It is appropriate in connection with the early part of my Kensington life to mention religious societies with which I closely associated myself. There is no doubt some truth in the lines that,
“Distance lends enchantment to the view, And clothes the mountain with an azure hue.”
In looking at benevolent work, remote in time or place, we are apt to paint it in fairest colours; but of the great importance of the religious work going on fifty years ago in London and the neighbourhood, there can be no question whatever.
The _British and Foreign Bible Society_ I always regarded as lying at the very foundation of our religious activity. It had a comprehensive Auxiliary in the West End from the commencement of the society’s operations, and annual meetings were held in the Haymarket, under the presidency of royal dukes. This Auxiliary was broken into parts, and Kensington had a leading place amongst them. Traditions of earlier days were cherished when I began to live in the royal suburb, and they invested our local gatherings with some dignity, as families when divided derive honours from their common ancestry.
The Missionary Society, as it was originally called—the _London Missionary Society_, as it was afterwards named—had from the beginning been supported by our Church; indeed, fathers and founders of the one appear amongst early workers in the other, and through the ministry of Mr. Clayton, Dr. Leifchild, and Dr. Vaughan, foreign missions found zealous supporters at Kensington. The London City Mission, then in its early age, had engaged my sympathies at Windsor. There we had a town missionary, who brought us into connection with work going on in the Metropolis. Consequently, when I came to Kensington, I took much interest in the annual meetings of the society, and was brought into intimate relations with its officers and supporters. Annual gatherings were held in Freemasons’ Hall, Queen Street, where signs of the Zodiac, and portraits of Grand Masters, adorned the ceiling and walls, suggesting to speakers allusions, obvious or far-fetched, till they became rather threadbare and wearisome; but, from the beginning, narratives by the missionaries formed a chief source of interest.