The present chapter marks a very definite stage in the career of which I am privileged and happy to write. The subaltern has become a commander-in-chief, and a commander-in-chief who, for the first time, is about to have a commissariat. The time has arrived when the words of the Wisdom of Solomon sound strangely true. "Then shall the righteous man stand in great boldness before the face of such as have afflicted him, and made no account of his labours. "When they see it, they will be troubled with terrible fear, and shall be amazed at the strangeness of his salvation, so far beyond all that they looked for. "And they repenting and groaning for anguish of spirit shall say within themselves, This was he whom we had sometimes in derision and a proverb of reproach: "We fools counted his life madness, and his end to be without honour: "How is he numbered among the children of God, and his lot is among the saints!" The foundation stones of the frontage of the _final_ Great Assembly Hall were laid in November 1883, the Right Hon. the Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G., the president of the mission, taking the chair. Over five hundred ladies and gentlemen, including many of the local clergy and ministers, witnessed the ceremony, in which the venerable earl himself, Lady Blanche Keith-Falconer, Miss Cory of Cardiff, Mr. John Cory, Mr. George Williams, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Bevan, the late Lady Hobart, and others, took part. The foundation stone of the great Mission Hall itself, which is the centre of the whole group of buildings, was laid by Her Grace the Duchess of Westminster, on July 4, 1885, and opened by John Cory, Esq., J.P., February 4, 1886. I am anxious that readers of this book shall have a very complete picture in their minds of this centre of Mr. Charrington's work. They must see it as it was then, from a contemporary's reminiscences; they must also see it as it was when, only three or four months ago, I, Mr. Charrington's biographer, made a comprehensive experience of it. Let the first chronicler, at the moment when the largest mission hall in the world was thrown open to view, speak before me. "'Does it really hold five thousand people?' was a remark I overheard in the crowd which had gathered outside the entrances to the New Great Assembly Hall, on the day of the opening, the 4th of February, 1886. The doubter was soon set at rest upon that point by those who had had the advantage of a private view. A few days earlier I had availed myself of Mr. Charrington's invitation, and had noted the carpenters putting the finishing touches to the magnificent building which, like some Aladdin's palace, had risen in the space of ten months. I was prepared for surprises, but not such a surprise as the one here provided. The effect the first view of the hall produced upon the mind was one of amazement.