help which she could give, seventy and eighty years of age, but retained and very soon she had paid friendly visits to the energy and all the interest in life of a much some of the huts at the colliery, and made younger woman. She was delighted with acquaintance with the women and children who Catherine's enthusiasm, and quickly fell in with gladly welcomed her when they found the kindly her wish to help the families of the colliers, spirit in which she came. whose wives and daughters in the cottages by Skirting the common, ran the rough high the pit's mouth were so wasteful and ignorant. road to Leeds. It was hot and dusty in By degrees, making friends with one poor summer, and in winter, when snow or rain had woman after another, they established a female fallen, it was almost impassable for foot benefit club, encouraged them to save, taught THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. 'SUNSHINE IN A SHADY PLACE.'

the younger ones to read and write, and brought house pressing for payment. Mrs. Harrison new life into the settlement. had already lent so much money to her son that This work was a great enjoyment to she and Catherine had hardly enough to buy the Catherine. She was always ready to cross the clothes they needed. These troubles nearly lonely common however dreary the weather, and overwhelmed the gentle old lady, and Catherine the pleasant greetings she received were ample found that she must take new, unaccustomed reward. It was so delightful to feel she was burdens upon herself, and undertake for the really of use in that little corner of the earth. time the management of affairs. By and by troubles began to arise in her own Her first step was to send for a doctor, who home and she found it a relief to turn from her shook his head over her brother's condition ; own anxieties and forget them in the greater her next to examine his papers and see how sorrows of other people. The misgivings which much was really due to his creditors. Then, Catherine had felt when she first heard of her ready money had to be found to meet the bills brother's farming scheme, proved to have been that came in. For this purpose she persuaded not without foundation. Too late he learned her mother to sell part of the little estate that that he had been deceived, and had paid far still belonged to her at Craven, and she more for the Stankhouse farm than it was borrowed £700 from an old friend of her own, worth. Too late, he found that he had not the taking upon herself the obligation of repaying right qualifications for a farmer. His cattle fell the debt in course of time. Very slowly the sick and died from some unknown cause, and sick man crept back into some measure of the men whom he employed had little respect health-then arrangements were made for for an idle intemperate master. To crown his valuing the stock and selling the farm. Before misfortunes, he fell one day in a field and hurt this business was ended, sad news came from his leg, was confined to bed, and there was no Mrs. Edmonson. In great distress the old lady one to manage the affairs of the farm. Then sent to beg for Catherine's help. Her husband bills were sent in and creditors came to the a was stricken with typhus fever and she needed THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. companionship and comfort. She could turn to no one but the brave girl who seemed to be always ready to help everyone in trouble, and Catherine, with a little natural shrinking, went to her. The patient died, and when Catherine CHAPTER VII. came to Stankhouse again she had to throw all her energies into the breaking up of the home. ESSEX STREET CHAPEL. There was one bright spot amid all the shadow, this was the benefit club at the colliery, which THE Vicar of Catterick and his wife said was now in a prosperous condition; but good-bye to their old home in the month of Catherine grieved sorely when she said good- November, 1773, but the New Year dawned bye to all her grateful friends. Young Harrison, before their pilgrimage to London was ended. quite broken down in health, went to a curacy Mr. (afterwards Dr.) Disney, a liberal clergy- in the district of Craven, in Yorkshire. Mrs. man of the Church of England, invited them Harrison and her daughter were once more to break their journey by a visit to his house without a dwelling-place. So ended another at Swinderby, near Newark. Mr. Disney was passage in Catherine Harrison's life. a member of the Feathers' Tavern Association, already mentioned, and had made the acquaint- ance of Theophilus Lindsey the previous year, when the petition for relief from compulsory subscription to the Articles had been presented to Parliament. He admired the spirit which had led the Yorkshire vicar to give up church and home, that he might be true to conscience in his words as well as in his thoughts; but so far, Mr. Disney, though dissatisfied with the ESSEX STREET CHAPEL. THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. lodging. Two rooms, with a cupboard for a established liturgy, did not, feel any call to study, held their worldly goods. In the cup- tread the thorny path of a leader out of the board, one pile of books served for a table and old-accustomed ways. The example of fearless) another pile for a chair. What a change from truthfulness had the weight, however, which all their surroundings at Catterick ! Instead of such examples must have in the long run ; and the large, airy dwelling and garden, was a dull in a few years, as we shall find, Mr. Lindsey London lodging, while walks in the crowded found an active helper in this man. thoroughfares of Holborn and the Strand must It would have been strange, indeed, if Mrs. take the place of restful rambles in the sunny Lindsey had not often had to hide a heavy meadows by the river Swale. Yet in Feather- heart during this long time of unsettlement. stone Court, Mr. Lindsey wrote in his journal : By slow degrees she felt the distance increase ' I have not known such quiet of mind and between herself and her old home and friends. perfect peace with God for many years till All the treasured possessions she had been now, and I would not exchange it for a used to see about her were gone, except a few thousand worlds.' books and a little plate, to the sale of which And now the ' Apology' was published, on she and her husband trusted for their support which he had been so long at work. At first when they reached London. When the last sight the title seems unsuited to the statement stage of their journey was over, and the coach of views for which Mr. Lindsey had bravely landed them in the heart of the city, both sacrificed so much, and for which he had no travellers felt that it needed all the courage wish to make excuse. The name had an ancient they possessed to meet the new experiences origin ; when the early Christians were led which awaited them. before the Roman Emperor or Governors to There is a dull, old court out of busy offer a vindication of their faith, the declara- Holborn which bears the name of Featherstone tion which they then made was known as Buildings. Here on January 10th) I 774) their ' Apology,' and this title Mr. Lindsey Theophilus Lindsey and his wife hired a small iD H THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. ESSEX STREET CHAPEL. adopted when he launched his pamphlet into pains in spreading abroad news of the project the world. He troubled himself little about its for opening a chapel where the Father only reception. He had freed his conscience, and should be worshipped. Strangers who heard the had nothing to do with results. Yet he did not news, who had read the Vicar's farewell sermon forget that in those days denial of the doctrine or his 'apology,' made their way to the court in of the Trinity was still liable to penalty under Holborn to see and talk to the brave schemer, the law of England ; but this risk, like all and some of them promised their support in others, he was ready to run. his plan. A sum of £200 was raised in course By degrees, one piece after another of the of time to fit up an auction room in Essex little store of plate went to pay for food and Street as a church, and to insure the rent for lodging. Prospects must have seemed very two years. So light began to gleam through cheerless, and the silence of so many old the darkness, and Theophilus Lindsey made friends, who were now estranged, must have another entry in his journal: 'If the work be been very hard to bear. Faithful Catherine of God, I hope it will succeed: should it fail Harrison, however, visited them in their dull some good will result, and others will find it city home, though her stay could only be a easier to take up the task and go on better short one, as they had neither space nor than I.' comforts needful for offering hospitality. And now another duty lay before him. This But time passed, and by degrees it became was the preparation of a liturgy differing as plain that the Vicar of Catterick had been little as possible from the Church of England right when he came to the conclusion that service, changes being made only in those there were timid souls in England who only phrases which he, and others who shared his wanted a leader to declare themselves dissatis- religious views, could not in conscience use. fied with the creed they held. Dr. Priestley By the beginning of April, the liturgy was came with Lord Shelburne to make some stay ready for use, and the auction room was during the winter in London, and he spared no changed into a place of worship. But great THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. difficulties had still to be overcome. Certain years before this time, with the declaration that persons, moved as they believed by zeal for he would maintain a spirit of toleration towards church and crown, having heard of this revival the opinions of his subjects. And without of the Socinian heresy, which had made a stir doubt the old spirit of persecution had received in London some hundred years back, set to a check. But the tendency was still alive ; work to rouse opposition to the new chapel. men still held their own special dogmas as Mr. Lindsey was told that the civil power was sacred ; but they had not learned the duty of going to interfere ; and rumours of the work granting their fellow-men equal liberty for going on in Essex Street having reached thought and, speech in matters relating to powerful quarters, some inquiries were made religion. So now, in this instance, opponents there as to the meaning of this project for a of Theophilus Lindsey's views were eager in new chapel, and thereupon fresh warnings were the wish that he might be silenced. sent to him that he was entering upon danger- The spring sunshine brightened gloomy ous ground. The most important result of Essex Street on that memorable morning, this agitation was the delay that followed in April I 7 th, I 7 74, and the large upper room, in gaining a licence from the Westminster Essex House, which would hold three hundred justices for holding a religious service in the persons, stood empty and ready for its first ,old auction room. When this was at last congregation. granted, Sunday, April I 7th) was fixed for the Dr. Priestley, anxious for his friend's safety, opening of the chapel ; but all well-wishers came early, and little companies of curious feared that the day would not pass over strangers and sympathising friends mounted without some popular disturbance in Essex the stairs, till at last an assembly of about Street, and they thought it not unlikely that two hundred souls waited for the minister; Theophilus Lindsey himself might meet with There were men of standing and influence insult and ill-treatment. present, thoughtful people who had weighed George 111. had begun his reign fourteen his words in print, and gave him credit for THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. ESSEX STREET CHAPEL. sincerity and earnestness, as well as men who room, and certainly no words were spoken that were only ' eager to tell or to hear some new day that could endanger the government. thing.' It was rumoured also that a govern- The congregation departed as peacefully asd it ment spy was in the midst. Deep was the had collected, and no mob gathered in the silence when the preacher gave out this text street below. Ministers of state ceased to for his first sermon-' Endeavour to keep the trouble themselves about the little insignificant unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.' city chapel, and as time passed fresh citizens Surely he could have chosen no theme more found their way there, until at length it was no welcome to his hearers. Was not this heretical uncommon event for disappointed late-corners Vicar accused of leading the way to strifes to hear there was not room for them. But this and divisions in the National Church? How state of things did not last. The novelty wore would he reconcile these words with his own off. People who had been eager and curious actions ? at first, withdrew from the unpopular sect and In simple but stirring language he told the the obscure room, and only the worshippers listeners that in his view God did not make the who were really in earnest remained. Among minds of men on one pattern. According to these were some well-known liberal thinkers his own reason and in his own way, must each and scientific men ; and Mr. and Mrs. Rayner, man seek the Father. Hence, there must of relatives of the Duchess of Northumberland, necessity be varied sentiments and diverse proved themselves among the most faithful of sects, and, however widely men might differ Theophilus Lindsey's friends. in creed, they could keep the unity of the Still his friends did not altogether cease to Spirit by maintaining charitable judgments, and expect an outburst of popular anger, for preju- would never fail in true religion so long as they dice was so strong that there seemed no limit never lost warm love for God and man. He to the libels and falsehoods circulated against went on to speak of the simple Christianity he him. It was said, among minor accusations, hoped to teach Sunday by Sunday in that that promises of money had led him to secede 4 .THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. ESSEX STREET CHAPEL: from the Church of England ; that his present are certainties, and love and self-sacrifice are position was really a more lucrative one than certainties,' and Theophilus Lindsey is to be that which he had formerly held ; and that his reverenced not so much because he was the wife's relatives had settled £200 upon him founder of a chapel, and the upholder of any when he gave up the living at Catterick. special opinion, as because he was true to When these and similar statements reached God and conscience, and led an honest and him, he was at first hurt and indignant; but self-sacrificing life. he was too thoroughly in earnest to care long Meanwhile, there was no firmer supporter of what mere gossip said about him, and like a Theophilus Lindsey and his work than Dr. true man went on his way unmoved, contented Priestley. When in London, he usually spent if the voice of conscience told him he was Sunday with his friends in Featherstone Build- right. ings, and often preached in Essex Street So, at last, Theophilus Lindsey had carried Chapel. About this time the old name of out his design. He had established a religious ' Socinian,' given to this form of belief when it centre where men of all denominations might had once before arisen in London, began to meet to worship One God the Father, apart give way to that of ' Unitarian.' To both from all speculations of the prayer book and Priestley and Lindsey that new name was dear. the creed. He had opened a Unitarian Chapel It was the badge and banner of the religious in the heart of London, the only chapel in freedom they now enjoyed, and stood to them, England which avowedly bore this name, as far as any name could stand, for the simple though by this time other congregations among religion which Christ taught before it came to the English Presbyterians might hold similar be wrapped up in the speculation of succeeding views to those preached in Essex Street. Was centuries. he right or wrong in his theology ? Which of Dr. Priestley was a scientific man, and for us can answer positively ? We are all half- his discoveries was held in good repute by blind gropers after truth, but ' vd and duty He was a theologian, at home in THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. ESSEX STREET CHAPEL. controversy, and deeply versed in questions of Boston riot, when the duty on tea was levied by criticism ; but above all he was a lover of our Parliament ; how the English ships which liberty. He craved for himself and for all carried the tea cargoes were boarded on their God's children personal, political, intellectual, arrival in Boston harbour, and their contents and spiritual freedom-liberty to hear and flung into the sea ; how the American Congress, follow the voice of God, to cast off the stung by the injustice of Great Britain to mistakes and ignorances of the past, and to Massachussetts, prepared to resist by force of grow into ever widening new life and light. arms, levied an army with Washington at its . Now while this little germ of religion as head, and declared war against the mother- taught by Christ (so its upholders believed) country. was being nurtured into life in the Essex Street Dr. Benjamin Franklin, who some years auction room, London was excited by news before had encouraged Joseph Priestley in his which was stirring all England, for which men early scientific researches, was still ambassador watched from day to day in agonies of sus- from America to England, and was living in pense. Desperate tidings were coming across London. Dr. Priestley always remembered the Atlantic Ocean from the Colonies in with deep gratitude any help that had been America to the mother-country. Ten years given to him in those days when he was work- before, these colonies had resisted British ing his uphill way, and making his own simple schemes for the cancelling of royal charters, by apparatus with little money and limited know- which the Crown had granted them privileges ledge. The famous American electrician and on their first rise in the new country, and had the English philosopher were now intimate resisted, too, the levying of taxes to lessen the friends, and Dr. Franklin's anxiety for his burden of debts incurred by Great Britain country met with warm sympathy both from through war. This resistance had been Dr. Priestley and from his friend, Theophilus successful. But the old dispute had broken Lindsey. When war broke out, Franklin re- out again. The story is ~ell~knownof the turned to America, but the presence of the *THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. ESSEX STREET CHAPEL.

