Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/366

326 326 THE RIVING TONS, THE PARKERS, He might spend some time in secret prayer, and David says, ' Early will I seek Thee.' ' So good a habit scarcely needed so lofty an apology. His father appears to have remonstrated with him as to his excess of zeal : " Concerning the meetings you attend, God Almighty never designed man to spend all his time in godliness ; He designed such as you and me to work for our bread" advice that had not much effect, for we find Nisbet writing when down home in Scotland in 1808, "I have lost much time in coming here no Thursday night sermons, no companion with whom I would wish to be on intimate friendship, and no Sabbath schools ; and the Sabbath is a very poor Sabbath, very unlike our dear Sabbath in London." Having, however, returned to London in 1809, he commenced business for himself on a very limited scale as a bookseller in Castle Street, and character- istically the first books sold were copies of Streeter's " Catechism." In due course of time he prospered, was admitted to the freedom of the City of London, and elected to the office of Renter Warden in the Stationers' Company. As soon as his reputation as a religious publisher was established, he purchased a house in Berners Street "the great object of his ambition being, not to amass a large fortune for aggrandisement, but to be the pious proprietor of a comfortable dwelling, which he could throw open for the hospitable enter- tainment of godly men." He firmly adhered to his principles of publishing books of one peculiar class, and rigidly excluded everything that was not of a moral or religious character ; and not satisfied with purchasing the