a large one for that period, is neat and commodious; and, though the lower part of it has been considerably renovated, the pulpit and the pewing of the galleries are still unchanged. A marble monument, in the most profuse style of mural decoration, bears an inscription to the memory of Doddridge, more verbose than powerful. But there is no part of this building altogether so interesting to the visitor as the vestry. Here are the chair in which Doddridge sat; the table at which he wrote his "Expositor;" the original invitation addressed to him to become the pastor of the church, with his reply; the drawing of the monument erected to his memory in the cemetery of Lisbon, where he died. These walls have been, doubtless, familiar with many of those communings of ardent devotion which rendered him so powerful in the pulpit and from the press; and here he often verified the sentiment, that "Solitude has nothing gloomy in it when the soul points upwards." When Doddridge undertook—as he did immediately before his coming to Northampton-the formation of a dissenting academy, the course was not without its perils. This aspect of the case presented itself to the mind of Dr. Watts, who was consulted respecting the project. "Are. the hands of enemies," writes Watts, "so effectually chained up from offering us any violence, that they cannot indict or persecute you, under the pretence that your academy is a school ?"* * Doddridge's Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 481. There were sufficient reasons for such a question. Since the Restoration, the nonconformists had been excluded from the benefit of the English universities, and their schools had been conducted in private, under the management of such individuals as were considered competent. One of the most eminent establishments was conducted by Mr. Morton, at Newington Green. At this school Defoe, Samuel Wesley, and many ministers, received their first training. Another was under the discipline of Mr. Kerr, of Bethnal Green. But these seminaries did not pass unmolested. Morton was exposed to perpetual annoyances from spies and informers; till, at length, worn out by vexations, he abandoned his country, and took refuge in New England. A little later, a still more eminent establishment was kept by Mr. Doolittle, who preached at Monkwell-street, and lived at Islington. Many men of considerable nonconformist eminence received their education under his roof; amongst the rest, Matthew Henry and Dr. Calamy. But he was compelled also to break up his establishment at Islington, and to remove first to Battersea, and afterwards to Clerkenwell.* Indeed, no dissenter could at that time exercise the functions of a teacher without exposing himself to dangerous penalties. Roger Rosen, for teaching a few little children to read, was cited to Chester, excommunicated, and was in great danger of starvation. * Calamy's Life and Times, vol. i. pp. 113-138. In one of these academies,-that, namely, kept by Morton, Samuel Wesley, father of the celebrated founder of Methodism, received, as we have said, his education. A book, bearing his name, but published probably without his consent or authority, was put forth, which contained severe strictures on the mode of education adopted by protestant dissenters. The work drew forth a reply, to which Wesley added a rejoinder, containing severe reflections on the nonconforming body. This was a cruel blow, especially at a time when dissenters with difficulty maintained a tolerated position. "When all is done, gentlemen," said Defoe, in his strictures on the work, "why do we erect private academies, and teach our children by themselves? Even for the same reason that we do not communicate with you, because you shut us out by imposing unreasonable terms. while you shut our children out of your schools, never quarrel at our teaching them at those of our own, or sending them into foreign countries; since, wherever they are taught, they generally get a share of learning at least equal to yourselves, and, we hope, partake of as much honesty ;-and, as to their performances, match them, and outpreach them, if you can. I wish that was the only strife between us." * * But Even after the accession of the house of Hanover, occasional riots, stimulated by the party who were favorable to the Pretender, menaced the dissenters in various parts of the kingdom, and were stimulated by a celebra ted sermon, preached March 31, 1717, by Bishop Hoadley, on the nature of the kingdom of Christ, in which he asserted" that Christ is the sole law-giver to his subjects, and the sole judge of their behavior in the affairs of conscience and eternal salvation;" and that, "to set up any other authority in his kingdom, to which his subjects are indispensably obliged to submit their consciences or conduct in what is properly called religion, evidently destroys the rule and authority of Jesus Christ as king." Sherlock charged Hoadley with endeavoring to prepare the way for the repeal of the Test Act; and the Convocation declared his sentiments subversive of all government and discipline in the church of Christ. This was the last bona fide sitting of this body. They have never been permitted to transact business since that period. Such were the circumstances under which Doddridge first instituted, on his settlement at Northampton, his academy. He was, in many respects, in a favorable position for doing so. The dissenters were in high favor at court, and their adversaries in a position of declining influence. But they had, on many occasions, given great annoyance to Doddridge and his students, and at length they proceeded to systematic hostility. At a visitation in Northampton, in the year 1752, Reynolds, the chancellor, told the church-wardens of Doddridge's parish "that he was informed that there was a fellow in this parish who taught a grammar-school, as he supposed, without any license from the bishop," and com manded them, if they found such to be the fact, to present Doddridge, that he might be prosecuted according to law. Nor was such a prosecution in those days an unusual event; for Doddridge tells us that he knew twenty such attempts within less than so many years. Whilst this case was pending in the ecclesiastical court, and at the time of a general election, in which a Jacobite member was returned, a riotous attack was made on Doddridge's house, which was connived at by the mayor of the town. DODDRIDGE'S HOUSE, NORTHAMPTON. By the express intervention of George II., who declared that, in his reign, there should be no persecution, the suit was quashed. The progress of dissenting liberty during the reign of Geo. III. and his successors, the contests respecting the Corporation and Test Acts, and Catholic Emancipation, which were terminated in 1828 and 1829 by the repeal of those oppressive enactments, the bill of Lord Sidmouth, in 1811, which sought to limit "the liberty of prophesy B* |