the Presbyterians worshipping in Preston don't pretend
to date as far back as some religious sects, but they do start
ancestrally from the first epoch of British Presbyterianism. Their
spiritual forefathers had a stern beginning in this country; they
were cradled in fierce tomes, said their prayers often amid the
smoke of cannons and the tumult of armies; and maintained their
vitality through one of the sternest and most revolutionary periods
of modern history. In the 17th century they were, for a few moments,
paramount in England; in 1648 nearly all the parishes in the land
were declared to be under their form of church government; but the
tide of fortune eventually set in against them; at the Restoration
Episcopacy superseded their faith; and since then they have had to
fight up their way through a long, a circuitous, and an uneven
track. Their creed, as before intimated, is Calvinistic, and that is
a sufficient definition of it. They believe in a sort of universal
suffrage, so far as the election of their pastors is concerned; and
if they have grievances on hand they nurse them for a short time,
then appeal to "the presbytery." and in case they can't get
consolation from that body they go to "the synod." We could give the
history of this sect, but in doing so we should have to quote many
"figures" and numerous "facts"--things which, according to one
British statesman, can never be relied upon--and on that account we
shall avoid the dilemma into which we might be drifted. It will be
sufficient for our purpose to state that in 1866 a few persons in
Preston with a predilection for the ancient form of Presbyterianism
held a consultation, and decided to start a "church." They had a
sprinkling of serious blood in their arteries--a tincture of well-
balanced, modernised Puritanism in their veins--and they honestly
thought that if any balm had to come out of Gilead, it would first
have to pass through Presbyterianism, and that if any physician had
to appear he would have to be a Calvinistic preacher.

They, at first, met privately, and then engaged the theatre of
Avenham Institution--a place which had previously been the nursery
of Fishergate Baptism and Lancaster-road Congregationalism. From the
early part of January, 1866, till September, 1867, they were regaled
with "supplies" from different parts of the kingdom. When they met
on the second Sunday--it would be unfair to criticise the first
Curtian plunge they made--14 pe