Sunset

The church of which Mr. Knill now assumed the charge represented the families which had enjoyed the ministry of Matthew Henry, and which, when his successors fell into Unitarianism, retired and formed a separate community. At this period it was dispirited by heavy financial burdens, and was slow to believe that prosperity, either temporal or spiritual, was at hand. The hope and energy, however, of the new pastor quickly diffused themselves. Immediately on his settlement he addressed himself to the task of becoming acquainted with the people individually, at their own homes, and establishing between them and himself, as far as possible, sympathy and unity of purpose. He then showed them, that what he had in view could not be accomplished if their efforts were limited to those who already attended the chapel, but that they must conjointly go

forth to the desolate wastes around them. He very soon proved that he had no intention of sparing himself in this enterprise; for, in addition to the exhausting labours of visitation, he opened places in the neglected parts of the city and its suburbs, for preaching. Boughton, Handbridge, and King Charles’ Chapel, as he called the spacious hall of an old mansion in which the first monarch of that name is said to have lodged before the battle of Rowton Moor, became new centres of light and power, and many persons who had resigned themselves to a total neglect of religious ordinances were awakened and introduced to the Christian course which they still pursue. This activity told powerfully on the members of the church themselves, whom he was most anxious to make “fit company “for the new converts.” No man,” he said,” likes to go into an icecellar — it is too cold; few people like to be in a room with dead bodies — there is death; and a sleepy, lukewarm church has something in it so repelling that I wonder how any one can remain in it. Let the members of this church shine forth in all the splendour of holy living, and the influences of it on others will be astonishing. Look on them: their heads for good — their hands working for God — their tongues crying, ‘Behold the Lamb!’ Is there nothing in all this to attract an inquiring youth? — nothing to catch the sympathies of a sinner just brought out of darkness into marvellous light V

As this work was beginning to expand, it pleased God to draw the chief instrument in it nearer to Himself by successive trials. Scarcely had he recovered from several weeks of extreme prostration, produced by having been called to give evidence in a court of justice, on a trial which he had in vain laboured to prevent, when his home became the scene of sickness and mourning. An interesting young person, the orphan daughter of his nephew, who had been adopted into his family, and brought up with an affection which she cordially returned, was seized with fatal illness in her eighteenth year. About the same time, Samuel, his only remaining son, was laid low. When at school in Totteridge, this youth was attracted to Christ, and became anxious to

devote himself to the ministry of the gospel. He indicated, in many ways, an aptitude for such duties, and was eventually received into the Lancashire Independent College; but had not long pursued his studies, before his state of health compelled him to desist. After remaining a short while at home, in great weakness, he was induced to accept the invitation of a friend to visit America. His journeys, however, in the far-west of that continent proved exhausting, and at the close he was “just well enough to get home.“‘He spoke with much gratitude of the kindness he received in many places for his father’s sake. When sailing, for example, on one of the great lakes, sad and disconsolate, a passenger presented to him the tract called The Russian Nurse,” with the request that he would peruse it. He thanked the stranger, and added — “This woman nursed 7?ze.” The communications which followed, led to acts of the most considerate kindness, of which, at that time, he stood particularly in need. On his return to England, his health so much revived as to permit him to address occasionally the smaller meetings in Chester, and at length to take charge of a congregation at Sutton, not far from the city. A church consisting at first of twelve members was formed under his ministry; and having taken lodgings in the village, he was in the habit of proceeding thither on the Saturday evening, and returning on Monday, going back on Wednesday, and returning on Thursday — thus spending about four days every week among his little flock. The congregations became crowded and most attentive; Bible-classes and Sunday-schools were established, and sinners were converted. But his strength was soon spent, and his visits were frequently intermitted. After a long period of silence, he expressed an intense desire to be present at the first missionary meeting, and his father, anxious to gratify such a wish, took him over with great care. It was his last visit. A few affectionate words, which were all he could utter, closed his short ministry; and he returned home to complete the last stage of his heavenward journey under parental care.

“Dear Sam,’’ his father writes to the Rev.

