From sentences like these it is easy to see the direction in which the mind of the good man was moving, before he commenced the work which has given such a happy and abiding perpetuity to his name. He gathered the children; the streets were full of noise and disturbances every Sunday. In a little while, says the Rev. Dr. Glass, Mr. Raikes found himself surrounded by such a set of little ragamuffins as would have disgusted other men less zealous to do good, and less earnest to disseminate comfort, exhortation, and benefit to all around him, than the founder of Sunday-schools. He prevented their running about in wild disorder through the streets. By and by, he arranged that a number of them should meet him at seven o’clock on the Sunday morning in the cathedral close, when he and they all went into the cathedral together to an early service. The increase of the numbers was rapid; Mr. Raikes was looked up to as the commander-in-chief of this ragged regiment. It is testified that a change took place and passed over the streets of the old Gloucester city on the Sunday. A glance at the features of Mr. Raikes will assure the reader that he was an amiable and gentle man, but that by no means implies always a weak one. He appears to have had plenty of strength, self-possession, and knowledge of the world. He also belonged to, and moved in, good society; and this is not without its influence. As he told the King, in the course of a long interview, when the King and Queen sent for him to Windsor, to talk over his system with him, in order that they might, in some sense, be his disciples, and adopt and recommend his plan: it was “botanising in human nature.” “All that I require,” said Raikes, to the parents of the children, “are clean hands, clean faces, and their hair combed.” To many who were barefooted, after they had shown some regularity of attendance, he gave shoes, and others he clothed. Yes, it was “botanising in human nature;” and very many anecdotes show what flowers sprang up out of the black soil in the path of the good man.