patriot was not needed to keep alive the dawned upon his own mind. So it came to indignation of the English lovers of liberty. 'pass that from both causes the breach widened, Here was a case, as they conceived, in which and in the year 1775 the connection with England threatened to prevent the free develop- Lord Shelburne ended. But when this separa- ment of her young growing colonies,-their tion took place, Dr. Priestley received a fair sympathies were all on the side of the infant annuity. Happily, too, there were men in States. Every step in the struggle was eagerly *London, both wise and wealthy, who had watched by Dr. Priestley, and every day he learned to know his worth, and seized gladly wished more earnestly to help forward a spirit on the chance to help him with gifts for his of free inquiry and progress that should scientific experiments and his expenses in influence all the concerns of men. publishing. Now Lord Shelburne had no sympathy with Nevertheless, after the partial loss of his salary these political views held by his librarian. In as librarian to the Earl, Dr. Priestley was very the House of Lords he voted against a pro- poor, and was often anxious about the future posal to conciliate the Colonies. Another of his family. One of his greatest pleasures cause also led to a loss of concord between the lay at this time in his intercourse with two men. Dr. Priestley's liberal theology was Theophilus Lindsey ; for he made his home out of harmony with the Earl's opinions, in London when he left Calne, and found much and the various pamphlets which he wrote interesting work connected with Essex Street and published now and then met with no Chapel. Dwellers in the narrow streets and favour from Lord Shelburne. Yet though he squalid courts of the neighbourhood were often was well aware of this fact, Dr. Priestley could cheered by kindly visits from Mr. and Mrs. not hold his peace. Religious interests were Lindsey and their friend. dearer to him than any other interests, and he Meanwhile, the congregation meeting in felt constantly impelled to give forth to his Essex Street grew in numbers and influence fellow-men all fresh gleams of truth that Four years from the date when the old auction -48 THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. room was fitted up and opened, it was found needful to have a more convenient place of worship, and new premises were bought in Essex Street and turned into a chapel and dwelling-house for Mr. and Mrs. Lindsey. CHAPTER VIII. Once more in a home of his own, with new chances for influence and work opening ever THE BIRMINGHAM RIOTS. freshly before him, Theophilus Lindsey looked IN the year I 780, five years after his parting back over the dark way by which he had been from Lord Shelburne, Dr. Priestley received safely led, and thanked God for the faith which an invitation to settle in Birmingham as had helped him to trust in the sunshine lying minister of the ' New Meeting ' in Moor Street. behind the clouds. Now Birmingham, though historically one of the oldest towns in the kingdom, was wide awake with young, fresh life. Philosophy and politics found a congenial home there, and large numbers of the citizens were watching with keen interest the change in the religious spirit of the age. So the invita- tion opened welcome prospects before Dr. Priestley, and his London friends who had seen his struggling poverty and his difficulties in educating his children, were very glad of the new chances offered fo him. This settlement in Birmingham promised at first to be the happiest event in his life. In THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. THE BIRMINGHAM RIOTS. a little while his home became an intellectual him the power of feeling keenly for the centre. Well-known scientific men gathered hardships and anxieties of others. He was round him, among others Dr. Erasmus Darwin, specially attracted to young people. Classes and James Watt, the engineer. He became for them formed a principal part of his church a member of the Lunar Society. A library work. Even the children, playing in the streets filled up with valuable books and manuscripts, of Birmingham, were so drawn to the gentle, and a laboratory containing precious instru- tender-hearted, kindly-faced man, that they ments, and the records of his past experiments were often known to stop their games and formed parts of his house. He felt a deep try to win a word or smile from him as he satisfaction in his pulpit work: in the passed. possibility it gave of sharing with sympathetic But while he made many firm friends in hearers his freshest and best religious thoughts. Birmingham, Dr. Priestley also roused enemies It was a full, busy life that he now lead : but against himself. He was too outspoken to Dr. Priestley was no self-engrossed student remain unnoticed by those who differed who only came forth at, intervals from his from him, and when pamphlets in defence of lofty studies to mingle with his fellow men. Unitarianism followed one another in quick There were few happier homes in England succession from his pen, the orthodox world than his at this period. He was able at any woke up to criticise and condemn. He wrote time to think and write while the family life a book ' on the history of the corruptions of went on around him, and could look up from Christianity,' and the very name was like a the pages of his manuscript to talk with his fire-brand. Much more the contents. For wife or watch his children as they carried there were comparatively few people in those on their amusements without fear of disturbing days who could bear with him when, in the early their father's meditations. part of the book, he unfolded the history of Dr. Priestley was a man of warm, ready various doctrines held by the Church of sympathies. His own troubles had given England, and showed how they had formed THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. THE BIRMINGHAM RIOTS. no part of the actual teaching of Christ: and America had ended in the independence but had grown up and gathered round the of the United States. Dr. Priestley was gospel tradition in the early centuries following watching with untiring interest the growth his life on earth. While casting aside dogmas of the young nation on the opposite side of and Church rites that seemed to him only the Atlantic Ocean. At home, in England, superstitions added on to the simple religion there were fresh tokens of disquiet wakening he loved to think was taught by the Master anxiety in the mind of every lover of his eighteen centuries before, Dr. Priestley was country. For the political agitations which, deeply reverent, and wrote and preached history tells us, preceded for so many years what seemed to him the good tidings given the passing of the Reform Bill, had begun to to him to declare. Yet many who read were show themselves ; discontented, unrepresented offended, and did not see that at least, if people were assembling in public meetings mistaken, he was true to conscience and a discussions were being held, the agitation devout seeker after God. was spreading ; and newspapers, which were The years passed away peacefully in his set on foot about this time, focussed the Birmingham home. His children, a daughter various demands for reform and the protests and three sons, grew up and were all that he against it, and thus roused the nation at had fondly hoped they would become. His large to a living interest in the matter. daughter married and had a happy home at a It was held, in certain quarters, that the House short distance from Birmingham : his sons, with of Commons no longer represented the people good prospects before them, were leading of England : and from the Nonconformists useful lives. He and his wife, who was arose a complaint that they were still most always an invalid needing his tenderest care, unjustly treated, being deprived of their rights were growing into years, and he hoped to as citizens on the ground of their unorthodox end his days in this happy sphere of work. creed. In Birmingham, where liberals and By this time, the war between England dissenters formed a strong party a cry arose THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. THE BIRMINGHAM RIOTS.