W. Swan, on September 26, 1849, “is kept in a very tranquil state, but I hear him coughing now. My dear wife is able to attend to him night and day, and he wants all a mother’s love. Polly, a great-niece of mine, whom we took to train for God, is also dying; she, I trust, is safe in the arms of Jesus. It is very soothing, in the midst of our anxiety, to have good ground to hope that they have committed their precious souls to Jesus.” To his old friend, the Rev. J. Lewis, he unburdens his heart thus on 21st December, 1849: — “I have often written you, but never under such painful feelings as at present. Dear Samuel, the object of our hopes, and prayers, and joys, and the source of many anxieties also, has left his weeping parents in the wilderness. Yesterday morning his spirit left the poor, worn-out and enfeebled body, and I believe Jesus received him into glory. He died with that precious name upon his tongue. Our judgment approves, and faith sees him in heaven; but nature feels. My beloved wife is much overcome. She has nursed him night and day for a twelvemonth, and scarcely ever left him for half an hour, and, though wonderfully strengthened while Samuel lived, she is crushed beneath a weight of sorrow — not for him, but for herself, and Mary, and me.”

“The dear Devonshire girl, whom we brought up with our daughter,” he mentions in a note to Sir John B. Williams, a few days later, died on the 26th of October, while my son was dying in a room below. But we were comforted in her death, and had a rich reward for love to an orphan. We felt greatly comforted by your few words of sympathy. There are times when even a smile or a tear will produce rapture, and surely, next to the favour of God, we ought to esteem the kind feelings of God’s servants.”

These private sorrows fed the lamp of his zeal; and his religious services in the city became most abundant. Though he attached the highest importance to the teaching of the pulpit, he considered that he had a special calling in the homes of his people. In the course of a few months, he knew more of the streets and antique lanes of Chester than many who had dwelt among them during long lives. He

seldom found any dijfficulty in reaching the hearts of the rudest of their inmates; but, dispensing with all introduction, he generally succeeded, both in suggesting his object, and in placing himself on a friendly footing, by the first sentence. “John,” he would say, guessing at the name, when he did not know it, “what, think you, crossed my mind as I knocked at your door “Cannot tell, sir.” “The people who live here,” thought I, “have immortal souls: I wonder whether they are saved and happy.” “Pray sit down, sir,” would follow; and the conversation, though short, would generally end in a deep impression.

His great kindness to the poor could not remain hid; and it often exhibited itself in a form so artless and cordial, as to give to it a singular charm. If he saw a labourer, of whom he knew nothing, eating dry bread for his noonday meal, he would stop and say, “What! only bread!” and, inviting him to follow to the nearest shop, would send him back with a ration of cheese. Hearing, in the course of a walk, that a pious widow was in great want, he went to a shop and ordered food to be sent to her instantly; and entering the house some time after, he found her with the tears rolling down her cheeks, in the midst of her dancing children, giving thanks to God for an unknown benefactor. Such a sight was to him the richest gratification.

So much importance did he attach to the use of this remarkable talent for personal communication, that he often went to chapel half an hour before the time, that he might converse with the people, and, by a few well-directed remarks, prepare them for the service. When his labours in different parts of the city had sent to his congregations at Queen Street persons imaccustomed to the house of God, he was most anxious, by such kind attentions, to make them feel at home. Occasionally, however, the force of his thrusts would alarm them. To a man who had been induced to come to the Thursday evening lecture, he exclaimed, as he came up to him, “How much better to be here than in the public-house, singing ‘Rule Brittania T “Now,’’ said the man afterwards,” that was the very song for which I was famous; and as I thought he must know

all about me, I staid away for some time; but I afterwards found he was always throwing such great paving-stones as were sure to hit some one.”

There was no class of persons, indeed, whom he feared to encounter, or despaired of blessing. When about, one day, to enter a carriage at the Chester Railway Station, he observed Bome officers putting a band of chained prisoners into an apartment of an inferior carriage by themselves. He was immediately touched with compassion, and begged to be allowed to accompany them. The officers seemed surprised at his desire, but made no objection. He spoke to them with such power, that most of them were in tears; and before he left, he knelt down, at their request, and offered up fervent prayers for their reconciliation both to man and God.

