I have seen a letter from his mother’s brother, Bailie Lea, written years ago to one of his nieces, in which he recalls, he says, “times, some seventy years ago, long before any of you were born.” He describes with some humour how he had helped young Tom Hill in his courtship. He adds, “The happy hour began to draw nigh, the gown was bought, made, and fitted on; the knot tied, the work was done, and it speaks for itself in every quarter of the globe.” With honest and just pride in his sister, the old man adds, “But Tom Hill could not have accomplished the half of what appears with any other woman for a wife than Sally Lea.” Certainly Rowland Hill always believed that he himself could not have accomplished the half of what he did had he not had such a mother. I know not whether my grandfather had any rivals. A charming story that is told of his old age leads me to think that he must have had at least one. His wife, when they had been married close on fifty years, one day called him, with a Birmingham plainness of speech, “An old fool!” A child who was staying in the house overheard him, as he left the room and slowly went up the stairs, muttering to himself, “Humph! she called me an old fool—an old fool!” Then he stopped, and was silent for a few moments, till suddenly rubbing his hands together, he exclaimed, “A lucky dog I was to get her, though!” His memory had carried him back full fifty years, before the ring was bought and the gown made, when young Tom Hill had still to win the heart and hand of Sarah Lea. A few years after her death he was one day missing. Some hours passed by, and nothing could be heard of the aged man who numbered now his fourscore years and four. At length he was seen trudging slowly homewards. He had gone on foot full five miles to his wife’s grave, and on foot he was making his way back. His marriage had been delayed for a short time by the riots in which the chapels of the dissenters, and many of their houses, were burnt to the ground by a brutal Church-and-King mob. With several of his companions he had hurried off to defend the house of their revered pastor, but their services were unhappily declined. Priestley declared that it was the duty of a Christian minister to submit to persecution. The rest of the story of this eventful scene I shall tell in the words of his eldest son:—