sin have proclaimed their ransom by Christ, and their consciousness of accepted pardon, by singing that Doxology; and the rejoicing of the angels in heaven over one sinner redeemed and pardoned has been re-echoed upon earth by milllons of voices in that inimitable Doxology of Thomas Ken.
His father was Thomas Ken, barber-surgeon, of Furnival's Inn, and attorney, who died in 1651; his mother was Martha Chalkhill, who died in 1641; she was the second wife of her husband. Thomas was their youngest son, he having a brother and two sisters older than himself. Thomas Ken was born at Little Berkbampsted, Hertfordshire, in July, 1637. He was descended from an old family in Somersetshire, seated at Ken Place. His mother died when Thomas was only four years old, and his father survived only two years longer, so that he was early thrown upon the world; but he found in his brother-in-law, honest Izaak Walton, the husband of his sister Anne, a true friend and pious guardian. The primitive piety, the extensive knowledge, the true humility, and Christian meekness of his sister, combined with the refined intelligence, the superior skill, and excellent Christian character of her husband, secured for young Ken a training of inestimable value. Under their guiding care, his religious principles were formed and firmly fixed in early life. His love to God, and to the Word of God, grew with his growth, and he ever took delight in assimilating his conduct to the Divine pattern to which he was pointed in the New Testament. Christ and His Cross were his sheet-anchor, and he testified his love thereto by sealing his letters with an emblem of the crucified Saviour on the arms and shank of an anchor, a seal which Dr. Donne had bequeathed to the author of the "Complete Angler," through whom it came into Ken's possession.
The career of Ken at school has, in a few particulars, distinguished him above all others who have passed through that famous College at Winchester. Even the founder himself, the munificent William of Wykeham, is not more honoured at Winchester than the pupil, Thomas Ken; or, as he himself has left his memorial on one of the pillars in the cloister, THO. KEN. When, at the age of fourteen, his father died, his mother's brother, John
