It fell to my lot to be unusually popular. I became so at a very early period. I was, in consequence, often invited by other circuits to preach their special sermons, and I frequently accepted those invitations. Some of my superintendents were annoyed at this, and showed their displeasure in very offensive ways. While I was in Hanley circuit my superintendent called a meeting of a number of leading friends, before which I was summoned to appear. There my acceptance of invitations to preach occasional sermons was charged against me as an offence, and I was ordered not to _go_ into other circuits any more, without the consent of my superintendent. I offered no objection to this. My superintendent next charged me with having a number of objectionable books in my library. He had requested the woman at whose house I lodged to show him into my room during my absence, and there he had found the works of Shakespeare, Barrow, Tillotson, and Paley, and some volumes of poems by Lord Byron. The meeting advised me to get rid of Shakespeare and Byron, and to be careful how I used the works of Barrow, Tillotson, and Paley, as they were not Methodistical, and my great concern, it was said, should be to excel as a teacher and defender of Methodism. With this recommendation I could not entirely comply. I retained my Shakespeare; I have him yet. And I read the works of Tillotson, Barrow, and Paley as freely as I had done before. But I lost all confidence in my superintendent, and a portion of the respect I had felt for those who took his part. Towards the close of the year my superintendent and his friends endeavored to prevent me from receiving a perfect certificate, on the pretence that I had expressed a doubt whether my health would prove equal to the work of the ministry. Their objections proved of no avail; but the spirit which my superintendent showed, increased the unhappy feeling which his previous unkindness had awakened in my breast. 19. The wife of one of our ministers published a book, and the husband sent it to me for review. It contained, mixed up with a great variety of useful remarks, a number of anti-scriptural and antinomian passages. While I did justice to the rest of the book, I exposed its errors with great fidelity, and gave the husband great offence.