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1220 NOTES TO VOLUME II.
his pupils’ progress was highly satisfactory to their parents. But as
the confinement of the school did not agree with him, he relin
quished it to adopt the profession of a Shorthand writer. In 1797,
finally, a friend procured him a situation in the Bank of England.
There he continued for upwards of forty-three years, being for the
last twenty-five years principal of the Chancery Office, until within
a few months of his decease. He was universally respected by all
in the Bank, from the governor and directors, with whom he was
in daily communication, down to the junior clerks.
For six or seven years previous to his reception of the doctrines
of the New Church, he was in great distress of mind, approaching
to despair of ever possessing real spiritual knowledge. He found
himself very much inclined to espouse the doctrine of universal
restitution, conceiving that to present the Lord in the most amiable
aspect towards his creatures ; but by the good providence of the
Lord, in the latter end of the year 1787, he was introduced, by a
person to whom he was almost a stranger, to the friends of the
New Church, who then met at each other’s houses on Sunday even
ings; and learning at the first meeting he attended that they
acknowledged the Lord Jesus Christ to be the one and only God
of heaven and earth, this brilliant Divine Truth operated on his
mind like a flash of lightning. He could truly say he saw the truth
in its own light: and he left the meeting quite another man. He
employed himself, while going home, in recalling to his memory
various passages of Scripture confirmatory of the heavenly doctrine.
He found himself brought out of darkness into marvellous light, and
the next day defended the doctrine against some of his former
connections, to whom he mentioned the change that had taken place
in his religious sentiments, vainly expecting that they would as joy
fully imbibe the Divine Truth. He never afterwards absented himself
willingly from the meeting of the friends.
Early in the next year, 1788, the society opened a chapel for
the public worhip of the Lord Jesus Christ, as the only God of
heaven and earth, in Great East Cheap; and in 1790 Mr. Sibly
complied with the earnest wishes of the members, and was ordained
into the ministry of the Lord’s New Church by the Rev. James
Hindmarsh and the Rev. Samuel Smith. The society, with Mr. Sibly
as their minister, removed to Store Street, Tottenham Court Road,
and after several other changes they finally removed to a church in
Friar Street, near Ludgate Hill, which they had built, and which
was opened for public worship in 1803.
Mr. Sibly at various times published a large number of sermons,
chiefly at the request ofthe congregation. Some of these were ofgreat
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