against the ' Test and Corporation Acts,' such inquirers, Dr. Priestley and thinkers who which for so many years had shut out sympathised with him, seemed ready to become all except Churchmen from any civil office. leaders of revolution. Passages from his Dr. Priestley, already a marked man, took writings were read in the House of Commons. some part also in this question which affected He was said to be engaged secretly in a plot so deeply the liberties of his fellow-men to destroy Church and State, and set on foot and he wrote and published a protest a republic in England. He was declared addressed to Mr. Pitt, who, early in the year to be a teacher of atheism as well as sedition, I 787, made his famous speech in the House and this cry was taken up in Birmingham of Commons against the Repeal of these where the gentle old philosopher should have Acts. been better known. How quickly popular It was at this time that tidings were coming excitement spreads ! Before many days were across the Channel of terrible tumults in Paris over the town walls were chalked over with where, after years of mis-government, the curses of Priestley, and the very children who maddened people had risen against their once stopped their play to win a word from rulers with wild cries for justice and revenge. him now followed their elders' example and But the sense of justice was lost in the hooted him in the street. longing for vengeance and, under pretence Conscious of his innocence, Dr. Priestley of fighting for liberty, the mobs in Paris went on his way and trusted that all false carried all before them in the most ungoverned reports would die out and leave him at licence. Lookers on in England asked each peace with his fellow-citizens. To this end, other anxiously how all this would end. he was anxious to avoid any act that might Would this reign of terror spread from shore waken unjust suspicions or rouse the anger to shore ? This was the question raised by men of his opponents, and, when a public dinner whose tendency it was to look with fear on was given by the Birmingham Liberals to any change from old establiged ways. To celebrate the second anniversary of the fall THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. THE BIRMINGHAM RIOTS. of the Bastille in Paris, Dr. Priestley, by the While the evening sunlight was still bright advice of his friends, took no part in the and all was calm about the philosopher's proceedings, and spent the day quietly in his house, a chaise drove hurriedly up to the door house at Sparkbrook, a mile or so out of the and bearers of evil tidings told their story town. The welcome news reached him while breathlessly. The ' New Meeting ' was in busy in his usual pursuits that the dinner had flames: the rioters, wild with drink and rage, passed off without interruption and the town and shouting threats against the dissenters was quiet. and against Dr. Priestley before all the rest, But hardly was the messenger's errand over were wrecking the houses of his congregation when there was another tale to tell. With as they came along : even now, the distant sudden fury, how excited it was never clearly roar of voices might be heard on the still known, a mob had assembled with the party evening air, and only a few moments remained cry of ' King and Church,' and following the for escape. There was no .chance to save command of paid ringleaders from a distance, any treasures. Instruments and books, the was filling the streets of Birmingham with records of a life's work, all must be forsaken tumult and yells. Tories and Churchmen, and the household must take refuge in a meaning well, had striven for weeks past to neighbouring dwelling. There, within hearing stifle what seemed to them the expression of of wild huzzas, drunken yells and threatening dangerous views on the part of the lovers of curses, of battering blows and crash of broken progress and reform. They had roused the glass the husband and wife spent the next passions of ignorant men who were ready to few anxious hours. One of Dr. Priestley's follow the call of any leader, and perhaps it sons in disguise tried with friendly helpers was now beyond their power to curb the to remove the manuscripts from the library. monster they had called into life. At all Cries of ' Stone him ' warned them from their events, no magistrate could be found to quell attempts. The rioters waded knee-deep in the disturbance. the torn papers which recorded Dr. Priestley's THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. THE BIRMINGHAM RIOTS. discoveries, and the precious instruments from he had time to breathe and think of the future, his laboratory lay in broken ruins on the lawn. and find himself a man of sixty with no Then rose a cry of fire ; flames burst forth, prospects and with a delicate wife, broken silence followed, and the glare and smoke told down by the effects of grief and terror. Dr. Priestley that his home and all he valued Still, his words were all of gratitude that in it were gone for ever. How did he bear the their lives were spared: and still he was trial and suspense? Calmly pacing up and resolute and cheerful, and buoyed up with down, he uttered no hasty word, not even a the confidence that all was ordered for the murmur escaped him-nothing but devout best. And this was the man whom some thanks that their lives were spared. The men called an atheist and some feared as a friends who were gathered round him felt a leader of sedition and treason. Yet he was deep reverence for the patience and self- one who truly loved God and man; who control which raised him in their eyes to a asked for liberty to follow the teachings of higher eminence than all his talents had conscience and reason in religion as well as ever done. in the other affairs of life ; and who believed A new day dawned, but the rage of the mob that all men, even the unruly destroyers of was not exhausted: Dr. Priestley's refuge was his home, were capable of perfection and discovered and he must flee again. Across would attain to it in the end. He was one the country to a refuge in his daughter's who, though he cast aside some popular house-a perilous journey, for the fields and beliefs, never lost the deeply reverent soul roads were haunted by parties of wild, which is the mark of a lover of the truth. drunken men, who were searching the country with oaths that they would find the Doctor and ,take his life. Then on to London where he was kept for some days safely hidden by his anxious friends, wherg at length, ment and of a lack of willing helpers in the work. So, Catherine proposed to her mother that they should take a little house there, and they removed to York in 1782. The two old ladies built castles in the air CHAPTER IX. concerning their niece's future: but their prophecies of the fashionable life awaiting AN OLD FRIEND IN NEW SCENES. her, such as they loved themselves, had no CATHERINEHARRISON and her mother found weight with her. She knew well that such themselves once more without a settled home a heretic as she was would be shunned in when the farm was sold. A few months passed the old orthodox Cathedral City, and she before any new plan of life could be made. had no money to spend on dress or amuse- To Mrs. Harrison, it was of no importance ments. Besides, the sort of existence they where she lived if her daughter could be with proposed she should lead was removed as her. To Catherine, the decision must depend far as possible from her wishes. Yet, though on how far the prospect was offered to her their hopes were doomed to disappointment of leading a useful life. In course of -time and their airy castles melted, Catherine's it seemed plain that this would be most aunts found their unfashionable niece with possible if they took up their abode in York. her singular notions a greater blessing in In that city two of her father's sisters were their old age than they had expected she living, and they were urgent, as they advanced would be. Their days were brightened by her in years, to have their young niece near them. cheerful visits just in the solitary hours when Moreover, accounts had reached her from they most needed her. As for Catherine, she time to time of the Grey Coat School, which was soon constantly busy in her new home. had been set on foot in York for penniless When not wanted by her mother and aunts children. Report told of great mismanage- she visited the Grey Coat School, and planned THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. AN OLD FRIEND IN NEW SCENES. reforms for the abuses she found in the Yet once again, because her will was eager management. By degrees, way opened for and ready, the way opened before her. her to suggest her schemes to the Governors, For, among the few people with whom she and they saw the wisdom of her plans and had become acquainted in York, was a wealthy adopted them. lady of the name of Grey, who, like Mrs. Ever since those early days, when in her Edmonson at Lazencroft, grew fond of the visits to Catterick, she had gained new views enthusiastic, warm-hearted Catherine. Mrs. of life from Theophilus Lindsey's teachings Grey listened to the tale about the neglected and example, she had found that step by little hemp-pickers, and promised to find step and little by little, ways of being useful money if Catherine would give time and had opened out before her. This was no work. It was not very long before a spinning less the case after her removal to York; school was established ; and thanks to one interest after another rose up in the path Catherine's former experiences in the benefit of this earnest woman who was always on club at Stankhouse, and the Grey Coat School the watch to do any good she could. A in York, the new institution prospered, and large hemp manufactory stood near Mrs. the ragged children who were admitted there, Harrison's house, and great numbers of had a chance given them to grow up womanly children were employed there. Catherine and self-respecting. used to see them loitering about the streets Girlhood had passed away by this time in their dirty ragged clothes, and grieve over and Catherine had entered upon middle life. their rough, noisy ways as they came and Her home was a shabby little house in a and went to work. She knew that there town-she was very poor, neglected, and was little chance of progress for them under probably despised by rich neighbours whose such conditions, and she could not rest society and attentions she had once longed satisfied without trying to help them to a so heartily to obtain. Yet, though she never better sort of life. But she had no money ! sought