Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/273

 9°-s. vi. SEPT. 22, ISM.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 223 In 1708 Thomas Bradbury, called by Queen Anne "Bold Bradbury," took the pastorate. He was such a formidable opponent of the High Church party that great efforts were made to silence him; it is said that Harley offered him a bishopric if only he would conform. Then threats were tried, and a plot laid to assassinate him. Bradbury used to tell how he was the first man who proclaimed King George I. By an arrangement with Bishop Burnet, he was among thefirst to receive intimation of the death of Queen Anne. This was done by a special messenger dropping a handkerchief from the gallery while Bradbury was preaching. He suppressed his feeling of joy during the sermon, but made mention of it in a prayer of thanksgiving at the close of the service. Mr. Bradbury was one of the Dissenting ministers who carried up the con- gratulatory address to King George on his accession. As they were dressed in long black Geneva cloaks, a nobleman, probably Lord Bolingbroke, said to him, " Pray, sir, is this a funeral ?" " Yes, my Lord," was the ready reply. " It is the funeral of the Schism Bill, and the resurrection of Liberty." Another minister of the church was George Burder, the founder and first secretary of the Religious Tract Society; an interesting account of him is to be found in ' The Story of the Religious Tract Society,' by the Rev. Samuel G. Green, D.D. Another renowned name associated with Fetter Lane is that of Caleb Morris. In the 'Memorials of Fetter Lane Congregational Chapel,' by Arthur Pye- Smith, published by Warren Hall ife Lovitt, mention is made of the great influence exercised by Caleb Morris. In that out-of- the-way chapel in Fetter Lane he drew to him "students, ministers, teachers, men of science, men of letters, philosophers." The members of the church have caused a chapel to be erected at Leyton, now known as New Fetter Lane Chapel. Mr. Albert Spicer, M.P., laid the foundation stone on the 8th of July, 1899, and it was opened by Dr. Fairbairn on the 7th of May, 1900. It should not be forgotten that the first improvement to be made in Fetter Lane was the erection of the handsome building in which is carried on the publishing business of Sampson Low, Marston & Co. JOHN C. FRANCIS. FOOTPRINTS OF GODS, &c. (Continued from p. 165.) APART from the semi - religious feeling, which, as I have stated previously, had been more or less insinuating itself in the primeval simplicity of the Japanese, there is no clear evidence of the native Shintoists ever having attached any religious meaning to the foot-impressions. After the period of Tempyd (729-748), however, the conventional priestcraft of Buadhists, greatly helped by the all-embracing principles of Tauist theology, exerted its utmost efforts to find for every Japanese god the corresponding Indian divi- nity, just as the ancient Romans adapted so many Greek characteristics to their own gods (' Hirota no Yashiro Yengi/ 1543, reprint 1898, p. 620 ; G. T. Bettany, 'The World's Re- ligions,' 1890, pp. 336, 426). The Shintoists, deeply affected with this process of amalga- mation accomplished by their once very antagonistic party, commenced then to follow it tacitly in entitling all their own gods the " Suishaku " (literally, " Remaining Foot- prints ") of the foreign Buddhas, Bodhisatvas, Devas, and saints, the so-called "Hondji" (literally, " Originating Ground " ) ; and so the phrase for the assumed settling of any Shintoist god was " to leave his footmark " (Fudjioka and Hirade, ' Nihonshakwai Shi,' 1898, vol. i. p. 152; Ise, ' Waka SanjinkO,' 1784, par. 3 ; cf. Chamberlain, ' Things Japanese,' 1898, pp. 360-1). Thus the Shin- toist god Wakasahiko is said to have left his impressions on a white rock in the year 715 ; Takenouchi no Sukune, a premier of extra- ordinary longevity, attaining to more than three hundred and sixty years, is reported to have lost his way in 367 A.D.. only a pair of his shoes being marked at Inaba (' Engishiki ShimmeichO Dzuchu,' 1503, reprint 1898 pp. 821-4); the steps of the horse of the god Hachiman exist on Yawata Hill, near Ky6to (Ye mi). At Ping-Yang, Korea, in a rock near a grotto, is shown a footstep of the horse said to have come forth therefrom and to have served King Tung-Ming (the founder of the kingdom of Kau-Li in 38 B.C.) in his ascension (' Yuen-kien-lui-han,' cdxxxiii. fol. 4 a). That the Chinese of very early ages paid especial attention to the footstep_s of man and animals several archaic traditions illus- trate ; for example, both Fuh-Hi, the mythical emperor to whom is credited the discovery of iron, and Ki, the ancestor of the Chau dynasty, were begotten by their mothers tread- ing in gigantic vestiges of unknown persons (ib., xlviii. 10 b ; Sze-Ma Tsiuen, 'Shiki,' first century B.C., Pan-ki IV.; Wang Chung,' Lun- Hang,' first century A.D., torn. iii. ch. vi.). Chwang-Kih invented the art of writing after observation of birds' tracks (Kau Yu, note on the 'Lii-Lan,' second century A.D., torn. vii. ch. l.), whereas the Karens in Burmah hold