The third son of John and Catherine Gurney, and sister of Priscilla Wakefield, he was born at Earlham Hall, August 2d, 1788. It is a singular fact connected with the name, that one of his ancestors, in 1653, was sent a prisoner to the Norwich gaol, for refusing to take the oath, and that Waller Bacon, of Earlham, who committed him, resided at the time in the very Hall which the descendants of the prisoner afterwards occupied. When Joseph was only four years of age, the family of eleven children lost the superintending care of their mother, and his home education mainly devolved upon his three elder sisters, among whom was Mrs. Fry. Their home was the scene of rich hospitality, dealt out by their liberal-minded father; and the literary tastes, intellectual pursuits, and elegant accomplishments, in which every member of the social group delighted, drew around them a brilliant circle of the choicest society, to which the late Duke of Gloucester was a frequent and welcome addition. The scholastic instruction of Joseph John was at first superintended by a clergyman, and afterwards matured at Oxford, where he attended the professor’s lectures, and enjoyed many of the advantages of the university, without becoming a member or subscribing to the thirty-nine articles. Such an education naturally tended to create some doubts as to the system of Quakerism; but after much examination and consideration, his preference became settled in favour of the views and profession of his old “Friends;” and consistently with them he lived and died, by no means finding in them any barrier to the fullest and freest association with any other body of Christians, or to a personal friendship with the ecclesiastical bishops of the diocese, with one of whom, Bishop Bathurst, he was a frequent and esteemed guest; while to Bishop Stanley was left the melancholy opportunity of bearing a testimony to his public and private character, in the memorable form of a funeral sermon from the cathedral pulpit, a tribute of respect unexampled since the days of George Fox. His life spent in doing good, in preaching as the minister of the society to which he belonged, in England, Ireland, upon the Continent, and in America, was full of interest. In the legislative hall, at Washington, before the assembled members of Congress, his voice was heard. Louis Philippe, Guizot, and De Stael, were among his auditors in France; the King of Holland abandoned, through his counsel, the importation of slave soldiers from the Gold Coast; Vinet at Lausanne, D’Aubigne in Geneva, and the King of Wirtemberg, held council with him. To attempt to chronicle his deeds of pecuniary munificence, public and private, would be an herculean task. The great sums lavished upon public societies, the world of necessity was made acquainted with, but they formed but a moiety of the aids furnished from his abundance to the wants of the needy. He was truly one whose left hand was not suffered to know