happiness, she found it continually, Q THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. and her life was full of peace and contentment bravely the great prospect of happiness which that grew deeper and richer every year. The this marriage seemed to promise her, and simple creed she had learned from Theophilus continued just as before the cheerful companion Lindsey, too, grew dearer and more helpful to her mother and aunts, and the ever ready to her, and the Nonconformist Chapel in St. helper in all good works. Saviourgate, where the Rev. Newcome Cappe All this time Catherine was never free from was minister, was her spiritual home each anxiety about her brother, whose broken down Sunday. state was none the less pitiful because he Perhaps it was Mr. Cappe's defence of had wrecked his own fortunes by his weakness the persecuted Vicar of Catterick in the year and folly. She went from York to see him I 774, that had first awakened Catherine's in his retreat at Long Preston, and found admiration for him. When she went to live him living in a couple of rooms in the old in York she found they had many interests in Vicarage where their happy childhood had common, and a warm friendship grew up been spent. The house was partly in ruins. between them. And it came to pass, ir He and his man-servant occupied the small course of time, that Mr. Cappe asked her to part of it which still served as a shelter. His become his wife. Her sympathies went out curacy lay ten miles away. She wandered warmly to the friend whose home she would round the neglected garden and meadow, have loved to brighten, and whose children and came upon broken palisades and the needed a mother's watchful care : but choked up, stagnant brook, which had once Catherine's first thought must be for her flowed so merrily over the shining pebbles in mother whom she could not leave alone: its bed ; a harvest of weeds and desolation her second thought that she had incurred a everywhere. Nothing remained unchanged debt for her brother, and ought to take no but the great Pendle Hill, which had seemed fresh responsibilities upon herself while it was to her childish fancy the guardian of her still unpaid. So she put away from her home, and lay there just as in old days in a THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. AN OLD FRIEND IN NEW SCENES. the sunny distance with the shadows of the Chapel. Mrs. Lindsey, so proud of her duty- flying clouds chasing each other across its loving husband, recounted to her friend each slopes. Some of the ' statesmen ' and their proof she received of his growing usefulness wives, whom she had known in her childhood, and influence. Sometimes Catherine began were still living, and, as her mother's tenants, to fear that Mr. Lindsey's health would not she had to arrange some business matters 'be equal to the strain which the press of with them. In doing so, she met with many pulpit and literary work, as well as the demands a sad experience, but sadder than all was of his congregation, put upon him. And, the wreck of the once promising young human indeed, after Dr. Priestley's help was lost, life which had begun its course with her in on his removal to Birmingham, this seemed that home so many years before. Catherine likely to be the case. In 1783, Theophilus never saw her brother alive again. He met Lindsey had been nine years at work in with an accident and died before she could Essex Street, and he was sixty years of age. reach him. He felt the need of a colleague and of more Frequent letters from Mrs. Lindsey, all time to write down for publication thoughts most precious and welcome to Catherine, which he wished to leave behind him when told her, as time passed, about the changing his work on earth was done. So it was good fortunes of her friends. She had visited news to Catherine when a letter came from them in their gloomy lodgings in Featherstone Mrs. Lindsey telling her how Dr. Disney, Buildings, when their life in London had only late Vicar of Sninderby, had been led at just begun, and month after month had last by conscientious scruples to follow Mr. watched in vain for tidings that should tell Lindsey's example and give up his living, of brightening prospects and of their self- and how he was coming just at the right sacrifice bearing fruit. At last, with what time as CO-minister at Essex Street Chapel. joy did she read of increasing congregations, By and by Catherine was told that welcome and then of the opening of tb large new tidings were coming from America. The THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. AN OLD FRIEND IN NEW SCENES. 131 first episcopal chapel in Boston, following fully welcomed the fresh duties and interests the example set by Theophilus Lindsey's it brought with it. There were various congregation, had adopted a reformed liturgy : responsibilities to be met. Mr. Cappe had and the writings of Dr. Priestley and Mr. of late had slight threatenings of paralysis, Lindsey were being read in the United States, and his health needed care. His three eldest proving helpful to unsettled inquirers and children were grown up, and Catherine knew I rousing the churches to new religious life. that great tact would be required on her part Thus letter after letter gave promise of a to rightly fill her new position towards them. ripening harvest to the seed Theophilus But her loving nature and ready sympathy Lindsey had sown: and where in truth does worked wonders. Very soon her husband's the influence ever end of one who has turned children became to her like her own. No from what is worldly wise and safe to do that detail of the many duties that fell to her which he knows is simply right and true? escaped her watchful care, and she found Mrs. Lindsey, on her side, welcomed with welcome work outside the home in her equal pleasure the letters she received from husband's congregation. Her letters for some ~drk. Six years after Mrs. Harrison and time after her marriage seemed to Mrs. her daughter settled there, Catherine wrote Lindsey to tell of settled happiness. Then to tell her friend of her intended marriage. clouds came. One of her step-sons, a youth Circumstances had changed ; all difficulties of great promise, died ; and Mr. Cappe's ill were removed ; an unexpected legacy had health increased. Soon, so great was the helped Catherine to repay the debt incurred change in his condition, Catherine was for her brother, and a plan had presented compelled to withdraw her attention as far itself which insured comfort and companion- as possible from external matters, that she ship . for Mrs. Harrison. So, in course of might devote herself more closely to his time, to her mother's great satisfaction, comfort and requirements. .I, Catherine entered on her new life, and joy- A few months before her marriage, Catherine THEOPHI1,US LINDSEY. AN OLD FRIEND IN NEW SCENES. had established, with Mrs. Grey's help, a sentences were spoken a chaise drove up and Female Benefit Club, on the plan of the Club in it lay her husband helpless and speechless. she had formerly set on foot among the The long threatened paralytic seizure had colliers' wives living near Stankhouse Farm. visited him at last, and he had fallen from his Her increasing home-claims interfered more horse in a country lane on his way home. and more with her visits to this Club and to If her friends feared for Catherine in this the Spinning School, but she was still the great trouble, they soon discovered their soul of all that went on in both Institutions, mistake. The stores of faith and patience her advice was constantly needed and she she had garnered up in the store-house of paid visits to them whenever she had character for years past, answered to the opportunity. claims made upon them in this new trial and One spring morning, Mr. Cappe rode out gave her strength for all she had to bear. For into the country to baptize a child and did some weeks Mr. Cappe lay between life and not expect to be back again till afternoon. death. Catherine and her step-daughters Catherine was feeling anxious about him, for nursed him back to life.. Then the doctors he had been less well than usual the day told her that all active work was over for him before ; and it was with a heavy heart that she and that he would never preach again. Irl set forth to spend some hours of his absence this trouble no human being could help her. at the Benefit Club. On her return home, She kept the sad knowledge to herself, and she watched and waited in great suspense, no word or look from her clouded the hope listening for the sound of his horse's hoofs of recovery which cheered her husband. upon the road. Again and again she hurried Connected with his Iong illness' came money out only to be disappointed. At last, a troubles, family anxieties which he had no neighbour presenting himself unexpectedly strength to share in, and arrangements to be told her, by his face and mylner, that he made for the welfare of Church and congrega- was a bringer of bad news. Before his first tion. The storm blew from many quarters THEOPHILUS LINDSEY AN OLD FRIEND IN NEW SCENES. at once : but Catherine bravely and cheerfully Happy was Catherine, devoted entirely to shielded him and bore the brunt herself, looking nursing and cheering her husband, when twelve back thankfully on the lessons learned at months after the loss of power which at one Catterick, and the trials of her life at Stank- time threatened to make life a burden to him, house which had prepared her for the present he said to her, ' I am now surrounded with conflicts. And all the time she never lost her blessings.' She needed no other reward, for faith that the sunshine would return. she had found the real spring of happiness and By slow degrees the altered life shaped in blessing others was herself most blest.' itself, and some amount of the old accustomed ways could be pursued. Mr. Cappe regained his speech, and with Catherine's help, took up again some of his literary work. The patient wife wrote at her husband's dictation for many hours every day, feeling it no trial, because of the love she bore him, to surrender her own individual tastes and withdraw from the interests that had formed so prominent a part of her own life. One great source of satisfaction was the settlement in York of a young minister to take Mr. Cappe's pulpit duty, only a temporary arrangement as the invalid continued to believe, but giving him the greatest gratification : for the Rev. Charles Wellbeloved was like a son to the old minister and even in those early days he gave promise of his future ability and talent. CLOSING YEARS.