In the course of his ministry, great importance was attached to family religion; and it was observed that family prayer became much more carefully observed among Christians, and greatly extended among the poor. It delighted him to learn that a poor man’s house had become “sanctified by the Word of God and by prayer and sometimes, after a late walk about the city, he would come home filled with joy by the sounds of sacred song which he had overheard. On one occasion, when passing near a place in which there had been much wickedness, his ear was thus greeted; and, without disturbing the humble worshippers, he wrote with the point of his walking-stick on the smoky ceiling of the passage, “Salvation is come to Parry’s Entry.” The inscription continued on the memories of many long after it had vanished from the roof, and salvation itself still remains among the inhabitants.

The church had now been so much revived, that it was thought desirable to make an attempt to throw off at least part of the load of debt which depressed its energies, and abridged its ability to aid in the evangelization of the world. Nothing now seemed impossible; and the effort which followed, both then and at a later period, tended to call out the activity and to unite the hearts of the people. There were few who did not taste the enjoyment of self-denial in a good cause. Families

in very humble circumstance worked at the needle during the evenings of a whole winter, and poor men gave themselves to various kinds of industry in addition to their necessary toil, that they might have some share in the enterprise.

Mr. Knill, in the meanwhile, went over the wide range of his correspondents in all parts of the earth, and in few instances failed to receive a cordial response. Some incidents of that correspondence greatly interested him. One of them he alludes to in a letter to Dr. and Mrs. Henderson, dated 22d December, 1851: — “Befoi-e the year ends, I feel anxious to send you a line, to express our hopes and prayers for your health, and peace, and joy. We have a full covenant, great and precious promises, a faithful and unchanging God. I hope you feel Him very near to your souls. I preached yesterday from ‘They feared when they entered into the cloud and so, I suppose, we all have at times, though Christ was there. Thirty-five years ago, I had a Bible-class in Mr. Loveless’ boarding-school. One of my favourite boys is now a merchant in Madras; but most of the others are dead, or in other parts of the world. In August last I wrote to this gentleman, and told him of Chester, and of our efforts to remove the debt. This month I have received a very affectionate letter from him, with £25; and he adds, * When I gave your salutations to the church, a member stated that he knew you; heard you preach at Shrewsbury, in November, 1840, from Galations i. 15, 16; and that that sermon led him to become a servant of God.’ lie sent <£10. This is the first notice I ever heard of the young man, and I assure you it cheered me exceedingly. I hardly slept that night. I hope you will both meet with precious souls in heaven, helped thither by your pens or by your lips. We ought to anticipate great things, for God’s Word will not return unto Him void.”

This work had scarcely been brought to a successful termination, before an undertaking more unusual, and much more congenial, presented itself to his mind. His missionary longings always predominant, he was in constant dread of settling down into the minister

of a select congregation, to -wliicli the gospel had been long familiar; and although he had succeeded in crowding a spacious edifice with persons of whom a large proportion had been induced to attend public worship through his labours, he began to sigh for opportunities of preaching to multitudes among whom Jesus Christ had not been so much as named. Some might have imagined that, in a city of moderate population, largely supplied with clergy of the national church and non-conformist divines, such persons could not be found. He, however, did not entertain that impression, but believed that thousands were perishing within sound of the cathedral chimes, entertaining objections to entering within the walls of any sacred place so strong that nothing but unusual measures could overcome them. Meeting a pious working-man in the street one day, he said, in his usual non-prefatory style, “I am just going to order gas for the theatre.”

Are you then, sir, going to leave the chapel for repairs?”

‘’Oh, no; I am going to preach there for twenty Sabbaths.”

“What, sir, in the play-house

“Yes; the people will go to a play-house when they won’t go to chapels; and they must hear the gospel.”

Such was his resolution, and such his reason. An old building, not far from the cathedral, which had formerly been a chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas, but had long been used as a theatre, was about to pass from the hands of the lessee to those of the” Chapter,’* to be rebuilt for purposes more consonant with the improved tastes of the day. Mr. Knill, having ascertained that he might, for a moderate sum, obtain the use of this building on Sundays for the remainder of the lease, determined on securing it. He had not so many precedents for the use of secular buildings in preaching to the masses as he would have had a year or two later, and yet it was not to be the first time he proclaimed the gospel in a theatre. On February 7, 1836, he wrote in his journal: —

“In the evening, preached at the theatre, Milton Street, formerly called Grub Street. The scene was novel and very affecting. Pit full; boxes full; gallery full, chiefly with

rude children, affording good materials for future labourers. Lord, bless the efforts of Thy people to illuminate and sanctify hearts in that neighbourhood!”

