At length, I well remember, after a conversation in the open air at the root of an old tree at Holwood, just above the vale of Keston, I resolved to give notice on a fit occasion in the House of Commons of my intention to bring the subject forward." Twelve years later Mr.Henry Thornton had brought in a bill for confining the trade within certain limits upon the coast of Africa.

"Upon the second reading of this bill," writes Wilberforce, "Pitt coolly put off the debate when I had manifested a design of answering P.'s speech, and so left misrepresentations without a word.

William Smith's anger;--Henry Thornton's coolness;--deep impression on me, but conquered, I hope, in a Christian way." Besides instructing their successors in the art of carrying on a popular movement, Wilberforce and his followers had a lesson to teach, the value of which not so many perhaps will be disposed to question.

In public life, as in private, they habitually had the fear of God before their eyes.

A mere handful as to number, and in average talent very much on a level with the mass of their colleagues;--counting in their ranks no orator, or minister, or boroughmonger;--they commanded the ear of the House, and exerted on its proceedings an influence, the secret of which those who have studied the Parliamentary history of the period find it only too easy to understand.