In connexion with Harborough, Mr. Clarke also took the charge of a congregation meeting at Ashley, a village about five miles from the former place; and during the whole course of his subsequent ministry he regularly preached at Ashley in the morning, and at Harborough in the afternoon, every Lord's-day. His ministry appears to have been highly valued, and to have been eminently successful; at the close of it the Church numbered 202 members, a very large proportion of them living in the villages surrounding Harborough--some of them a number of miles distant. In the character of Mr. Clarke were combined unbending integrity and conscientiousness, with great kindness of spirit and manner. Of the first we have proof in his decided Nonconformity--in his willingness to suffer rather than to sin--in his following the path of duty, whatever might be the dangers to which it exposed him--in his steady pursuit of all the labours of his calling until laid aside by his last affliction--in his firm resistance of acts of injustice and oppression, as shown when, being convinced that the King's tax on his salary was unjust, he firmly and successfully refused payment: of the latter we have proof in his affectionate regard to the truly pious wherever he beheld them--in the peaceful temper which he breathed--in the kind and profitable intercourse he promoted between his brethren--and in the conciliatory spirit he manifested towards those who were the enemies of the Gospel, or of the cause he supported. Mr. Clarke had one son, named after him, who for a time became an assistant to his father in the work of the ministry at Harborough. The venerable father contrived, amidst all that he suffered for conscience' sake (and he drank largely of the bitter cup), to take peculiar care of the education of his son, whom he early instructed in the learned languages, together with several young persons who were studying under his tuition for the ministry. The parent's wish to see his son a preacher of the same Gospel for which he was suffering was honourable to himself, but it seems to have led him to devote that son to the work without waiting to see whether God approved; which, but for the grace bestowed upon the youth, might have been a fatal injury to himself and thousands more. After revolving the question seriously in his mind, and reflecting on the sacrifices which the ministry would require, the son was at length animated to comply with the father's desire, by the consideration that they that "turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars for ever and ever."