everybody holding on to their seats whilst the regulator is open; and in this way he continues, getting safely to the end at last, but driving at such a frightfully rapid speed that travellers wonder how it is everything has not been smashed to atoms in readiness for coroners, and juries, and newspaper reporters.  As to his sincerity there cannot be a question.  He is not profound, but is very honest; he has nothing strongly ratiocinative in him, but he has for ever of earnestness in his composition—­indeed he burns himself up in a great blaze of zeal and blows himself to pieces in a self-generated whirlwind.  If he were quieter he would be more persuasive; and if he expended less of his vital energy in trying to brew forty storms in one tea pot he would live longer.  “Easy does it” is a phrase plucked from the plebeian lexicon of life, which we recommend for his consideration.  If he doesn’t attend to it we shall have a case of spontaneous combustion to record; and we want to avoid that if possible.  There is not a more sincere man, not a man more anxious to do good in Preston than Mr. Lee, only he piles Ossa upon Olympus too stiffly, and that was a job which the gods couldn’t manage properly.

The building where the Parker-street brethren meet is used for school purposes regularly—­barring the periods when worship is being conducted in it.  On week days about 100 scholars attend it; and on Sundays about 150.  The school and the chapel have done much good in the locality, and we wish both prosperity.  Whatever maybe the character of the building, and however difficult it may be for strangers to get to it, those living in the neighbourhood know its whereabouts, many having derived improvement from it, and if more went to it, pigeon-flying, gambling, Sunday rat hunting, tossing, drinking, and paganism generally—­things which have long flourished in its locality—­would be nearer a finish.

GRIMSHAW-STREET INDEPENDENT CHAPEL

Long before two-thirds of the people now living were born there was a rather curious difficulty at the Unitarian Chapel in this town.  In 1807, the Rev. W. Manning Walker, who at that time had been minister of the chapel for five years, changed his mind, became “more evangelical,” could not agree with the doctrines he had previously preached, got into water somewhat warm with the members, and left the place.  He took with him a few sympathisers, and through their instrumentality a new chapel was built for him in Grimshaw-street, and opened on the 12th of April, 1808.  It was a small edifice, would accommodate about 850 persons, and was the original ancestor of the Independent Chapel in that street.  In 1817 the building was enlarged so as to accommodate between 500 and 600, and Mr. Walker laboured regularly at it till 1822, when declining health necessitated his retirement.  The Rev. Thomas Mc.Connell, a gentleman with a smart polemical tongue, succeeded him.  Mr. Mc.Connell drew large congregations, and for a time was a burning and a shining light; but in 1825 be withdrew; became an infidel or something of the sort, and subsequently gave lectures on theological subjects, much to the regret of his friends and the horror of the orthodox.