the population. Mr. Symes preached at Kensington, with no intention whatever of being a “candidate”: but as there was an immediate response to his message, a unanimous invitation was sent to him to become the pastor of the Church, and in January, 1881, Mr. Symes was recognised as the minister. The Church records contain many testimonies to the power of the ministry thus begun. The number of Church members steadily grew. The monthly Church meetings were times of continual rejoicing over accessions to the ranks of those who had solemnly taken the sacred pledge of loyalty to Christ. So high was the spirit of the Church, that, in the second year of Mr. Symes’ ministry, it was decided vigorously to pursue the movement, initiated in Dr. Raleigh’s pastorate, of building a new Congregational church at West Kensington. Nothing was more characteristic of the new minister than the cordiality with which he furthered a scheme that must inevitably diminish, at any rate for a time, his own Church and congregation. Thinking, rather, of the necessities of the rapidly growing neighbourhood of West Kensington, Mr. Symes and his Church threw themselves nobly into the enterprise. At a meeting held in the Vestry Hall, Kensington, it was announced that no less a sum than £12,084 had been promised, and the whole cost of over £15,000 was raised at the opening of the church. [Picture: West Kensington Congregational Church. From Photo. by Mr. S. Davie] Not thirty years had passed since the opening of Allen Street Chapel, but the new church at West Kensington would seem to indicate a remarkable change in taste and idea as regards the character of ecclesiastical buildings. It is a conspicuously handsome building, with a massive central tower, a chancel, and a general elegance of structure not unworthy to rank among the very best of modern Nonconformist Church edifices. We are all of us familiar with the natural law which leads parents to be far more lavish in expenditure for their children than for themselves. We are consequently not surprised to find that the Church at Allen Street spent twice as much on a building for this child of its own training as it did on the building in which the mother Church still worships. At a special Church meeting, that strikingly recalls the moving and interesting gathering when the first branch Church removed from Kensington to Notting Hill, nearly thirty members took a farewell of Allen Street, and went to the new and difficult work of building up a strong church in West Kensington; and with them went naturally a considerable number of seat-holders, supported in their action by the generous encouragement of the Allen Street minister. Thus the second colony was planted from the mother Church. She had given lavishly of her own life and treasure for the enrichment of others; and by the eternal law of the Cross she reaped her reward in the fuller and deeper life