comprehension, and thought a public ordination might bar the way to it; perhaps he had given some pledge not to engage in any such service; perhaps Howe was not quite free from similar determents, and both might for personal reasons be unwilling to do what they had no objection should be done by others. My own impression is that both, especially Howe, clung with tenacity to the idea of one united church in England, and though they had little hope of seeing the idea turned into fact, they shrunk from a service like public ordination as perpetuating a separation they would fain have seen come to an end. [Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.] At length Calamy and six others were publicly set apart to the ministry, at Dr. Annesley’s meeting-house, by the Doctor himself, Vincent Alsop, of Princes Street, Westminster, Daniel Williams, pastor at Hand Alley, Bishopsgate Street, Richard Stretton, of Haberdashers’ Hall, Matthew Sylvester, of Carter Lane, and Thomas Kentish of the Weigh-House. Annesley began with prayer; Alsop preached; Williams, after another prayer, delivered a second sermon; then he read the testimonials in favour of the candidates; next each of them delivered a profession of faith; and then, one after another, different ministers prayed; Sylvester followed with a charge, and concluded with a psalm and a prayer.[499] The service lasted from before ten o’clock until past six. As vacancies in Nonconformist pastorates occurred, successors had to be appointed; and it is amusing to meet in the Diaries of the day, cross lights thrown upon the choice of ministers. The famous antiquarian Thoresby was in 1693 a leading member of the old Dissenting Church at Leeds. When deprived of its excellent instructor, Mr. Sharp, “we had several meetings to consult in order to the choice of a successor. I had the usual hap of moderators, to displease both the extremes. In the interim I wrote to several ministers to supply his place. We rode to Ovenden, and made our first application to Mr. Priestly, a person of moderate principles, learned, ingenious, and pious; but the people about Halifax and Horton could not be prevailed upon to resign their interest in him, without which he was not willing to desert them. I afterwards rode with some of the people to Pontefract, to solicit Mr. Manlove, who was at first very compliant, yet after relapsed, but in the conclusion accepted the call and removed to Leeds.”[500] [Sidenote: 1688–1702.]