to his father in the grocery trade at Hull, where he continued to reside until 1830, when he commenced business at Gainsboro'. Whilst there he married Sarah Hopkins, sister to the wellknown ministers, Joseph and Henry Hopkins. This union was one of much happiness, and Sarah Kitching's Christian character and gentle disposition were esteemed by her husband as a great blessing.

He was himself early impressed with religious convictions, and brief memoranda testify to his earnest desire, in the days of his early manhood, to submit to the moulding hand of his Heavenly Father and to live a renewed life, though he does not appear to have regarded any particular date as that of his spiritual birth.

The surroundings of a small family in a town where, as in Gainsboro', Friends were few in number, and their meetings almost always held in silence, and at a time when intercourse with other Christian people was but little encouraged, were not favourable to a high degree of spiritual vitality. The occasional visits of travelling ministers were much prized by thoughtful Friends, and were no doubt helpful and stimulating to the Christian life.

In Sixth month, 1839, W. Kitching was left

a widower with three young children, his wife's illness having been one of rather more than six months' duration. With reference to this event he wrote:-" My precious wife was favoured during her illness, especially towards the latter part of it, with much composure and Christian peace of mind, and with a humble trust in the mercy of God through Jesus Christ. . . . She expressed a tender solicitude for my welfare, especially desiring that I may be favoured with good meetings, and that the Lord may teach me Himself." This expression he frequently referred to during his latter years, believing that his beloved wife's desires for him had been, to some extent at least, graciously fulfilled.

He removed in 1842 to Wakefield, where he spent the remainder of his life, and where he married Maria Benington, a union by which his domestic happiness was largely increased for thirty-two years. She died in Eighth month, 1874. After alluding to the blank occasioned by her decease, he adds: “ But I think it is my desire to submit with resignation to the Lord's will, to be truly thankful for past favours; and feeling that my days of loneliness are not likely to be many, I would pray for help and ability to live to the honour of Him who I trust

has, through mercy, taken my dearly loved wife's spirit to Himself. So living, may His grace be ever with me, and my end peace." He survived her nearly seventeen years.

Retiring from business in middle life, W. Kitching found increased opportunity for various forms of public usefulness. He was elected a member of the Town Council, was an overseer of the poor, and for many years one of the district secretaries of the British and Foreign Bible Society. He also found opportunities for advocating total abstinence and the Christian principle of universal peace. But perhaps the most important services he rendered to the town were in connection with the Clayton Hospital and Dispensary, which claimed a very large share of his time and attention.

A marked feature in W. Kitching's character was gratitude for the blessings of everyday life, and the desire to be kept in humility, whatever services he might be called to engage in. He did not begin to speak in meetings for worship until he was more than fifty-four years of age. On the first occasion he quoted the words:" Teach me to do Thy will, for Thou art my God." And merely added, "Perhaps, to some of us, the path of safety would be much

more clear did we constantly cherish in our hearts this desire." This was on Fourth month 1st, 1860. On the same date of the following year, he wrote:-"Just a year since I first ventured to utter a few words in our meetings for worship, and this has been several times repeated. O that I may be kept humble, simple, and obedient, truly desiring and endeavouring to be a servant of Jesus Christ. Then surely He will graciously keep me from dishonouring Him, and will strengthen help and uphold me, and possibly even enable me to live to His praise." His gift in the ministry was acknowledged by the Friends of Pontefract Monthly Meeting in the First month, 1864, and he continued to exercise it with increasing frequency, and with much acceptance to his friends.

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Under date Eleventh month 20th, 1864, the following entry occurs in his memoranda :— This morning in our meeting I expressed some thoughts in connection with the words, 'The love of Christ constraineth us,' dwelling more than I remember to have done in that way before on the love of our Redeemer, displayed in His agony in the garden and on the cross, and speaking of the claim this made on our love to Him and devotedness in seeking and striving to

know and to do the will of so gracious a Saviour. The mystery of His sacrifice was also spoken of as one of those things into which the angels desire to look, but which we should unquestioningly receive with reverent thankfulness, and through which we may hope for a happy entrance into His blessed and eternal kingdom. May it be mine not only to speak words of truth, but to live under the power of truth. On this occasion I afterwards knelt in prayer for more of the Spirit, under whose influences the constraining love of Christ may be known, and help afforded to honour and serve Him. I hope this was felt by several to be a solemn meeting."

In Fourth month, 1868, he wrote the following:-"The subject of the authority and influence under which ministry in our Society may be rightly exercised is one of much interest. Perhaps it is hardly capable of being fully defined in any words we can employ; and I think there may have been errors committed in opposite directions by those who have attempted to define. It is a high privilege to be engaged at all in the Lord's service blessed thing to be kept by Him in the way of duty, preserved from serious error therein. do not prefer to speak of our ministry as

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