That Dr. Stoughton immediately acquired the full confidence and loyal support of the Church officers and members is evident from a very remarkable fact. For many years past the Church had been, in all essential procedure, a Congregational Church; but, although it was so in fact, it was not so actually in form. The members had apparently not been led to see the importance of constituting themselves according to the New Testament practice. We all know that it is not easy to carry out important changes without arousing considerable criticism, and, not unusually, opposition. And for the truer fashioning of the Church upon more Apostolic lines there was needed a strong and wise leadership. This leadership was supplied by the new minister, and the delicate work of reorganisation was most successfully and harmoniously carried through. The existing “managers” became deacons, and new deacons were appointed; and the Church assumed the form which it has ever since maintained. It was of excellent augury for the success of his ministry that Dr. Stoughton perceived so early that the recognition of the spiritual order of the Church in form, as well as in fact, was a vital principle. However much of the subsequent development of our Church we may attribute to Dr. Stoughton’s able and devoted ministry, we are bound to attribute even more to this bold and timely assertion of the true idea of the Church. The time soon came when the Hornton Street Chapel proved too small for the number of hearers. Kensington was, even now, rapidly developing, and every month added to the congregations that assembled to worship in what was never a large building. What enlargement could easily be made was carried out in 1845, but it afforded only temporary relief. There had evidently come to the Church one of those testing times of faith and sacrifice which prove the genuineness of the spirit and the life. The district of Notting Hill was becoming an influential and populous one, and the conviction was laying hold of the minds and hearts of many, that it was a clear duty to Christ that a certain number of the members should consent to break with the old associations of Hornton Street, and form a new Church in the district just mentioned. Such a proposal, of course, meant even more than the severance of very sacred ties that bound them to the old society, and to their loved minister. It meant a generous offering of their money for the new building. But to all these demands the Church was equal. At a meeting held in the vestry at Hornton Street, £1700 was at once subscribed, and, in a very tender and beautiful document, that betrays in every line the sorrow that they felt at thus going forth from a place and a community so dear to them, thirty-seven members ask to be commissioned by the Hornton Street Church to form a new society at Horbury, Notting Hill. An exodus of this kind, where the spirit is entirely of love and faith, is a memorable and impressive event.