Such, in brief, was the state of things when God raised up the Methodists. The court of England was corrupt to its very core, and the people were too faithful imitators of a bad example. Popery was intriguing, Dissenters were declining, and the Church was full of fiery and drunken feuds. Reformers, like the Methodists, were needed. Without them, or others of a kindred spirit, the nation must have sunk into an inconceivable depth of depravity, and social and political degradation. In estimating the benefits which have accrued from the great Methodist movement, the reader must think not only of the good effected but of the ill averted. Methodism arose in Oxford, and not before it was needed, even there. When Wesley returned to the university in 1729, the vice-chancellor, the heads of houses and proctors, issued an edict, which was posted in most of the college halls, to the effect that certain members of the university had of late been in danger of being corrupted by the wicked and blasphemous notions of the advocates of pretended human reason against Divine revelation; and that therefore it was a matter of the utmost consequence that the college tutors should use double diligence in explaining to their respective pupils the articles of religion and their Christian duty, and in recommending to them the frequent and careful reading of the Scriptures, and such other books as might serve more effectually the orthodox faith and sound principles. The Dean of Christ Church, however, where Charles Wesley was a tutor, was so much a friend to infidelity, that he forbade the posting of this edict in his college hall, forgetting that there was One higher than himself, who, in that very college, had already begun to raise one of the strongest barriers against the spread of this pernicious evil. A few months afterwards, on the 4th of July, 1730, it was announced in _Fogg’s Weekly Journal_, that one of the principal colleges in Oxford had of late been infested with Deists, and that three Deistical students had been expelled, and a fourth had had his degree deferred two years, during which he was to be closely confined in college, and, among other things, was to translate Leslie’s “Short and Easy Method with the Deists.” Wesley was now a tutor in Lincoln College, and presided in the hall as Moderator in the disputations, six of which were held weekly; and, by this, he acquired the remarkable expertness in arguing, and in discerning and pointing out well concealed and plausible fallacies, which distinguished him to the end of life. He writes: “In November, 1729, the then Rector of Lincoln College, Dr. Morley, sent for me to Oxford, to take pupils, eleven of whom he put under my care immediately. In this employ I continued[69] till 1735, when I went as a _missioner_ to Georgia.” Several of Wesley’s pupils were among the first Oxford Methodists.