John Wesley, when a young man at college, and before his thorough conversion, appears to have been fond of a game at cards. Tate Wilkinson, writing in 1790, says: "Mr. Wesley, about four years ago, in the fields at Leeds, for want of room for his congregation in his tabernacle, gave an account of himself, by informing us, that when he was at college, he was particularly fond of the devil's pops (or cards); and said, that every Saturday he was one of a constant party at Whist, not only for the afternoon, but also for the evening; he then mentioned the names of several respectable gentlemen who were with him at college.--'But,' continued he, 'the latter part of my time there I became acquainted with the Lord; I used to hold communication with him. On my first acquaintance, 'I used to talk with the Lord once a week, then every day, from that to twice a day, till at last the intimacy so increased, that He appointed a meeting once in every four hours.... He recollected, he said, the last Saturday he ever played at cards, that the rubber at Whist was longer than he expected; and on observing the tediousness of the game, he pulled out his watch, when, to his shame, he found it was some minutes past eight, which was beyond the time he had appointed to meet the Lord.--He thought the devil had certainly tempted him to stay beyond his hour; he therefore suddenly gave his cards to a gentleman near him to finish the game, and went to the place appointed, beseeching forgiveness for his crime, and resolved never to play with the devil's pops again. That resolution he had never broken; and what was more extraordinary, that his brother and sister, though distant from Cambridge, experienced signs of grace on that same day, on that same hour, in the month of October."[337] On the subject of card-playing, even for the sake of amusement, two distinguished laymen, John Locke and Dr. Johnson, appear to have entertained different opinions. The former, in his Treatise on Education, says, "As to cards and dice, I think the safest and best way is never to learn any play upon them, and so to be incapacitated for those dangerous temptations and incroaching wasters of useful time." Dr. Johnson, on the contrary, regretted that he had not learnt to play at cards, giving, at the same time, as his reason: "It is very useful in life; it generates kindness, and consolidates society."[338] The opinion of a living Professor of Moral Philosophy, on the subject of card-playing, may be gathered from the following dialogue between Christopher North and the Ettrick Shepherd.[339] "NORTH. Gaming is not a vice, then, in the country, James? SHEPHERD. There's little or nae sic thing as gamblin' in the kintra, sir. You'll fin' a pack o' cairds in mony o' the houses--but no in them a'--for some gude fathers o' families think them the deevil's buiks, and sure aneuch when ower muckle read they begin to smell o' sulphur and Satan. NORTH.