arily were liable to the abuses of popularity-hunting and of lack
of care for individuals, especially the poor: but a man in thorough
earnestness is sure to draw good even out of a defective system; and
Daniel Wilson, sitting in his study which was connected with the chapel,
became the counsellor of hundreds who sought spiritual advice and
assistance, chiefly of the upper and well-to-do classes, but he took care
to avoid wasting time over these conferences, and when it came to mere
talk would put people's hats and umbrellas into their hands. There were
also large Sunday-schools connected with his chapel, and taught by the
members of his congregation, and these led to the first organization of a
district visitors' society, one of the earliest attempts of the slowly
reviving English Church to show her laity how to minister to the poor
under pastoral direction.

His father-in-law, Mr. William Wilson, had purchased the advowson of the
living of Islington, and, when it became vacant in 1824, presented it to
him, when he carried thither all his vigour and thoroughness. Church
building was his first necessity, and he absolutely prevailed on his
parish to rate themselves for the purpose, so that three churches were
begun almost at once, and by the time his Life was written in 1860 the
great suburb had multiplied its single church in thirty-six years into
fifteen. At Islington the chief sorrows of his life befel him. He had
had six children, of whom one died an infant and two more in early
childhood. The second son, John, after a boyhood of great promise, fell
into temptation at the University and led a wild and degrading course;
ending by his retirement to the Continent, where he died in 1833, after a
very painful illness, in which he had evinced great agony of mind, which
softened at length into repentance and hope. The eldest son, Daniel, who
attended him on his death-bed, had taken holy orders and succeeded to his
father's former living of Warton; and one daughter, Eliza, born in 1814,
survived to cheer his home when his wife, after some years of invalidism,
died in 1827. Zealous, resolute, and hardworking, he never allowed
sorrow to interfere with his work, and was soon in the midst of his
confirmation classes, and of a scheme for educating young tradespeople on
a more thorough and religious system.

In the meantime he had always loved and urged the missionary cause, and
had consulted with Bishop Turner before he wen