Looking at the previous post and its picture: is it significant that the only two clearly visible figures holding Bibles are Hall and Kinghorn? As mentioned in the previous post, a bewigged Dan Taylor also has a Bible, but he is obscured by Hall. Hall and Kinghorn, of course, had a very well known debate in the nineteenth century about open and closed communion (for the record, my sympathies and convictions side with Kinghorn). Does the prominence of Hall, standing not seated like Kinghorn, say something about the sympathies of the artist of this picture? I would not be led down this track, if it were not for the presence of two General Baptists in this picture: Dan Taylor (bewigged and in the back row) and next to him, on his left, John Deodatus Gregory Pike (1784-1854), a man much admired by C.H. Spurgeon. Does their presence bespeak an open attitude towards the General Baptists that came to typify many English Baptists by the end of the century, which would befit the ecumenical Hall more than the Reformed catholic Kinghorn?
Pike's presence also probably helps us to date the picture: post 1854. But not too many years after that date, for which English Baptist could resist including Spurgeon if the picture were being done in the late 1860s or the 1870s, unless he wanted to create a period piece?
Many questions!