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Mr. John Cave is senior partner in the firm whose large shoe-factory was recently burnt down. He has been over forty years a deacon of the church, and over sixty years a total abstainer, being one of the first fifteen to sign the pledge in 1840 and start the Rushden Temperance Society.
Another stalwart is Mr. Samuel Knight, now in his ninety-fourth year, having been a deacon of the church for over half a century. Bright in intellect, and young of heart, he takes the keenest interest in all the affairs of the church, and delivered a most striking address at the stone-laying ceremony of the new church a year ago. His father was thirty years a deacon of the same church, and his grandfather also was connected with it.
Mr. William Sargent has been for fifty-four years a member of the Rushden Old Baptist prize choir. He still attends choir-practices, and takes part in choir events.
Mr. Reuben Clark has been an attendant at the Old Baptist Chapel, Rushden, for forty years, and living at the neighbouring village of Yelden, has walked over 9,000 miles to attend public worship.
Such are some of the veterans who have sustained the notable Christian cause at Rushden, and continued to carry on the Christian work inspired by the immortal dreamer John Bunyan.
Last but not least in our group is the Rev. W. F. Harris, under whose ministry the new church has been erected. Mr. Harris was for sixteen years the energetic pastor of the Trinity Baptist Church, Derby. There his work was to fill an empty chapel, and build up a self-supporting church, which he succeeded in doing. At Rushden his work was to build a new church for a congregation which overflowed its present accommodation. The new church is one of the finest Nonconformist buildings in the county.
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