cheerful courage, which amazed his London friends, seemed to predict better days to come; and we, who read his story in these later years, may pass over the weary interval of suspense and see him settled at Clapton, near London, CHAPTER X. beginning a new life there with hope and CL,OSING YEARS. gratitude. For the congregation of the chapel at FORfive days and nights the rioters' rallying Hackney, a mile or so from Clapton, across the cry of ' Church and King ' echoed through the Common, had invited Dr. Priestley to fill the streets of Birmingham. The vain search for post of minister then vacant, and he had Dr. priestley went on, and the wild rage of accepted the invitation. Then the dear old the mob against the dissenting liberals never intercourse with Theophilus Lindsey was con- flagged till the arrival of a strong body of tinued, and a new friend, the Rev. Thomas troops brought order into the town. By that Belsham, theological tutor at the new ~ackne~ time ~60,000worth of property had been College, was added to this little circle. Of destroyed, gaping spaces and heaps of his former story something must now be told. smouldering ruins were to be seen on all In 1779, the year 'after the opening of sides, and the charred bodies of drunken the new chapel in Essex Street, Mr. Belsham, rioters lay in the cellars of the houses they then tutor at Daventry Academy (where Dr. had destroyed. When tranquility was restored, Priestley had studied in his youth), came to the scattered inhabitants, who had fled for London on a visit. One Sunday evening, he safety, ventured back into the town to begin went with some friends to hear Theophilus the sad work of rebuilding their houses. But Lindsey preach. The subject of the sermon for Dr. Priestley the dear old home and work was ' A good conscience ' ; and when service in Birmingham could never be restored.a His was over, as he left the chapel, Mr. Belsham THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. CLOSING YEARS.

