Locke, at the time of his father's death and his entrance on college office, was in his twenty-ninth year. At the election of college officers on Christmas Eve, 1662, he was transferred from the Greek Lectureship to the Lectureship in Rhetoric, and, on the 23rd of December in the following year, he was again transferred to another office. This office was the Censorship of Moral Philosophy (the Senior Censorship); the Censorship of Natural Philosophy (the Junior Censorship) he appears never to have held. On the 23rd of December, 1665, he is no longer in office, being now merely one of the twenty senior M.A. students, called "Theologi," who were bound to be in priests' orders. Of the manner in which Locke discharged his duties as a lecturer we have no record. He seems also to have served in the capacity of tutor to several undergraduates at this period, but of his relations to his pupils we, unfortunately, know next to nothing. How is it that Locke, holding a clerical studentship, was not a clergyman? The disturbed condition of the Church and the Universities during the last quarter of a century had probably led to great laxity in the enforcement of college statutes and by-laws. Moreover, for a time, it would seem, he seriously contemplated taking the step of entering holy orders, and the authorities of his college would probably be unwilling to force upon him a hasty decision. At length, however, he finally abandoned this idea, deciding in favour of the profession of physic. In the ordinary course he would have forfeited his studentship, but he was fortunate to obtain a royal dispensation (by no means an uncommon mode of intervention at that time), retaining him in his place, "that he may still have further time to prosecute his studies." This dispensation is dated Nov. 14, 1666.