Philip Henry expired in the summer of 1696. A few candidates for the ministry, who had in private academies gone through what they termed a University course, were permitted to reside at Broad Oak, and to listen to the instructions of its master. “You come to me,” he would say, “as Naaman did to Elisha, expecting that I should do this and the other thing for you, and, alas! I can but say as he did: ‘Go wash in Jordan.’ Go study the Scriptures. I profess to teach no other learning but Scripture learning.” Philip Henry reminds us of John Bunyan’s pilgrims in the land of Beulah, as we read the following passage, written not long before his death: “Methinks it is strange that it should be your lot and mine to abide so long on earth by the stuff, when so many of our friends are dividing the spoil above, but God will have it so; and to be willing to live in obedience to His holy will is as true an act of grace, as to be willing to die when He calls, especially when life is labour and sorrow. But when it is labour and joy, service to His name, and some measure of success and comfort in serving Him, when it is to stop a gap and stem a tide, it is to be rejoiced in--it is heaven upon earth.” [Sidenote: NONCONFORMISTS.] The shadow of death in mid-winter enveloped another scarcely less famous Puritan home. Samuel Annesley, an older man than Philip Henry by twelve years, with a ministerial history which ran far back into the troubles of the Commonwealth and Civil Wars, continued to preach in Little St. Helen’s to a congregation of wealthy citizens, amongst whom might be seen Daniel De Foe,[529] sometimes the eccentric John Dunton, and at an earlier time the almost equally eccentric Samuel Wesley, the two latter being married to two of Annesley’s daughters. Of a hardy constitution, still more indurated by severe personal habits, Annesley could bear the greatest cold without hat, gloves, or fire. He drank little besides water, and to the day of his death could read small print without spectacles.[530] The pastor’s family was large, for Dr. Manton, baptizing one of them, asked how many children he had. Annesley returned for answer, that he believed it was two dozen or a quarter of a hundred; “this reckoning children by dozens,” says Dunton, “was a thing so very uncommon, that I have heard Dr. Annesley mention it with a special remark.” He to the last retained great influence amongst the Presbyterians, having, “the care of all the churches on his mind, and being a great support of Dissenting ministers and of the Morning Lecture.” He entered his pulpit for the last time, saying, “I must work while it is day,” and died with ecstatic exclamations on his lips: “I have no doubt nor shadow of doubt--all is clear between God and my soul. He chains up Satan; he cannot trouble me. Come, dear Jesus! the nearer the more precious, and the more welcome. What manner of love is this to a poor worm! I cannot express a thousandth part of what praise