His strokes were not delivered at random, but went straight to the mark.  He could reprove, exhort, advise, comfort, as if he were himself involved every day in the whirl and wear of life.  True his usual style of speech was rather Johnsonian, intermingled with forms of expression so entirely his own that you could only call them Claytonian; but those who knew him well, found that he talked very much as he preached, in rhetorically shaped sentences, with a singularly felicitous peculiarity of phrase coined in his own mind, and occasionally with a good-humoured subsidence into some pointed colloquialism which told all the more forcibly from its contrast with his ordinary mode.  They felt, therefore, that what he said was thoroughly genuine, the utterance of a true man and not at all of a quack, or as he would have said, of an empiric.  But whether experimental or practical, his sermons were richly and heartily evangelical, full of the very spirit of the Gospel.  As some of his old-fashioned hearers used to say, ‘You could always reckon on sixteen ounces to the pound.’”

Mr. Clayton was an exemplary pastor.  After he removed to Camomile Street and the Poultry, he visited his people in a most methodical way, dividing London into districts, and going from house to house, week after week, to comfort sorrowing hearts, to share in domestic joys, to guide the perplexed, and to stimulate the lukewarm; this I know, and therefore it may be inferred that he looked well after the few sheep in the Kensington fields, feeding them by day, and watching over them by night.  He used to talk of the large “ring fence” round his church in the city; the ring fence round his church in the suburb was small, and hence we may be sure that his pastoral duties were, during his pastorate at Hornton Street, thoroughly performed.  A gentleman by birth and education, with large sympathies easily evoked, tears and smiles coming at a moment’s bidding, apt at telling anecdotes, full of humour if not wit, he was a companion loved in a circle wider than his own congregation; his genial friendliness and neighbourly visits helped no doubt to promote the cause of Evangelical Nonconformity.

A number of minutes occur in the record of affairs, relative to matters of a temporal kind, during Mr. Clayton’s ministry; but there are no entries relative to the admission of members or other strictly religious proceedings.  One subject in particular excited the pastor’s solicitude, namely, that the chapel property should be put in trust, which accordingly was done; and in connection with this many discussions arose touching what was needful for discharging pecuniary liabilities.  It is plain from what follows that Mr. Clayton was not satisfied with “the mixture of temporals with spirituals,” as he called it; and on Christmas Day, 1804, he publicly assigned reasons for relinquishing the pastoral office.  Various rumours were afloat, which he briefly contradicted as “untrue,” and then told his friends that if they were asked “Why has Mr. Clayton left Kensington?” they were to reply, “That it was his earnest wish to be nearer the immediate circle of his ministerial connections and religious friends; that his desire was to be united to a Church whose members more fully coincided with him in sentiment on several subjects, more especially on the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper; and particularly that he might find a place where he might not be habitually perplexed with secular arrangements, and where he might in some degree enjoy that tranquillity which he deemed so necessary in the present state of his health.”  “I have the pleasure,” he added, “to inform you all, that last year this chapel was vested in the hands of nine trustees, who are engaged to see that no minister shall ever be settled here who does not preach the gospel agreeably to the tenets of the Assembly’s Catechism.”

Mr. Biggs, the collector and secretary, also resigned his office, and Mr. Walker was appointed in his room.

On the 31st of October, 1805, it was resolved, “at a meeting held in the vestry,” that Mr. Hamilton, of Brighton, should be invited to become pastor, and an invitation accordingly was drawn up, and signed by two deacons and between eighty and ninety other persons.

To the invitation Mr. Hamilton sent a negative reply, addressed to “the Church of Christ assembling for religious worship in Hornton Street, Kensington, and the subscribers to that interest.”

Meetings afterwards occurred at intervals for the settlement of pecuniary affairs, until the month of January, 1807, when by the direction of “the managers, with the members and subscribers approving,” the secretary, Mr. Walker, wrote to Mr. Leifchild, a student at Hoxton Academy, who had occupied Kensington pulpit with great acceptance, to become minister of the chapel.  Mr. Leifchild replied that he could not leave the Academy before the next Christmas, nor accept any call before the next midsummer.  In August of the same year a meeting was held at Mr. Broadwood’s house, and it was resolved to secure Mr. Leifchild not less than £160 per annum, with an addition of whatever the chapel might bring in above that sum.  On the 3rd of January, 1808, the members of the chapel resolved to invite Mr. Leifchild to the pastorate, and in March he accepted the invitation.

III.  THE THIRD PASTORATE.
THE REV. DR. LEIFCHILD.
1808–1824.

“Before accepting the call to Kensington,” he said, as we learn from the Memoir by his son, “while returning from a visit to that place, I heard at the house of a friend that Rowland Hill had announced me to preach at Surrey Chapel on the following Tuesday evening.”  He went and preached, and was surprised at the risibility of the audience, which was explained when he heard that Mr. Hill had crept up into the gallery behind the pulpit, and in his own comical way expressed assent to one part and dissent from another part of the discourse.  The veteran came into the vestry and asked the young man to become his curate at Wotton-under-Edge.  The latter declined the overture, when the former replied, “That reminds me of young men setting up in business before they have served their apprenticeship.” [37]  Just before that evening service, the minister of Surrey Chapel had written to Mr. Wilson, Treasurer of Hoxton Academy, saying, “I hear much of a young man of the name of Leifchild.  It was supposed that he was going to settle (a bad word for a young recruiting spiritual officer) at Kensington; but that there is a set of formal stupid Presbyterians there, who by no means suit his taste, and that he is consequently still waiting for the further directing hand of Providence, to know where he is to go.” [38a]  Mr. Hill was mistaken.  John Leifchild did settle at Kensington, and was ordained there in June, 1808, when Dr. Simpson, his tutor, delivered the charge.  Dr. Simpson, it may be remarked, was a man of singular spiritual power.  Many can argue, illustrate, persuade, and impress, but he could inspire; and the accounts given of him in this respect by his students were enthusiastic.  “I received a charge from his lips at my ordination over