said to his companions, ' I am confirmed in which was by this time closed, had been. the opinion that it is possible for a Socinian After a little demur on the part of some of the to be a good man.' governors, Mr. Belsham was chosen as theo- After this, his attention, already drawn to logical tutor; thus a way opened for his Mr. Lindsey by the sermon he had heard, and introduction to Dr. Priestley, and also to the by the story of the resignation of the Catterick minister of Essex Street Chapel. There were living, was further attracted to the Unitarian differences of opinion among the three men, all controversy which had been awakened by the being deep thinkers and earnest students ; but writings of Mr. Lindsey and Dr. Priestley. these diversities gave an added charm to their Then the orthodox but broad-minded tutor intercourse. They all believed in the right of determined to write a new course of lectures free inquiry, and behind all their varying views for the students at Daventry, in which he would lay a deep reverence for truth in all its aspects, examine, and, as he believed, show good reason and a readiness in each mind to become a for discarding the Unitarian doctrines. learner. So Mr. Belsham investigated texts and Dr. Priestley was soon hard at work. He authorities and commentators, both orthodox gave free lectures on chemistry and history at and Unitarian, and, according to the custom at Hackney College; held classes for the young Daventry Academy, he laid the results before people of his congregation : and studied and his pupils for their own consideration. The preached and wrote as he had done in Bir- unexpected consequence was a change in his mingham. By degrees, the terrible losses he own views. He declared himself a Unitarian, had suffered were partially made good (they and gave up his post at Daventry. could never be wholly recovered). Friends Now it happened that a new theological sent presents of books, patrons of science college had just been opened at Hackney. presented instruments, and a new library and This college was entirely unfettered by sub- laboratory grew up about him. Addresses of scription to a creed, as Warriagton Academy, sympathy were forwarded to him from different TH.EOPHILUS LINDSEY. CLOSING YEARS. must be a blank to him for some time when best for them, and he is so humble-minded that he was deprived of the companionship of his he will think the work he loves best, making converts to the Divine Unity, will be done by dear old friend. . . Honours and friendly welcomes awaited him other instruments.' in the United States. In New York, he was ' - Dr. Priestley lived nine years at Northumber- land, and proved this gloomy prediction a invited to remain and open a Unitarian Church : in Philadelphia, the post of professor of mistaken one. For a brave man thrives on difficulties, and out of adversities and trials chemistry in the University was pressed upon 4 him. But his harassed wife longed for country he carves out a useful life. At first, no doubt, life and quiet, and for her sake, chiefly, he the breaking of an instrument, the lack of declined both offers. His sons were farming good workmen, and the difficulty of transit near Northumberland, a little town on a branch to the little settlement in the wilderness, caused of the river Susquehanna, and he made his wearisome delays in his experiments; but the home in their neighbourhood. A letter from town grew larger every year, and he had 2 one English friend to another thus bewailed great store of patience which helped him noL Dr. Priestley's self-exile :-' He will be buried only to labour but to wait. His diary tells with nobody to teach, no means of continuing of the regular and amazing amount of reading his philosophical pursuits, no means of repair- he accomplished, and of the great number of ing the breaches in his apparatus, to set his his writings-a church history, and theological and scientific treatises among the rest,-which furnaces, &c. He can only sleep and sail the continued generosity of his English friends about. He might, indeed, think, but he cannot helped him to publish. On two or three print. A few years will doubtless bring artificers, but every year after threescore occasions he gave courses of lectures, and takes away vigour and the power of exertion. preached in Philadelphia. Each time crowded audiences assembled to hear him. As time If Mrs. Prpstley and his son are determined passed, some of the wisest and best men of to stay, he yields certainly torwhat appears THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. CLOSING YEARS.

