“In April, 1856, the writer was, he believes, divinely led to occupy the vacant post. For obvious reasons, the history of the last twelve years must remain untold. It may, however, be stated that the present pastor, like his predecessor, has had the privilege of celebrating a bicentenary. For reasons before assigned, it will probably be conceded that nowhere was it more proper that a bicentenary commemoration of the ejectment of 1662 should be held than in this Old Meeting House, and that a more fitting way of commemorating it could not be devised than that of enfranchising the building in which some of them laboured, and the ‘yard’ in which they sleep. This was accordingly done. The premises, which were leasehold, and the lease of which was nearly expired, were purchased and repaired at a large outlay, and then put in trust for the denomination. ‘Thus, for nearly two centuries, has the Lord preserved to Himself a worshipping people in this place. Thousands have found this ancient sanctuary the very ‘House of God,’ and, literally, ‘the gate of Heaven,’ and are now enjoying the full glory they anticipated here. And,’ adds my predecessor, with a thankfulness and faith in which I fully share, ‘still the waters flow strong and deep, and the banks are green with promise, and through future ages the brook shall not be dried up, but with purer, wider, stronger, and more fertilizing current, shall form one of those millennial streams wherewith the whole earth shall be watered as a fruitful garden of the Lord.’” THE BAPTISTS. Mr. Martin Hood Wilkin, in his life of Joseph Kinghorn, gives the following account of the origin of the Baptist denomination. A General (Arminian) Baptist Church was formed in Norwich in 1686 by the learned and zealous Thomas Grantham. They purchased a part of the White Friars’ Priory in St. James’s, on the site of which they built the Meeting House now known as the Priory Yard Chapel. From this Church several members separated at a very early period and formed the Particular (Calvinistic) Baptist Church, over which Mr. Kinghorn afterwards presided. Of its history he has left a somewhat elaborate sketch in the notes of the last sermon he preached in the Meeting House, in St. Mary’s, before it was taken down in 1811. He says,