His first call came from an inconsiderable congregation at Needham Market in Suffolk. It was a poor and needy place, nominally under the charge of a superannuated minister, the prospects bounded by the possibilities attaching to a stipend of forty pounds a year. And these prospects, limited as they were, were still further curtailed by Priestley’s own action. He found that his congregation had been used to receive assistance from both Presbyterian and Independent funds. Priestley was no longer in the mood to receive assistance from the Independents, and told his congregation that he “did not choose to have anything to do” with that body. That little difference between the elders and himself concerning the sin of Adam and its consequence, together with his three years’ sojourn at Daventry, were beginning to bear fruit. The congregation readily consented to give up the Independent fund and promised to make good the deficiency themselves. Priestley, however, quickly realised that they deceived themselves either as to their ability or their willingness to redeem this promise, for the most, he says, he ever received from them was in the proportion of about thirty pounds per annum. They also deceived him in another sense. Their readiness in consenting to do without the assistance of the Independents disposed him to think “they could not have much bigotry among them.” Although he made it a rule to introduce nothing in the pulpit that could, or should, lead to controversy, he made no secret of his real opinions in conversation, or in his lectures on the theory of religion which he had composed at the academy and which he proceeded to give to all persons, without distinction of sex or age, who chose to come and listen to him. He then found that when he came to treat of the Unity of God merely as an article of religion his hearers were attentive to nothing but the soundness of his faith in the doctrine of the Trinity, and they quickly discovered, what he was at no pains to conceal, that he was a very pronounced Arian. From the time of this discovery, he says, his hearers fell off apace, especially as the old minister, as might have been expected, took a decided part against him. To add to his difficulties his aunt stopped his remittances. This was in part due to the ill offices of his orthodox, _i.e._, Independent, relations, but mainly because the worthy Mrs Keighley had largely exhausted her liberality in supporting others of her needy dependants, and in particular a deformed niece, her constant companion, and who could not, Priestley thinks, have subsisted without the greatest part, at least, of all she had to bequeath. He himself was the first to recognise that, being apparently settled in the world, he ought to be no longer burdensome to her. She had spared no expense in his education, and that, he says, was doing more for him than giving him an estate. Whatever the world might have thought as to his being settled in it, it