America sought him out in his country home closing years. He valued greatly his corres- or corresponded with him ; and it was a satis- pondence with English friends, especially with faction' to him also to watch the gradual spread Mr. and Mrs. Lindsey, and his thoughts always of his religious opinions, and to find the value went out lovingly towards England, with no of his scientific discoveries acknowledged in bitter memory of the wrongs he had suffered

the United States. He was always a man of there. Indeed, for a , long time, he kept in simple tastes, and self-helpful ; rising early view the hope of returning to his native land. and lighting his own study fire; working in his But this was not to be. garden, and finding the keenest pleasure in the The year before his old friend's departure to views over the broad river and the hills that lay America, Theophilus Lindsey had showed signs beyond. Each Sunday, he held a service, at . of failing strength, and on this account Dr.

first in his own house, later in a neighbouring -, Disney had taken the sole charge at Essex schoolhouse, for the few inhabitants of the ; Street Chapel. Still, Mr. and Mrs. Lindsey country town who cared to attend. At all continued to live at Essex House; and though times he guarded his invalid wife tenderly, and his bodily power declined, yet through his was never too busy to welcome the little grand- .letters and conversation with the number of children, who looked upon the old philosopher people who sought his advice, Mr. Lindsey's as their own especial companion, and on his life remained rich and full of interest. A sunny laboratory and study as their favorite haunts. old age seemed to await him. It was no small Two great sorrows visited him, in the death happiness to have the power (for he was in I of his wife, and afterwards of his youngest son, easy circumstances now) to help those who on whom, as his successor in his scientific were in need, as he had been able to do in the work, his hopes were fixed. But he bore both old days at Catterick. Another great joy came losses with the resignation and courage he had from the renewal of broken friendship, for the always shown, and the loving care of his flight of years had softened the anger some remaining sons and their famiiles cheered his :: of his old friends had felt towards him. ,$ THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. CLOSING YEARS.

There were country houses where, in the Priestley. In one of his visits to Philadelphia summer, no guests were more honoured and he had a serious illness. Similar attacks welcome than were Mr. and Mrs. Lindsey. followed at intervals, and his children watching There he could carry on his literary work, and him anxiously grieved to see that, silently and both together could recal the old delights of uncomplainingly, he was compelled to make their rambles in the meadows at Catterick, and little changes in his mode of life,,and to give in the garden at Richmond where they had first up some of his accustomed ways. By and by met. At length they returned to Richmond he no longer worked in his garden, then he gave for a visit, and spent some days on their way up his pursuits in his laboratory. But still he home in York, with Mrs. Cappe, whose life composed quickly and with ease, and his was then devoted to the care of her invalid cheerful letters to Mr. and Mrs. Lindsey husband. Mrs. Lindsey had written before- (continued to within a fortnight of his death) hand, ' We will take a personal leave of our gave no sign that the body was slowly but dearest friends in the north, for we shall never surely wearing out, for the spirit was still bright return again.' And this was a true prophecy. and clear. For a sudden loss of power visited Mr. Lindsey But letters from his sons told at last how in the spring of I 801. It was followed in a the old man had suddenly passed away, - few months by a severe stroke' of paralysis. working to the end. They told how among The sad news was sent to Dr. Priestley ; and his latest words he had spoken lovingly from that time the letters to him were all of his English friends, how he had given written by Mrs. Lindsey, sometimes with her thanks for all the work and happiness of husband's trembling signature attached, but his past life, and how brightly he had always brightened with the invalid's affectionate spoken of the heavenly life in which all messages and anticipations of meeting in a would meet again. On the morning of better world. the 6th of February, 1804, he had found The summons thither ca*e first to Dr. strength to dictate the last words in the THEOPHILUS LINDSEY. :'S CLOSING YEARS.