This incident, however, he had probably forgotten, as he does not appear to have mentioned it to any of his friends, with a view to remove their apprehensions of failure. He had himself no fears, but proceeded, nevertheless, with his usual good sense, to have every proper arrangement made under his own eye. He earnestly requested his stated congregation not to follow him; but he accepted the convoy of his deacons, and the aid of the choir, for which he had taken the precaution to procure a good harmonium.

The first service was announced by placards for the afternoon of Sunday, 21st November, 1852. The weather proved most unfavourable, and the streets were deluged with rain. Few persons were observed on the way, and, as he approached the place, he found some coming slowly away, as if they had concluded that nothing was to be done. “Won’t you return he said. “There is no more room,” was the answer. Such was the fact. The sight was overpowering to the speaker, and the whole service produced a deep impression on the auditory. This was repeated from week to week. “Last Sunday,” he writes, “was my fourth service. The place was densely crowded. We do not print any bills now, but I give a verbal announcement to fifteen or eighteen hundred. I cannot describe the congregation. The theatrical appearance, the crowd, the profound attention, the oft-falling tear, are all very cheering. Two hopeful conversions, some brought to decision, and pleasing appearances in more, are good indications of Divine approval. God is evidently moving among us. I know only a few faces, and that was my hope and prayer. The expenses will amount to about £60^ and all the money is safe, either in the Chester Bank, or in the Bank of Faith.”

It was one of the numerous proofs of the cordial feeling which existed between Mr. Knill and other Christian ministers, that one of the clergymen of the city, who several times attended these services, and took the

deepest interest in them, entreated the privilege of paying the cost of the gas, observing that, if he could not supply the heavenly, it might be permitted to him to contribute the earthly, light.

During the whole of the time occupied by this special work, Mr. Knill was by no means well. The gout affected him so much that he could not preach in a standing position, but had to rest on his knees. “It seems rather remarkable,” he says, “but doubtless God has good reasons for it, that I am kept to the house, except on Sundays and week-evening services. It crossed me at first; but it must be well.” It certainly did not diminish the power of his ministry. His words as arrows, pierced the consciences of some of the most hardened sinners. In the upper galleries, where no eye could light upon them but that of God, numbers of these outcasts from all the ordinary means of religious instruction congregated, and were arrested. “I was a blasphemer,” writes one, “and cared neither for God nor man; I got into the darkest corner of the place to make game with my comrades; but when the sermon began, it drew such a picture of my life that I thought some one had been telling him all about me. “During this discourse the terror of the Lord was on my soul; and when it was ended I went home, but found the truth of the words, * There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked until at length ’ old things passed away, and all things became new.’” No time was occupied in these sermons with humorous introductions or general dissertations on morals, but the fortress of the enemy was at once assaulted by vivid exhibitions of the word of life; and numbers of persons, not only convinced of the propriety of reformation, but actually reformed through “the faith of Christ” and the “renewing of the Holy Ghost,” were united to the church in Queen Street, and to various other churches in the city.

This effort increased his pastoral work, for some time, to an extent which might have seemed sufficient for his declining physical energies. But what he had said of the great-hearted tutor at Gosport was true of himself

- — SO long as there was a spot of fallow-ground in the county, he could take no rest.” In the summer of 1855 he formed a project, which, though never fully accomplished, showed the unabated freshness of his spirit. He entered into a correspondence with his brethren in the chief towns of Cheshire, proposing to visit them, and preach in their public rooms, streets, and market-places; remaining a day or two in each locality, with the view of entering into conversation, holding private conferferences, and distributing religious tracts.

