The record of that first communion is very interesting. I have seen the solemnization of the Holy Supper after different methods: at Rome, before the high altar of St. Peter’s, amidst lights, flowers, and incense, with attendant cardinals, and all the pomp and splendour of a Roman court, and have there witnessed theatrical effects; in England, within the choir of a Protestant cathedral, I have beheld a bishop and his clergy administering the eucharist to kneeling worshippers, and have recognised in the scene much picturesque beauty. But I must say, that while reading the entry in the Kensington Church book, illuminated by my own memories of its communion Sundays during more than thirty years, I have before me a mode of administration, not only different from those just indicated, but in simplicity approaching, in my estimation, as near as possible to the Passover feast in the upper room at Jerusalem. It adds greatly to the interest of this unpretending record, to recall to mind contemporary events. The Church was formed, the minister was ordained, and the Lord’s Supper was administered just at the period of “the Reign of Terror” in Paris and throughout France; and, I may add, a different reign of terror in London and Great Britain. The revolution storm had been breaking in wild fury over our continental neighbours. Blood had been poured out like water by a ferocious tribunal of madmen calling themselves patriots. In two months, out of seven thousand political prisoners, five hundred and twenty-seven had perished under the guillotine. Neither sex nor age, neither rank nor obscurity, neither wealth nor indigence had shielded the most innocent from vengeance. Exiles had swarmed over to England, and were hiding their poverty and shame in the country village, the English capital, and the Court suburb. Tales of change after change had reached our shores, and filled thousands of hearts with terror. English rulers of that day, terrified by what they heard, may be really said to have lost their heads, for they adopted such tyrannical measures for repressing sedition and treason, that Charles James Fox said in reference to the trials of Muir and Palmer in Scotland, that if the law enforced there should be brought into England, it would be high time for “him and his friends to settle their affairs and retire to some happier clime.” It was just afterwards, and whilst order on the one side and freedom on the other were in jeopardy, that the humble fathers and founders of the Church at Kensington met to choose a pastor and to celebrate the Lord’s Supper in their new fellowship. “God,” says the forty-sixth Psalm, “is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. _There