378 APPENDIX IL 



held weekly at their house, for studying the Holy Word.* Of 

 such a " Scripture readnig," now so common, I had never heard. 

 I found, sitting round a large table in their dining-room, each with 

 a Bible before him, about ten persons — William and Mary Berger, 

 George Pearse, Capel Berger, Edward Spencer, Edward Hanson, 

 James Van Sommer, and perhaps one or two more ; and I took 

 my place in the little company. They were engaged on Rom. i., 

 and the seventeenth verse occupied the whole evening. Such a 

 close and minute digging for hid treasures was a novelty to me ; as 

 was also the deference and subjection to the Word of God, and the 

 comparing of Scripture with Scripture. The company present were 

 pretty uniform in mental power and education ; almost all could 

 refer to the Greek original ; and there was unrestrained freedom 

 of discussion, and perfect loving confidence. Many points were 

 examined ; for the converse was necessarily somewhat desultory. 

 Only one prominent topic has fixed itself in my memory, viz. the 

 heavenly citizenship. This so amazed me that I exclaimed, *k 



" Because I am a Christian, surely I am not less an Englishman ! " 

 Hanson, at whom I looked as I spoke, only shook his head, and 

 I was silent ; till, just before the meeting closed, I emphatically 

 said, '"I have learned a great truth to-night ! " 



I had already formally severed my connection with the 

 Wesleyan society, and now took my place on Lord's day morn- 

 ings with the little company (some forty or fifty lowly believers) 

 who met to break bread at Ellis's Room : — a change for which I 

 have ever since had reason to thank God. 



* My father's memory fails him when he says "quite early." It was in 

 A pril, 1S47, that he began to take part in these meetings. — E. G. 



