The minister of Cannon-street chapel is the Rev. H. J. Martyn, who has had a good stay with “the brethren,” considering that their fighting weight is pretty heavy, and that some of them were made to “have their way.”  Frequently Independents are in hot water concerning their pastors.  In Preston they are very exemplary in this respect.  The Grimshaw street folk have had a storm in a tea pot with one of their ministers; so have the Lancaster-road Christians; and so have the Cannon-street believers; and the beauty of it is, they generally win.  Born to have their own way in sacred matters, they can turn off a parson, if they can’t defeat him in argument.  And that is a great thing.  They hold the purse strings; and no parson can live unless he has a “call” to some other “vineyard,” if they are closed against him.  On the whole, the present minister of Cannon-street Chapel has got on pretty evenly with his flock.  He has had odd skirmishes in his spiritual fold; and will have if he stays in it for ever; but the sheep have a very fair respect for the shepherd, and can “paint the lily” gracefully.  A while since they gave him leave of absence—­paying his salary, of course, whilst away—­and on his return some of them got up a tea party on his behalf and made him a presentation.  There might be party spirit or there might be absolute generosity in such a move; but the parson was no loser—­he enjoyed the out, and accepted with Christian fortitude the gift.  The Rev. H. J. Martyn is a small gentleman—­ considerably below the average of parsons in physical proportion; but he consoles himself with the thought that he is all right in quality, if not in quantity.  Diminutive men have generally very fair notions of themselves; small men as a rule are smarter than those of the bulky and adipose school; and, harmonising with this regulation, Mr. Martyn is both sharp and kindly disposed towards himself.  He is not of opinion, like one of his predecessors, that he assisted at the creation of the world, and that the endurance of Christianity depends upon his clerical pivot; but he believes that he has a “mission,” and that on the whole he is quite as good as the majority of Congregational divines.  There is nothing pretentious in his appearance; nothing ecclesiastical in his general framework; and in the street he looks almost as much like anybody else as like a parson.  The education of Mr. Martyn is equal to that of the average of Dissenting ministers, and better than that of several.  He is, however, more of a reader than a thinker, and more of a speaker than either.  On the platform he can make as big a stir as men twice his size.  His delivery is moderately even; his words clear; and he can throw a good dash of imagination into his language.  In the pulpit, to the foot of which place he is led every Sunday, by certain sacred diaconal lamas, who previously “rub him down” and saddle him for action, in a contiguous apartment—­in the pulpit, we say, he operates in a superior style,