Sung at the Annual Meeting of the Tonic Sol-fa College,

AT EXETER HALL, MAY 30TH, 1881.

Weave a strain of mingled tone

Praise and joy with mourning blend,

Life so lived, and work so done

Lives and lasts, and knows no end.
While grief her song is raising,
On yon sea, with glory blazing,
He now, the highest praising,
Sings evermore.

Still, though dead, he speaks on earth
To a vast increasing throng;
Faith, and love, and guileless mirth,
Teaching still to speak in song.
Boys in the school-room singing;
Hearts that feel new joys upspringing;
Pure souls, their worship bringing,
He blesses still.

Yet we mourn who loved him well,
Missing here his kindly face,
Still in saddened tones we tell
All his gentleness and grace;
O brother! from us riven,
Though all joy to thee is given,
We, looking up to heaven,

Still mourn for thee.

W. F. CALLAWAY.

MEMORIALS OF JOHN CURWEN.

CHAPTER I.

1816-1832.

THE FATHER AND MOTHER OF JOHN CURWEN RECOLLECTIONS OF THEM BY CONTEMPORARIES

BIRTH OF JOHN CURWEN

REMOVAL OF MR. SPEDDING CURWEN ΤΟ

COTTINGHAM

DEATH OF THE MOTHER OF JOHN CURWEN HIS RECOLLECTIONS OF HER-REMOVAL TO LONDON-BOARDING SCHOOL AT HAM REMOVAL ΤΟ FROME-BOYHOOD AND SCHOOL LIFE THERE.

THE roots of John Curwen's character must be sought in the characters of his father and mother. His father, Spedding Curwen by name, was born at Whitehaven in 1790. Here his grandfather, Thomas Curwen, was at the time in business with a Mr. Spedding, as a corn merchant, and he seems to have named his son after his partner. Both Spedding and Curwen are Cumberland. names, the Curwens having been settled for several centuries at Workington. Thomas Curwen belonged, no doubt, to one of the numerous offshoots of the family which has still its head-quarters at the old castellated building known as Workington Hall.

B

When Spedding Curwen was nine years of age, his parents moved to Middleton, near Leeds, where his father pursued the occupation of surveyor of mines to a nobleman whose property was adjacent. His parents were strict members of the Church of England, but there was at that time no "live" ministry in the parish church, and Spedding often carried the lanthorn by his mother's side to light her to the Methodist prayer-meeting. Through listening to a Christian lady at his father's sick bed, Spedding was stirred to a sense of religious responsibility. Through the same lady's influence he began attending the ministry of Mr. Parsons at Leeds, and at last found himself preaching at Middleton and other villages near at hand. The nobleman already mentioned, when this turn for study and preaching discovered itself, wanted the young man to go to Oxford, and offered him one of his own livings when he should be ordained. But Spedding had parted company with the establishment, and was committed to the Independents. He entered their College at Rotherham, and remained there four years. Subsequently he was Independent minister at Heckmondwike (where John was born), Cottingham (near Hull), Barbican Chapel (London), Frome (Somerset), Newbury (Berks), and Reading, where he died in 1856.

Spedding Curwen is described by friends who remember him well as very fertile in conversation,