It is unfortunate that Dr. Priestley did not have a biographer worthy the name, for his life is full of dramatic incidents, scientific attainment, learning and human interest. We find him the central figure in the great gatherings of that day, receiving the highest honors of his own and other Governments, and, when the tide turned, denounced, persecuted, the victim of the mob, home and library burned and pillaged. Through all the changes of this eventful life we find him the same able, earnest, fearless and cheerful spirit to the end. Dr. Priestley, disregarding the warning of David Hume, and against the wishes of his philosophic friends, took up the cause of liberty in religion. In his letters he makes a strong appeal for Christianity. His desire was to revive in France and England the simple spiritual communion of the early church. He published many works upon his religious views which made him the most hated man in England. He was everywhere detested. The streets of London were strewn with scurrilous handbills and caricatures of him. Even his fellow associates in the Royal Society turned their backs upon him. But it must be remembered that the men, at home and abroad, who opposed Priestley’s doctrines, were the very men who honored him as a man. At Birmingham, in 1791, the last great religious riot in England occurred. It is often spoken of today as “Priestley’s Riots,” for the doctor was the chief object of the mobs. It was during a celebration on the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, at which Dr. Priestley was not present, that the cry of the mob was “Church and King.” Dr. Priestley had favored the agitation, then rife in Birmingham, for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. The mob suddenly marched toward his home and Dr. and Mrs. Priestley, who were playing a game of backgammon, barely succeeded in escaping. The doctor was pursued for several days and his life threatened. The mob vented its rage by pillaging Priestley’s house and tearing it to pieces. The rioters made a pyre of his furniture, manuscripts, priceless apparatus, a library of 30,000 volumes, his private correspondence, and his diaries, and all were destroyed by fire. In 1794 Dr. Priestley came to America and settled at Northumberland, Pa. Here he erected a fine house and laboratory, and resumed his experiments, which resulted in the discovery of three new gases. Here he wrote many books. Dr. Priestley made trips to Philadelphia, where he lectured on historical and religious subjects, founding, in 1796, the first Unitarian Church in that city. The University of Pennsylvania offered him the chair of chemistry, and afterward its presidency, but he preferred the quiet of his home at the “Forks of the Susquehanna.”