The proposition was cordially accepted; arrangements were made for the tour, and in the first week of July, having procured about 13,000 tracts, he sorted, packed, and sent them off to the several towns, with the fearless hope and almost boyish delight with which he went forth to the evangelization of the North Devon militia. He followed his printed messengers, and preached every evening from Monday to Saturday. On the Sunday he preached three times in Congleton, with great ani mation; closing his services there with a discourse in the market-place, on Monday evening, to a very large audience. On the following morning he returned home, to prepare for another and similar journey. He appeared in excellent health and spirits, and spoke most gratefully of the attention with which his message had been received. In a little while he retired to his study; but soon afterwards called for Mrs. Knill, who was instantly at his side. A blood-vessel had broken, and the blood flowed profusely from his nostrils. It was a moment of anguish and alarm; introducing those months of prostration and waning power which formed the last scene of his active life.

Through the blessing of God on the assiduous attention which was paid to him, he was considerably revived before the autumn; and on the 15th October, 1855, he was able to write this comforting letter to an old friend:

“Dear Mr. Venning, — Our adorable Saviour ’ par done th and absolve th all them that truly repent and unfeignedly believe His holy gospel.’ Cheer up, then, dear friend. May your evidences shine brighter and brighter, till the sun sets in glory! The tabernacle, you feel, is feeble; but a ’ house not made with hands’

will follow. I bless God for the hope that I shall soon be ’ with the Lord.’ I have much to endear life. I love my family; I love my church; I love dear friends — but I could joyfully part with all to be for ever with Him. Pray for me, that I may be kept in this heavenly frame. Death has but one sting, and that has been taken out by Jesus Christ our Lord. Hallelujah.”

Similar language he repeats in a beautiful note, written about the same time. Who would not desire to close life with equal serenity?

“My agony at Liverpool, for some hours, was greater than I recollect to have ever endured before: but I was very happy and willing, if the Lord pleased, to depart and to be with Him. It has been a blessed world to me, and a blessed church to me. Not one good thing has failed of all that the Lord has promised. I have as much happiness in my family, and with my friends, as could be expected by mortals; but i feol perfectly assured that the blessedness of heaven is exceedingly abundant, above all that we have thought or seen. I tliauk you for all your friendship and affection.”

The early months of 1856 were cold and harsh, and he was much confined to the house; but whenever the weather was at all favourable, he would go out, and be often absent for hours. He walked slowly and feebly, but sometimes accomplished the entire circuit of the promenade on the city walls; diverging occasionally to the houses of the sick or poor, where he was only able, after sitting thoughtfully for a few moments, to rise and take his leave, saying touchingly, “The Lord be with you,” or “Peace be to you.” The children of his flock he never passed without speaking to them, laying his hands on their heads, and returning their bright smiles. These transient ministeries, indeed, were often more fruitful than elaborate exhortations. “It seemed to me,” said one,” that he never finished preaching; a word or two when meeting him on the ‘street were as good as a sermon.’’

It was interesting to notice how those sympathies, which had never been withheld from any class, began to flow with increasing ful-

ness towards the aged, as his own infirmities multiplied. In one of the few notes which he was now able to pen, he writes to Mr. Venning, on the 4th December, 1856:

“It is a long time since I wrote to you, and I am very anxious to hear how you are. I have ventured out to-day for the first time this month, but the frost and snow are too severe for my poor body. How are you, dear friend? Can you bear the cold, or are you also shut up? You are a long distance before me in point of age, but not in feebleness. I endeavor to live in the expectation, that it will soon terminate in glory. ‘Thanks be unto God who giveth us the victory, through Jesus Christ our Lord.’”

A troop of old men, appointed by the city authorities to sweep the street in which he lived, frequently attracted his attention as he came down to breakfast; and fancying them to be cold and feeble, he would have all the coffee poured into bowls, and preparing it to his own taste, would carry it out to them with a few cheering words. The worthy “pensioners,” especially on the colder mornings, extended their line so as to reach the pastor’s house at the breakfast hour; not, it may be presumed, merely for the seasonable fare, but from a real interest in their benefactor; for after he was no longer able to make his appearance, the advanced posts inquired respectfully after his health, and the word passed with great interest from one to another through the whole body.

