AT the time of Mr. Symes’ resignation, the present minister of the church was a freshman at College, and a good deal more occupied with studies and athletics than with any question of settling in the ministry. It was not really a surprising thing to those who knew the traditions of Kensington Chapel, that a Church that had chosen John Clayton when he was twenty-one, and that had waited for Mr. Leifchild until he had completed his college course, should elect to wait nearly two years for its present minister. The course was an unusual one, but it had one conspicuous advantage. It enabled the Church to enjoy for eighteen months the ministry of the Rev. Edward White. It is unnecessary to explain to any one who knows any thing of Congregationalism, or the history of theological thought during the last half century, who Mr. Edward White is. There had been a time when he was suspected and misunderstood, for having interpreted the teaching of Scripture on one point in a sense different from the majority of his brethren. But we live in happier days, when our joy is to dwell rather on our substantial unity than on points of different interpretation. Mr. White has won the recognition of the whole Catholic Church as a stalwart standard-bearer in the “good fight of faith”; and great was the satisfaction at Kensington, when one who was just retiring from an arduous and remarkable ministry at Kentish Town was willing to give himself to the superintendence of the work at Kensington, until the minister-elect had completed his college training. The result of this arrangement was exceedingly happy. We believe Mr. White was rewarded by the multitude of new friends that he thus made; and the congregation was abundantly rewarded, not only by the steady advance in interest that was made during the time of Mr. White’s ministry, but by the securing for itself of the sympathy and affection of such a friend as Mr. White has been. The young men remember to-day with the keenest relish the good times they had in Mr. White’s Bible Class; and, indeed, he has only to appear among us to evoke the loudest demonstrations of welcome. But in nothing did his loving and genial spirit appear more characteristically than in his relations with the one who was appointed to succeed him in the ministry at Kensington. The writer of this book records here the lasting debt of gratitude he is under to Mr. White for tender and helpful counsel and loving encouragement, such as he can never cease to remember with filial reverence and thankfulness.