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42 The following feeling observation is from the pen of an ancient and worthy gentleman, who in his early youth was a member of one of the schools that Lay frequented; "When the children were reading in the Bible, he would stop them and explain particular passages for their improvement, and although we at that time thought too lightly of Beujamin's anxiety for our welfare, yet some of Ms labours and admonitions are remembered (by one at least of the scholars,) at the present day, though his advice was imparted more than sixty years ago."

Lay had no compassion for vagrant mendicants; he used frequently to assert that "any one who is able to go abroad and beg, can earn four-pence a day, and that is enough to keep a person above want or dependence in this country." He was nevertheless charitable toward those who by disease, or misfortune, were reduced to necessitous circumstances, and among the numerous instances of his judicious dispensation of money, the following is worthy of notice. He understood