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    greased . The number of bearers at first was very & m * ll , at present ( 1774 ) they aic fronx fryc to seven hundred . * TJie Stone Yard meeting had been laired in the year 1721 , and , except for twA short intervals , had been used for divine worship ever since . It was at first a barn , afterwards a stable and granary , then , a meeting-house , and notwithstanding its pews and galleries

    concealed its meanness within side a little , it was still a damp , dark and ruinous place , and the Cambridge Baptists had rnct in it , not because they were insensible of the prejudices which such wretched appearances make im the world , but because like many of their brethren , in other places they had never been able to

    do better- For the liberty of this place , they paid 4 / . ioj , annual rent , besides keeping it in repair . It wag now become too small for the audience , and several pf the new auditors being men of fortune , in 1764 they purchased the place

    pf Mr . Alderman Aistead for 70 / . rebuilt the house at their own expense , which amounted to five Hundred guineas , and on Lord ' s day , August 12 , 1764 , they met for the first time for public worship in their new meeting-house .

    Mr . Robinson had not been long settled at Cambridge before his singular talents and excellent qualifications as a preacher , began to be taken notice of ; and at the desire of the gown and town , he set up a JLord ' s-day evening lecture , which is crowded , and it is supposed that

    not less than 150 or zoo gownsmen , from different motives , generally attend . His p reaching is altogether without notes ; a method in which he is peculiarly happy , not by trusting to his memory entirely , nor by working himself up to a degree of warmth and passion , to which the preachers , among whom

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    he first appeared , in general owe their ready utterance ; but by thoroughly studying and making himself perfectly master of his subject , a » d a certain faculty of expression ivhich is never at a loss for suitable and proper Iwords : in short , his manner is admirably adapted to enlighten the nnder ^ raaiding , and to affect and reform the heart . Such a

    plainness of speech , such an easy and apparent method in dividing a discourse , and such a faaiiHar t ^ y of reasoning ag discovers a heart filled With the tenderest concern for the meatiest of his hearers , and yet snch a decency , propriety , and

    justness , that must beT approved by the most judicious . f Unhappily for the dissenting interest in this county , for almost a century the congregations have been -supplied by ignorant laymen , "whose want of

    knowledge has been ftiore observed and rendered more galling by being under the immediate notice © f a celebrated university , hy which means the knowledge of their weakness has been more diffused , and the mischief they have oc * casioncd to the character of dissenting ministers in general more painfully felt .

    To be diverted with the peculiar oddities of these preachers has , time immemorial , drawn numbers of the gownsmen to the dissenting places of worship in Cambridge . Mr . Robin * o «' s lectures had been frequently disturbed by them . After complaining to no purpose to the Vice Chancellor , he at length determined to try another methekfj and addressed a discourse to these sons of

    Belial , upon a becoming behaviour in reli gion * assemblies ) which is allowed by the oest judges of composition , who have seen it , to be the most complete piece of argument , genteel satyr , and Christian oratory that ever wa * read .

    * In the church-book I find the following note in Mr . Robinson ' s hand writing , vis . <; by the nearest calculation I can make , there are £ < po families that attend , and allowing 3 to each family , there must be about 1000 souls ( including children and servants ) belonging to this congregation . Merciful God what a charge ! Who is sufficient for these things ! If to these be added , the families that attend the country Lectures , who never get to Cambridge , though they never go to

    church , they are as many more . " Mr . R . ' s whole congregation lies in about 50 parishes ? 14 . in Cambridge , and the test in the neighbouring towns and villages . f Dr . Randal , the present Pnofesspr of Music in this university , who worships with thfapoaple constantly , ( except when hfs ^ office in trie university obliges him to b * nbtevt ) h & th examined , altered and even comjposed music for this assembly-Trie pious Professor hath beautified this ordinance and Sown the seeds ofkuowlcdgc in th 4 v «| jind ^ oi many of the children , servants and gentlemen of the umver $ i $ y wh * hajre ^ fiest lcamtttie hvmn only for the sake of the tudc .

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    630 Vrotetiant Disienting Ckutches in CVwu bridteBMrr .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1810, page 630, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1708/page/10/