It was said above that Dean Milner was the solitary instance of an Evangelical clergyman of the last century, who gained any high preferment.  Some may think that Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London, also formed an exception to the rule.  But, strictly speaking, Bishop Porteus can scarcely be said to have identified himself with the Evangelical school.  It is true that he did not share the prejudices which many of his brother prelates conceived against the Evangelical clergy, but, on the contrary, was on terms of the closest intimacy with many of them, and always used the commanding influence which his position gave him in their favour.  He threw himself heartily into all their philanthropical schemes—­the promotion of Sunday-schools, the agitation for the abolition of negro slavery, and the newly reawakened zeal for foreign missions.  But he never so far committed himself as to incur the reproach of Methodism; he did not bear the brunt of the battle as the Evangelicals did, and therefore can hardly be reckoned among their number.

Hitherto, our attention has been turned mainly to the clergy who took part in the Evangelical movement.  But this sketch would be very imperfect if it failed to notice the eminent laymen who helped the cause.  The two Thorntons, father and son, William Wilberforce, Lord Dartmouth, Lord Teignmouth and others, who regularly or occasionally attended the ministry of John Venn, the worthy Rector of Clapham, were called in derision, ‘the Clapham sect.’  The phrase implies a sort of reproach which was not deserved.  These good men had no desire to form a sect.  They were all, in their way, loyal sons of the Church of England, content with her liturgy, attached to her doctrines, and ready to conform to her order.  Perhaps, like most laymen who take up strong views on theological subjects, they were inclined to be a little narrow.  None of them had, or professed to have, the slightest pretensions to be called theologians.  Still, they learned and practised thoroughly the true lessons of Christianity, and shed a lustre upon the Evangelical cause by the purity, disinterestedness, and beneficence of their lives.

Of the two Thorntons little need be said, except that they were wealthy merchants who in very truth looked upon their riches not as their own, but as talents entrusted to them for their Master’s use.  The princely liberality of these two good men was literally unbounded.  It has been seen that the Evangelical clergy were almost to a man debarred from the emoluments of their profession, and lived in very straitened circumstances.  The extent to which their lack was supplied by John and Henry Thornton is almost incredible.  John Thornton regularly allowed Newton, during the sixteen years the latter was at Olney, 200_l._ a year for charitable purposes, and urged him to draw upon him for more when necessary.  Henry Thornton, the son, is said to have divided his income into two parts, retaining only one-seventh for his own use, and devoting six-sevenths to charity; after he became the head of a family, he gave two-thirds away and retained one-third for himself and his family.  It appeared after his death, from his accounts, that the amount he spent in the relief of distress in one of his earlier years considerably exceeded 9,000_l._