At the end of May, rooms were taken by the family in a farm-house a few miles from Chester, where the pure air and the rural scenery greatly delighted him. “The church in the village,” says his daughter,” had no regular minister, and various clergymen preached — none too well. There was a discussion among us whether it was incumbent upon him to go to the service. ‘Yes,’ he said at last, ‘I’ll go; it will be long and fatiguing for me, no doubt, and I may not hear the gospel after all; but the only testimony I can give for Christ in this dark village, is to keep His day and attend His house; therefore I’ll go.’ In July the weather turned suddenly cold and wet, and we returned to town, which,

after seven weeks’ absence, lie was very glad to do. ‘There’s no place like home,’ was frequently his pleased remark, as he went from room to room, and looked at the familiar furniture. On Sabbath, when able to attend the services, he would be waiting with coat and hat on for the opening of the chapel-doors. Having stepped across and entered, he would walk up and down the aisles, in front of the communion-rails; now stopping as if in meditation; now holding open the seat-door for some members of the congregation, and asking, as they entered, about their bodily or spiritual health; and now going up into the pulpit, from which he was never to preach again, and looking around on the gradually filling pews.”

Before this time the church had accepted his resignation of the pastoral office, and, by the liberality of his numerous friends, a sum was raised sufficient to secure to him and to his family a proper maintenance for the remainder of their lives. The provision thus affectionately made greatly comforted him; and though he knew he could enjoy his portion of it but for a little while (only, as it proved, for one half-year,) it gladdened his heart to know that the capital would fall into the funds of the Missionary Society, which he had loved so long, for the relief of widows and orphans bereaved in its service.

“The progress of decline,” continues the account, “became more and more marked. The walks grew shorter and fewer. Days of prostration of body and mind were more frequent, with later rising and earlier retiring, but not to rest. In September he performed his last pastoral act, in the baptism of the child of one of the families of his church, but the hesitating speech, the repetition of sentences, and the evident forgetfulness, proved that his days of services were over.

“In November another small blood-vessel gave way, and we were alarmed by a fresh flow of blood from the nose. * Only another tent-pin loosened,’ he said; ’ the old tabernacle is coming down.’ The rest of that month and all December were one scene of suffering. Often he would go quietly away into the study when in great pain, lest we should be distressed; and sometimes we used to try to look as

* See note on page 74.

if we did not notice it, that he might have the gratification of thinking he had spared us sorrow. The last month of his life he spent entirely in the house, even his little walks at noon, on the pavement before the door, being now too great an exertion. ‘I cannot sing,’ he frequently said; ’ sing for me.’

“‘What would you like, papa V

“‘Guide me.’ And so I would go to the piano and sing, to ‘Rousseau’s Dream.’ his favourite hymn,

‘Guide me, 0 Thou great Jehovah.’

He would always try to join in the last verse,

* When I tread the verge of Jordan.’

And when he could do that no more, he never missed the last two lines —

‘Songs of praises
I will ever give to Thee!’

“* It is weary work travelling down the valley,’ he remarked, on one of his last days. * Yes; but Jesus is with you.” I believe He is,’ he answered, thoughtfully; and then, in subdued tone, ‘I will fear no evil.’ From his chamber - he could hear the singing in the chapel, and followed the service closely. ‘Now they are singing — now they are at prayer; there, that is the second hymn — now the ser mon is beginning; Lord, bless my dear people!’” So wakeful was his ear known to be to the sound of music, that the congregation omitted singing in the service which preceded his death; a circumstance which at once evinced their kindness, and gave a touching solemnity to their worship.

In the settlement of the Rev. Charles Chap-I man, A.M., his successor, he took the most i=j lively and affectionate interest. On the Sabf bath before his death he expressed a wish to; see him; and after speaking to him for a few [’ moments, and commending his church and I family to his care and kindness, he grasped ii his hand earnestly, and said, “Be faithful, be jj faithful; I hope the chapel will be as full as it can hold; and God bless you.”