pamphlet which it had been his great wish change had taken place there. Mr. Belsham to finish before he died. And then, with his had succeeded Dr. Disney in 1805, as sole dear ones round. him, he murmured ' That minister, and he found, as his predecessor had is right, I have now done,' and peacefully. done, that counsel and sympathy were always passed away. ready for him when he sought them at Essex How glad his old friend in England would House. But it became more and more un- have been, could he have known that seventy common to see the venerable form of its years later a statue to Dr. Priestley would be founder in the chapel, and to his friends it unveiled in ~irmin~hlm,and that Englishmen was evident that Theophilus Lindsey was would at last do honour to his patient and failing fast. Mrs. Cappe found comfort, after persevering scientific work. Yet, though he her husband's death, in ministering at intervals could not be gratified by this knowledge, to Mr. and Mrs. Lindsey. She was with them Theophilus Lindsey's last years were cheered on the old man's eighty-third birthday, and with the hope that freedom for religious they talked together of days and scenes which opinions, in support of which both he and seemed in the retrospect ' like a troubled sea Dr. Priestley had laboured, was gaining long passed in safety.' Cheerful and patient, ground, and that honesty in thought and under increasing infirmities, to the last, he speech would have a chance of leavening died on November 3rd) 1808, with the words more and more in coming years the intercourse ' God's will is best ' upon his lips. A large of man. concourse of mourners gathired round his Theophilus Lindsey outlived Dr. Priestley grave-side in Bunhill Fields, and the following five years. Blessed with his wife's care and Sunday, when Mr. Belsham preached his companionship to the last, he bore with the funeral sermon, Essex Street Chapel was filled utmost patience the gradual decay of his ' to overflowing by listeners, deeply affected by physical powers. To the last, too, his interest his death. in Essex Street Chapel never Tailed. Another It was fitly said of Theophilus Lindsey, by - Select.U* a b <. ?List of Books FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL AND THE HOME.

Sunday School Association, Essex Hall, Essex St.,Strand, W.C.

Any Book in this List will be forwarded, Post free, at the price named. The money must in all cases be sent with the order.

Adams, Sarah Flower. The Flock at the Fountain. Illustrated Agate, Dendy, B.A. Services and Prayers, with Chants . . Amy, Aunt. Sunday Lessoils for Infants .. Armstrong, EA.,B.A. Outline Lessons in Religion .. . Man's Knowledge of God .. . Barbauld, Mrs. Hymns in Prose for Children. Illustrated Barnett, Mrs. S. A. The Making of the Home ., .Bartram, Richard. Stories from the Book of Genesis Stories from the Life of Moses Heroes of Israel .. . .. Suggestive Readings Beard, Charles, LL.D. Ten Lessons on Religion -01 Bernard, Mrs. Bayle. Short Services for Sunday Schoolcl . .. 0 2 Bray, Mrs. Charles. Elements of Morality ...... 2 0

I Brown, Howard N. A Life of Jesus for Young People. Illustrated .20 Carpenter, J. Estlin, M.A. Life in Palestine when Jesus lived .. . .l0 The First Three Gospels : their Origin and ~ei&ions .. . 3 6 . - ,. -, Clarke, James reem em an, D.D. Hargrove, Charles, M.A. e: Manual of Unitarian Belief .. . The Real Teachings of Jesus Clodd, Edward, F.R.A.S. Hawkes, Henry, B.A. The Childhood of the World .. . Recollections of John Pounds Childhood of Religions .. . Herford, Brooke. Cooke, Frances E. The Story of Religion in England .. . Theophilus Lindsey and his Friends ' .. . Herford, R. T., B.A. Noble Workers . . . The Prophecies of the Captivity (Is. 40-66) The Story of Theodore park&; with portrait The Story of Dr. William Ellery Channing . . Hood, Alfred. Stories of Great Lives ... ,.. The Lord's Prayer ...... A Free Christian Catechism .. . Crompton, Miss Tales in Short Words Johnson, Marriet. .. . The Story of Jeremiah and his Times .. . Crosskey, H. W., LL.D., F.G.S. Jourdan, Beatrice A. The Method of Creation ... .. Phil's Mistake .. . First Lessons in Religion ...... Knappert, Dr. Davis, V. D., B.A. The Religion of Israel The Epistles to the Philippians and Philemon . .. Lawford, Hsabel. Dendy, Mary. Bible Stories for Little Folks Lessons for Little Boys Madge, Travers. Lesson Stories for the Little ones Prayers for the use of Families Dole, Charles F. Marriott, J. T. Early Hebrew Sto~ies Our Unitarian Faith The Citizen and the ~eighbour A Handbook of Temperance .. , Martineau, Gertrude. Home Counsels ... Everett, C. C., D.D. Religions before Christianity Martineau, C. A. Voicee of Nature .. . Foster, H. 0.Arnold. Chapters on Sound .. . The Citizen Reader .. . Martin, Mrs. Herbert. Laws of Every-day Life The Daisy Root .. . Gannett, W. C. Rosy's Three Honles The Childhood of Jesus .., Out of the Streets ... The Growth of the Hebrew Religion . . . Millson, Frank E. Channiug and the Unitarian Movement Lessons on the English Bible.. . Geldart, E. M,, M.A. Oort, Dr. (and Dr. J. Hooykaas). Sunday for our Little Ones .. The Bible for Young People. 6 vols.. .. Gillies, Miss. Smith, G.Vance, D.D. Lessons in Religion .. . Chapters on Job for Young Readers .., Hall, Edward H. Spaulding, H. G. First Lessons on the Bible .. . Hebrew Prophets and Kings...... l 0 Lessons on the Life of Paul .. , The later Heroes of Israel ...... 1 0 Lessons on the Gospel of Luke. 3 parts . each 1 0 Solly, H. S., M.A.' The Life of Jesus in Twenty Lessons ... Swaine, Ann. Remarkable Women Templar, Benj. Mord Lessons ... Thomas, J. E. Bible Class Studies in Liberal Christianity Toy, Prof. Crawford. Histosp of the Religion of Israel Vizard, P. E. Sacred Similes ...... 0 6 k- =: - ' Walters, Frank. Studies of Shakespeare's Plays ... 1 6 k ' 6 Wendte, Chas. W. The Carol. A collection of music ... 2 0 Wells, Kate Gannett. Riglits and Duties ...... 0 8 Outlines and Charts...... 1 6 Wicksteed, P. H., M.A. Lessons on the growth of Moral and Spiritual Ideas ... 0 4 Wilson, Alice E. Devotions and Meditations ... Boards 6d. Cloth 0 9 Wilson, Mrs. E. C. New Testament Parables ... 21- ; Cards for ditto 1 0 Everyday Life, with pictures. 2 parts ... each 1 OI Wood, Sara. The Gift of Life. Illustrated ...... 1 6 Dwellers in our Gardens. Illustrated...... 1 6 Wooding, W., B.A. Selected Readings for School and Home 10 Wright, J. J. Little Asker, or Learr ~iigto Thii~k ...... l 6 Merry; Merry Boys...... 1 6 .- Play with your own Marbles...... 1 6 Young, G. H. I. Character Lessons ...... i' 0 6

: Sunday School Asnociatiou, Essex Hall, Essex St., Strand, W.C. L'< 0 Part of the Unitarian Document Library at: www.unitarian.orrt.uk/docs