the London charity schools so far triumphed over his
political prejudices that he found pleasure in marshalling four thousand
of the children to witness the new sovereign's entry, and to greet him
with the psalm which bids the King rejoice in the strength of the Lord
and be exceeding glad in His salvation.

In such works as these--to which must be added his labours as a
commissioner in 1710 for the erection of new churches in London, his
efforts for the promotion of parochial and circulating clerical
libraries throughout the kingdom, for advancing Christian teaching in
grammar schools, for improving prisons, for giving help to French
Protestants in London and Eastern Christians in Armenia--Robert Nelson
found abundant scope for the beneficent energies of his public life. The
undertakings he carried out were but a few of the projects which engaged
his thoughts. If we cast our eyes over the proposed institutions which
he commended to the notice of the influential and the rich, it is
surprising to see in how many directions he anticipated the
philanthropical ideas of the age in which we live. Ophthalmic and
consumptive hospitals, and hospitals for the incurable; ragged schools;
penitentiaries; homes for destitute infants; associations of gentlewomen
for charitable and religious purposes; theological, training, and
missionary colleges; houses for temporary religious retirement and
retreat--such were some of the designs which, had he lived a few years
longer, he would certainly have attempted to carry into execution.[5]

He was no less active with his pen in efforts aimed at infusing an
earnest spirit of practical piety, and bringing home to men's thoughts
an appreciative feeling of the value of Church ordinances. He published
his 'Practice of True Devotion' in 1698, an excellent work, which
attracted little attention when it first came out, but reached at least
its twenty-second edition before the next century was completed. His
treatise on the 'Christian Sacrifice' appeared in 1706, his 'Life of
Bishop Bull' in 1713; but it is by his 'Festivals and Fasts' that his
name has been made familiar to every succeeding generation of Churchmen.
Its catechetical form, and the somewhat formal composure of its style,
did not strike past readers as defects. It certainly was in high favour
among English Churchmen generally. Dr. Johnson said of it in 1776 that
he understood it to have the greatest sale of any book ever printed in
Englan