s something to do, to see, or to hear,
and in London especially is there much to hear of which Londoners know
but little. Such, at any rate, was the reflection of the writer one
Thursday night as he made his way along the Hampstead Road to a neat
little iron church on the left-hand side as you go from the City, and
just before you reach Mornington Crescent. Every Sunday morning there
preaches there the Rev. Thomas Lynch, the author of some choice prose and
poetry--a man at whom there was a dead set made by certain religionists a
few years ago, but who has long outlived that, and to whom that time of
trial and of trouble was undoubtedly a most blessed event, inasmuch as it
taught the gentle author of the "Rivulet" his strength, both as regards
himself and as regards the best of our religious teachers; and inasmuch
as it demonstrated to all anew, and more clearly than ever, how hard, how
cruel, how unmerciful dogmatic theologians could become. At that time
Mr. Lynch was preaching in a chapel in one of the streets running from
Tottenham Court Road into Fitzroy Square. He is now nearer Camden Town,
and preaches in a building between which and the pastor there seems to be
a kind of resemblance and sympathy; at any rate, as much as can exist
between what is abstract and concrete--between matter and mind. The
church is no Gothic edifice, hoary with time, but slender and modern,
and, as much as possible, graceful. You wonder it has not been swept
away by the storms of winter. A similar feeling exists when you look at
Mr. Lynch. There are great mountains of men, whose tread is terrible,
whose laugh is volcanic, whose heads are rugged rocks, whose bodies are
bulls of Bashan, whose speech is as the roar of an angry sea, whose faces
in summer parch you up like burning suns, or in winter darken you with
angry clouds. To this genus Mr. Lynch does in no way belong. The
fairies who assisted at Mr. Lynch's birth did very little for him
physically--at any rate, they robbed his bones of all flesh, and made his
outward frame as spare as possible. It is to be wished also that they
had endowed him with better health. Yet his figure cannot be termed
ungraceful or his appearance unattractive. In his dress he is
scrupulously neat. Even on weekday services he wears the white
handkerchief, which when round the neck denotes that you are a swell on
your way to dinner, or a waiter, or a gentleman of the clerical
profession. His grey eye