His father, Richard, belonged to a landed family in the counties of Oxford and Stafford. Richard's father and grandfather had both been vicars of Bucklebury, in Berkshire; his wife was Elizabeth Hutton, of a family which had given two archbishops to York. Charles was the fourth and youngest son. One of the elder sons, John, became Senior Master of the Court of Chancery, and was one of the commissioners with Sir Herbert Taylor and Count Munster for managing the private property of George III. Having represented Reading in Parliament for many years, he was made a baronet in 1815, and was grandfather of the present Sir John Simeon, of Swainston, in the Isle of Wight.

Charles was sent at an early age to Eton, where he became a King's scholar, and passed on in due time to a scholarship and fellowship at King's College, Cambridge. He seems to have been of a most lively, volatile, candid, and impulsive disposition. The energy and vigour which so remarkably distinguished him through life were much noticed in his youth. Horsemanship was his favourite exercise; and few persons, it is well known, were better judges of the merits of a horse, or more dexterous and bold in the management of one. In feats

of strength and activity he was surpassed by none." Although, from the deep religious point of view of his subsequent life, he referred to his schooldays with self-condemnation, "with regard to his moral character and habits there is every reason to believe, from observations that occasionally escaped from him, that he was by no means profligate or vicious in the usual sense of the terms. It would rather appear that, though exposed to scenes and temptations which he often spoke of with horror, he was on the whole in early life regular in habits and correct in his general conduct. His failings were principally such as arise from a constitutional vehemence and warmth of temper, the more easily provoked from certain feelings of vanity and self-importance, which during the whole of his life were a subject of conflict and trial to him. These feelings would display themselves at school in too great attention to dress, and in little peculiarities of manner, which quickly attracted the notice and provoked the ridicule of his companions."

A national fast, ordered in 1776, when he was still at Eton, and about seventeen years old, made a solemn impression on his mind. The thorough change of heart took place in

1779, at King's College, when he had received a message from the Provost that he would be expected to attend the Lord's Supper about three weeks later. Feeling his unfitness, he

“I

took in hand The Whole Duty of Man. began," he says, "to read it with great diligence, at the same time calling my ways to remembrance, and crying to God for mercy; and so. earnest was I in these exercises that within the three weeks I made myself quite ill with reading, fasting, and prayer." He would have to communicate again at Easter: he began to make restitution to any he thought he had wronged. His sense of sinfulness pressed so hard on him that he sometimes envied the very dogs their mortality. "In proportion," he continues, "as I proceeded in this work, I felt somewhat of hope springing up in my mind, but it was an indistinct kind of hope, founded on God's mercy to real penitents. But in Passion week, as I was reading Bishop Wilson on the Lord's Supper, I met with an expression to this effect, that the Jews knew what they did when they transferred their sins to the head of their offering. The thought rushed into my mind, 'What! may I transfer all my guilt to another? Has God provided an offering for me, that I

may lay my sins upon His head? Then, God willing, I will not bear them on my own soul one moment longer.' Accordingly I sought to lay my sins upon the sacred head of Jesus, and on Easter Day, April 4th, I awoke early with those words on my heart and lips, 'Jesus Christ is risen to-day, Hallelujah!' From that hour peace flowed in abundance into my soul, and at the Lord's table in our chapel I had the sweetest access to God through my blessed Saviour."

With his accustomed energy he set about at once to put his new experience into practice. He established a meeting for instruction and prayer on Sunday evenings for the College servants. In the vacation he persuaded his eldest brother, Richard, to join him in establishing family prayers in their father's house. The brother died in 1782, three years afterwards, in the genuine faith of a Christian; and as to the other two, John and Edward, who first joined their aged father in ridiculing and disliking Charles's change of life, "Blessed be God," he afterwards wrote, "both these brothers lived to embrace and honour that Saviour whom I had commended to them."

For three years he met no one at Cambridge

like-minded. At length he was invited to tea by Mr. Atkinson, Vicar of St. Edward's, whose ministry he attended, and also became acquainted with Jowett of Magdalene, and John Venn of Sidney; and Venn introduced him to his father, the celebrated Henry Venn, Rector of Yelling, near Huntingdon. "In this aged minister," he wrote, "I found a father, an instructor, and a most bright example, and I shall have reason to adore my God to all eternity for the benefit of his acquaintance.”

"On May 20th, 1782 (Trinity Sunday), I was ordained by the Bishop of Ely, and began my ministry in St. Edward's Church (in good old Latimer's pulpit), serving that parish for Mr. Atkinson during the long vacation. . . . In the space of a month or six weeks the church became crowded, the Lord's table was attended by three times the usual number of communicants, and a considerable stir was made among the dry bones. I visited all the parish from house to house, without making any difference between Churchmen and Dissenters." After a discussion with a dissenting minister on the doctrine of election, "I soon learned that I must take the Scriptures with the simplicity of a little child, and be content to