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LONDON'S PROPRIETARY OHAPELS.

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LONDON'S PROPRIETARY OHAPELS. SOME INTERESTING PARTICULARS. MUCH interest has been aroused by the Hews that Bishop Gore is to preach at Grosvenor Chapel, where he comniences to occupy the pulpit on Advent Sunday. The chapel is in South Audley-street. It was at one time a proprietary chapel, being built.in 1730. It was consecrated in 1832, and is now under the Rector of St. George's, Hanover-square. Outside the structure is not very striking, but inside there is much that is pleasing and tasteful, and the appointments generally are well worthy its position in the heart of the West-end of London. White and gold are the prevailing colours of tiie ceiling amd some other parts, and these tone well with the oak-ooloured, comfort- able-looking pews and pulpit. The latter 13 on the left-hand side of the visitor as he enters the chapel. A handsome screen is at the east end. This was put up in 1912, and what was before that a kind of alcove at that end is now cut off by this screen and forms an admirable, small communion chapel. In the west gallery, j right over the entrance door of the chapel, is the organ, the gift in 1732 of Sir Richard Grosvenor. The gallery is a roomy one, and in it is a tablet to John Wilkes, "a friend to liberty," who died in 1797. Buried here, too, is the famous Lady Mary Wortley Montague. This lady was an acquaintance of Addison, Congreve, Pope, and other men of mark of the time. Her Letters are well known. She wrote them from Turkey, where her husband was Ambassador to the Porte. She it was who introduced the Turkish remedy of inoculation for smallpox, practising it first upon her own children. In the chapel vaults are the remains of Ambrose Phillips (died 1749), described by Macaulay as a good Whig and a middling poet," and ridiculed by Pope as "The hard whom pilfered pastorals re- nown; Who turns a Persian tale for half-a- crown; Just writes to make his barrenness appear, And strains from hard-bound brains eight lines a year." When Lord George Gordon, of the riots fame, was acquitted public thanksgivings were returned in tHe chapel. When they Arose. In the first instance proprietary chapels were unconsecrated places of worship, and Sord Phillimore in his work on Eoclesiastical Law says they were anomalies. They arose in the early part of the eighteenth century, when it was found that owing to the growth af „ the population of the metropolis and- other places the accommodation provided by the parish churches was insufficient, J ministers of the Church of England being licensed to perform duty in them. Some- times, however, their erection was due to political motives. In 1721, for instance some Whigs started to build the chapel of St. John in Bedford-row in Sacheve- rell's parish of St. Andrew, Holborn, and slaimed the right to nominate the • preacher. Sacheverell entered a counter- claim, and the Whig Bishop Robinson licensed the proprietor's nominee. The question was ,settled by a compromise. and from that time the proprietor nomi- nated a minister who could only officiate with the consent of the incumbent of the parish, with-whom he had no other con- nection. In matters of discipline he wa" answerable to the ordinary. He could only read the services and administer the sacraments. Dr Keith's Chapel These ministers oould not perform the tnarriage oeremony, but Dr. Keith, of Mayfair Chapel, was in 1740 notariou", for the number of clandestine marriages he celebrated in his chapel. Such a flourishing trade did he do that he is said to have made an income equal to a Bishop. Horace Walpole mentions one marriage between the Duke of Hamilton and Miss Gunning, which took place there at 12.30 at night, the wedding ring. a being the ring of a bed curtain. Keith probably served fifteen years in the Fleet prison, and died there in 1758. < The passing of the Marriage Act put a stop to his activities, but as showing the popularity of his chapel it is interesting to know that on the day before the Act came into force—Lady Day, 1754—sixty- one couples were married there. Keith, by the way, had the effrontery to assert that if the Marriage Act was a benefit to the.country he would have the satis- faction of knowing that he had been the occasion of it. It is worth noting that these proprietary chapels—for there were many of them—could be turned to secular uses if the proprietors thought fit. It must not be thought, however, that they were all on a par with Keith's Chapel. This was by no means the case. Many of them had curious histories, and many of them did excellent service until comparatively recent times. They were often originally built as commercial undertakings, and their proprietors, apart from making a profit out of the pew rents, had an eye to enhanoing the value of the adjoining property. The pew rente were a considerable item, At Grosvenor Chapel in 1786 the yearly rent of a pew was R15 0s. 2d.-the twopence looks strangely out of place. The Rev. Charles Honey man. Thackeray in "The Newcomes" makes great play with the Rev. Charles honeyman, who was minister at Lady Whittlesea's Chapel, Mayfair. "He cries a good deal in his sermons." Lord Dozeley had a front pew, and one of Thackeray's characters is made to say that Honeyman earned a thousand a year out of the chapel, besides the wine vaults below." A chapel, which had a strange history was Holy Trinity, Con- duit-street, although it is doubtful if it was a proprietary chapel. James II. had a large wooden chapel built which was movable at will. He had it taken down to ixounslow Heath and occasionally moved from one part of the camp to the other with a view to converting the sol- diers to Roman Catholicism. When he fled the country the chapel was brought back to London and placed in what was then fields (Conduit-street), where it re- iiiained until 1716, when Trinity Chapei of brick was builton the site. -Eventually it was pulled down in 1877 to make room for a new shop. St. Peter's Chapel, Palace-street, Buckingham Palace-road, is still in existence, lli3 a chapel of ease, and is well worthy of notice. Dr. Dodd, the great London preacheir of the eighteeath century, preached there. During his ten years in that position he made an average of £1,300 a year as morning preacher, which was not a bad income for one service a week. In June, 1777, he was hanged for forgery. The chapel was originally known as Charlotte Chapel, after Queen Charlotte, who became its special backer and patron. She rented successive rows of seats in the galleries, besides renting four pews in the middle aisle. These she continued to hold until her death in 1818. St. Peter's Clwpel is now attached to St. Peter's Church, Eaton- square. Amongst the famous people who were members of this chapel's con- gregation in the last century were William Ewart Gladstone and his friend, Henry Edward Manning, who became the famous Cardinal. HASTA.

MISSIONARY EFFORT.

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URGENT QUESTION.

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