THE INDEPENDENT CHURCH 'OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY (1650-1826).
The Independent Church of Westminster Abbey (1650-1826). By the Rev. Ira Boseley. (Congregational Union of England and Wales. Is. net.)—The place and the dates as given in the title are a little surprising. One naturally thinks of the French Protestant Church which has had it home for more than two centuries in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral. As a matter of fact there is no resemblance. At Westminster Abbey, as in many of the Cathedrals, during the time Of the Commonwealth, the Presbyterians, followed by the Independents, held services of their own. These, of course, ceased shortly after the Restoration. The congregation that had worshipped in the Abbey found a home in Smithfield. From this place it removed to a spot near Gray's Inn Lane. Some notable people have been connected with it, and the subject might have been made more interesting than it is. Mr. Boseley is extraordinarily discursive, telling us about various things which might have been left to some other occasion, but making it anything but easy to follow the fortunes of the "
Abbey" Church. Is it not somewhat bold to say that Hugh Peters was "condemned to death simply because he had preached before General Monk and his soldiers in St. Albans Abbey "? Hugh Peters was not in a position to take a leading part in the action of the Regicides, but he certainly encouraged it. He preached, for instance, when the King's fate was in the balance, on the text : "To bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron." Has Mr. Boseley ever heard of Aesop's fable of the Trumpeter? He begged for quarter as a non-combatant, but was adjudged to be even more guilty because he made others fiercer in battle. The Royalists would have done well to be more generous, but Peters had no special claim for mercy.
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