At the commencement of his illness, he was tried by great depression of spirits, chiefly

* The house was No. 28 Queen Street, opposite the chapel.

arising from physical causes; but now that was over, and peace, and love, and joy were with him to the end. “My dear,” he exclaimed to Mrs. Knill, on the day before his death, “I believe my Saviour will say to me, ‘W ell done.’” Even in the wanderings of delirium, this joy of his soul shone forth. “They sent me to preach unto the heathen the unsearchable riches of Christ; and I did it! — I did it!” At length all power of speech left him, and he lay apparently unconscious all New-year’s-day. He had heard and noticed the firing of the guns, and the bells which rung the old year out and the new year in; and then gradually became quiet again, in the early morning, looking his thanks for any attention shown him, and whispering, “Kiss me — kiss me,” to the loved ones who were beside his bed. Within a few hours before his death, observing that his head was in an uncomfortable position, and that he was striving ineffectually to move it, his daughter sought to relieve him, saying as she did so to her mother, “Is not that better?” The dying father evidently heard her, and mistook the words for an inquiry if he were not better, and immediately said, though with great difficulty, “How are you, Mary ?*’ love seeking, in death, to evade an answer that would give pain to his child. These were his last words. A little after, as the night was departing, he seemed to look round, as though in search of some one; and seeing this, his wife drew closer to him and took his hand; and his daughter laid her hand upon his burning brow. Still he appeared to gaze inquiringly, as if unconscious of their presence, until the latter whispered, “We are both here, dearest father, and Jesus is here, which is far better.” Instantly a faint smile answered her words — a look of heavenly gladness, and peace, and rest — and then his eyes gently closed in the sweet ‘* sleep which He giveth to His beloved.” At six o’clock in the morning of the 2d January, 1857, he was “absent from the body and present with the Lord.”

On the 8th, the remains were borne through the solemn streets — the shops having been voluntarily closed all along the route — followed by a deeply affected multitude, and by

ministers of every branch of the Church of Christ; the good Bishop of the diocese, who joined the throng at the grave, interpreting the general feeling by the remark, that there was” comfort in taking the last look of a good man.’’ The treasure was deposited in the beautiful cemetery on the left bank of the Dee; where an appropriate monument, in addition to a mural tablet in the chapel, has since been erected by his attached friends.

Even if the Editor had not regarded his office as strictly historical, and endeavoured so to dispose the materials at his command as to enable the reader to form his own judgment of the individual to whom they relate, any attempt to sum up his excellencies and imperfections would have been rendered unnecessary by the contribution from another pen, with which, happily the volume closes. The curiosity, however, which naturally arises regarding the external appearance of those in whom we are interested, may demand a few additional words.

The prefixed portrait, which is taken from a painting executed by an artist in the congregation at Chester, very fairly represents Mr. Knill in his latter years. His height was about six feet, and his form well proportioned. The complexion was fair, and the forehead rather high than broad: what are understood as the moral organs finely arching the head, upon which rather a scanty supply of soft auburn hair was gathered. The mouth was small, and the lips so regularly formed as to convey the idea of juvenile simplicity. The eyes were blue and full-orbed, having a thoughtful more than a sprightly expression: the lids being often allowed to drop as a curtain over them, not only as he sat in the pulpit and on the platform, but in the intervals of conversation, as if he sought retirement. His voice was very powerful and melodious, and went easily to the furthest limits of an assembly. It was used without apparent art, and seemed to follow the mental impulse. From the loudest pitch he descended, without harsh abruptness, to the quiet, confidential tone of conversation, in which, generally, he introduced his anecdotes. It was this melody and

yarietj of intonation, united with his open and manly bearing, almost as much as the contagion of his emotions, which led to results which one of the best judges of public speaking has acknowledged. “I never saw a man,” says the Rev. Dr. Raffles, in the discourse preached in Queen Street Chapel on the Sunday after the funeral,” who had greater mastery over the assemblies of his fellow-men than he; and this was the secret, — it was no studied eloquence, it was no elaborate argument, it was no oratorical flash that did it, — it was the depth of earnestness, that figured in the eye and found an utterance and expression in the voice. That was it which aroused and riveted his hearers, so that they hung upon his lips and were carried onward by him, almost unconsciously, as with a current they made no offer to resist. How often have I seen him rise in the midst of a meeting that had become all but frozen by previous speeches, when, with one or two sentences, the whole had dissolved in a gush of intense feeling and the joyous expression of satisfaction and delight!

...” Dearly beloved departed friend! very pleasant hast thou been to me: I cherish thy memory with admiration and love!

‘Thy chequer’d path in life is trod, Earth changed for glory and for God.’”