r Nonconformity very quietly, and were
satisfied to know that their chapel was the first in the connection, and
their minister justly esteemed as one of the most eloquent. The
Liberation Society held one meeting at the Crescent Chapel, but it was
not considered a great success. At the best, they were no more than
lukewarm Crescent-Chapelites, not political dissenters. Both minister
and people were Liberal, that was the creed they professed. Some of the
congregations Citywards, and the smaller chapels about Hampstead and
Islington, used the word Latitudinarian instead; but that, as the
Crescent Chapel people said, was a word always applied by the bigoted
and ignorant to those who held in high regard the doctrines of Christian
charity. They were indeed somewhat proud of their tolerance, their
impartiality, their freedom from old prejudices. "That sort of thing
will not do now-a-days," said Mr. Copperhead, who was a great railway
contractor and one of the deacons, and who had himself a son at Oxford.
If there had been any bigotry in the Crescent, Mr. Copperhead would have
had little difficulty in transferring himself over the way to St. Paul's
Church, and it is astonishing what an effect that fact had upon the mind
of Mr. Beecham's flock.

Mr. Beecham's house was situated in Regent's Park, and was constructed
on the ordinary model of such houses. On the ground-floor was a handsome
dining-room, a room which both Mr. and Mrs. Beecham twenty years before
would have considered splendid, but which now they condescended to, as
not so large as they could wish, but still comfortable. The drawing-room
above was larger, a bright and pleasant room, furnished with
considerable "taste." Behind the dining-room, a smaller room was Mr.
Beecham's study, or the library, as it was sometimes called. It was
lined with book-cases containing a very fair collection of books, and
ornamented with portraits (chiefly engravings) of celebrated ministers
and laymen in the connection, with a bust of Mr. Copperhead over the
mantelpiece. This bust had been done by a young sculptor whom he
patronized, for the great man's own house. When it was nearly completed,
however, a flaw was found in the marble, which somewhat detracted from
its perfection. The flaw was in the shoulder of the image, and by no
means serious; but Mr. Copperhead was not the man to pass over any such
defect. After a long and serious consultation over it, which made the
young artist shake