Whether our good friend, the Secretary, exhausted himself with this description, or became less industrious than formerly, we cannot say. Possibly the unexciting but important work of the infant community seemed to him to require not even the very qualified notoriety of a minute-book. Certain it is that until May, 1798, there is but little recorded; and then “another hand” writes a short account of the monthly prayer meeting of the London Missionary Society, which, we are informed, was instituted “for the purpose of sending Christian missionaries to Otaheité, Africa, and other distant places.” This prayer meeting was held “by rotation” at Kensington, and marks the beginning of the missionary interest of Kensington Chapel. Mr. Faulkner, in his notice of us, says that an auxiliary missionary society was connected with the chapel, “which, by means of contributions of one penny per week, raises the sum of nearly one hundred pounds per annum.” This excellent systematic organisation of missionary interest, enlisting the rich and poor alike in the work by means of a modest and regular subscription, was a very satisfactory application of the business traditions of the Church to the problem of increasing the offerings for missionary enterprise. Possibly, after the lapse of nearly a hundred years, there are some who might find it a helpful and valuable thing to themselves and others to revive an old tradition. There is no account given in the minutes of Mr. Lake’s resignation, but our friend Mr. Faulkner assures us, with no doubt some inward satisfaction to himself, that he at length quitted “the Dissenting interest for a curacy in the Established Church, where he sustained a respectable and useful character to the day of his death.” It would be idle to pay even the tribute of a regret to this secession of ninety years ago. And it must be clear to all that one with Episcopal leanings was not the person needed to lead the people in the complete consolidation of a Congregational Church. Mr. Lake’s resignation prepared the way for a sounder and healthier development of Church life and government. III—A BRIEF MINISTRY—REV. JOHN CLAYTON [Picture: Rev. John Clayton]