IN the minutes that describe the events immediately succeeding the resignation of Mr. Leifchild, in August, 1824, there are several references to the institution of a Church Prayer Meeting. Such an anxious period as inevitably follows the loss of a minister is often a valuable discipline to a Church, as tending to throw the members back upon the guidance of the Spirit of God. That the Church at Kensington had realised the need to consult, not only with one another, but with the All-wise, was the best possible augury of prosperity to come. And, verily, God did choose for them. Dr. Robert Vaughan was a very different man in many ways from Mr. Leifchild, but no one could have been more admirably adapted to continue and develop the work that the Church had hitherto been doing. He had all the instincts and tastes of a scholar; and as a brilliant historical writer he exercised a wider ministry, and influenced a larger circle, than if he had simply exercised his gifts as a preacher in the Hornton Street pulpit. So considerable was his fame that he was appointed Professor of Modern History at London University; and, with the generosity which has always characterised the Kensington congregation in such matters, his people spared him gladly much of the labour of visitation, for the sake of the services he was thus able to render to the rising generation of Londoners. Kensington was now assuming the character it has ever since possessed, of a great residential suburb for aristocratic and wealthy London. There was a large circle of able and cultivated men and women to be reached and influenced by the attraction of one, whose personal attainments and powers were sufficiently remarkable to overcome the strong prejudices against Dissenting meeting-places that have always existed in the minds of such. This power Dr. Vaughan possessed and exercised: while at the same time his personal elevation of character, and rare spiritual earnestness, qualified him pre-eminently to be a guide to all who knew him in “the deep things of God.” We are consequently quite prepared to find that the little meeting-house in Hornton Street was a centre of light and leading to a large number of men and women who occupied prominent positions in society and in the professions. And yet the last accusation that could be levelled against Dr. Vaughan was that of a “tuft-hunter.” He did not _stoop_ to conquer, in the sense of descending to any unworthy artifices: he flattered no one; and his reputation as one of the great historians of Nonconformity is sufficient assurance that he never betrayed his trust as a custodian of the sacred interests of religious freedom.