It is to the credit of the City that some of these money-making men have been amongst the most earnest supporters of every religious and philanthropic enterprise. Here we get a pleasant glimpse of one of them. Heard writes to Wilberforce, in 1790, of the death of John Thornton:—“He was allied to me by relationship and family connection. His character is so well known that it is scarcely necessary to attempt its delineation. It may be useful, however, to state, that it was by living with great simplicity of intention and conduct in the practice of Christian life, more than of any superiority of understanding or of knowledge, that he rendered his name illustrious in the view of all the respectable part of his contemporaries. He had a counting-house in London, and a handsome villa at Clapham. He anticipated the disposition and pursuits of the succeeding generation. He devoted large sums annually to charitable purposes, especially to the promotion of the cause of religion, both in his own and other countries. He assisted many clergymen, enabling them to live in comfort, and to practise a useful hospitality. His personal habits were remarkably simple. His dinner-hour was two o’clock; he generally attended public worship at some church or Episcopalian chapel several evenings in the week, and would often sit up to a late hour in his own study, at the top of the house, engaged in religious exercises. He died without a groan or a struggle, and in the full view of glory. Oh, may my end be like his!” He was the Sir James Stephen in the _Edinburgh Review_ for 1844, “a merchant renowned in his generation for a munificence more than princely.” Mr. Thornton was an Episcopalian, and it was owing to him that the venerable John Newton became pastor of St. Mary Woolnoth. His benevolence was as unsectarian as his general habits; and he stood ready, said Mr. Cecil, to assist a beneficent design in any party, but would be the creature of none. It was thus he was mainly instrumental in founding, and supporting for a while, a Dissenting academy at Newport-Pagnell, which was placed under the care of the Rev. Josiah Bull. Also he extended his patronage and pecuniary assistance to the institution at Marlborough, under the direction of the Rev. Cornelius Winter, and was thus brought into connection with Mr. Jay, towards whose support he contributed while passing through his academic course. Mr. Thornton spent myriads of pounds in the purchase of livings for evangelical preachers, in the erection and in enlargement of places of worship, both in the Church of England and among Dissenters, in sending out Bibles and religions books by his ships to various parts of the world, and in numerous other ways. Nor was his beneficence exclusively confined to religious objects. Mr. Newton says—“Mr. Bull told my father, that while he (Mr. Newton) was at Olney, he had received from Mr. Thornton more than £2,000 for the poor of that place. He not only,” continued Mr.