e kindly and charitable towards those from whom they most differed,
and both were attached with such deep loyalty of love to the Church in
whose bosom they had been nurtured that they desired nothing more than
to see what they believed to be its genuine principles fully carried
out, and could neither sympathise with nor understand religious feelings
which looked elsewhere for satisfaction. Both were unaffectedly devout,
without the least tinge of moroseness or gloom. Nelson specially
delighted in Ken's morning, evening, and midnight hymns. He entreated
his readers to charge their memory with them. 'The daily repeating of
them will make you perfect in them, and the good fruit of them will
abide with you all your days.'[9] He subjoined them to his 'Practice of
True Devotion;' and Samuel Wesley tells us that he personally knew how
much he delighted in them. It was with these that--

He oft, when night with holy hymns was worn,
Prevented prime and wak'd the rising morn.[10]

He has made use of many of Ken's prayers, together with some from
Taylor, Kettlewell, and Hickes, in his 'Companion for the Festivals and
Fasts.' There is an intensity and effusion of spirit in them, in which
his own more studied compositions are somewhat wanting.

Among the other Nonjuring bishops Nelson was acquainted with, but not
very intimately, were Bancroft and Frampton. The former he loved and
admired; and spoke very highly of his learning and wisdom, his prudent
zeal for the honour of God, his piety and self-denying integrity.[11]
The little weaknesses and gentle intolerances of the good old man were
not such as he would censure, nor would he be altogether out of sympathy
with them. Bishop Frampton was in a manner an hereditary friend. He had
gone out to Aleppo as a young man, half a century before, in capacity of
chaplain of the Levant Company, at the urgent recommendation of John
Nelson, father of Robert,[12] who had the highest opinion of his merits.
From his cottage at Standish in Gloucestershire, where he had retired
after his deprivation, he occasionally wrote to Robert Nelson, and must
have often heard of him from John Kettlewell, the intimate and very
valued friend of both. He was a man who could not fail to be
esteemed[13] and loved by all who had the privilege of his acquaintance.
He had been a preacher of great fame, whom people crowded to hear. Pepys
said of him that 'he preached most like an apostle that he ever heard
man