Perhaps a word more may be allowed in regard to the paper on _Pestilential Disorders_ by Noah Webster. This was the lexicographer. Priestley thought the work curious and important, but the philosophy in it wild and absurd in the extreme. And of Rush he asks-- Pray is he (Webster) a believer in revelation or not? I find several atheists catch at everything favourable to the doctrine of _equivocal generation_; but it must be reprobated by all who are not. Chemists will be glad to hear that The annual expense of my laboratory will hardly exceed 50 pounds, and I think I may have done more in proportion to my expenses than any other man. What I have done here, and with little expense, will in time be thought very considerable; but on account of the almost universal reception of the new theory, what I do is not, at present, attended to; but Mr. Watt and Mr. Kier, as good chemists as any in Europe, approve of my tract on _Phlogiston_, and truth will in time prevail over any error. And to another he said, Having had great success in my experiments in this country ... I shall never desert philosophy. The following year (1802) had several points of interest in connection with the good Doctor; for one, who has followed his career thus far, will wish to call him that. Communications from the home country and from France, while not so numerous, were yet full of interesting news. His friend Belsham brought out his Elements of Philosophy of the Mind, and although Priestley paid it a most gracious tribute he did not hesitate to suggest alterations and additions of various kinds. His dearest friend Lindsey fell seriously ill this year. This gave him inexpressible anxiety and grief. As soon as Lindsey was, in a measure, restored the fraternal correspondence was resumed. Much time was given by the Doctor to reading and preparing for the press the volumes of his _Church History_ and _Notes on the Scriptures_. The printing was to be done in Northumberland. Some doubt was entertained as to whether he would have funds sufficient to pay for the publication, and when the urgent letters from friends tempted him to undertake a European trip he generally replied that he was too far advanced in life, that the general debility produced by pernicious ague rendered him unfit for extended travel, and then he offset the disappointment by saying that the expense of the voyage would more than suffice for the printing of one of his proposed four volumes of the _Church History_. This was a most complete, interesting and instructive work. Even today one profits by its perusal and an immense fund of worthwhile information and knowledge may be derived from even a cursory study of his _Notes on the Scriptures_.