It is far from certain that the seven-and-twenty communicants, just mentioned, were all collegians. On the contrary, there is strong presumptive proof that they were not; and, indeed, that some of them were ladies. One of them seems to have been Miss Potter, probably the bishop’s daughter, concerning whom Clayton writes to Wesley, in a letter dated “Manchester, September 10, 1733,” as follows:— “Poor Miss Potter! I wonder not that she is fallen. Where humility is not the foundation, the superstructure cannot be good. And yet I am sorry to hear the tidings of her, especially that she has a great man for her confessor, who dissuades her from constant communion. I am sure she has great occasion to use all the means of grace which Providence provides for her. I would not persuade you to leave off reading with her. Who knows whether you may not raise her again to the eminence from which she has fallen? At least, though she neglect the weightier matters of the law, yet keep up in her that reverend respect she bears it, even by the ‘tithing of mint and anise and cummin.’”[114] Whether there were other ladies besides this one, included in the seven-and-twenty Methodist communicants, it is impossible to say; but none were included in the five. The five poor Methodists remaining, not reckoning Wesley himself, nor Morgan who was dead, nor Clayton who was removed to Manchester, nor Whitelamb who was gone to Wroote, were doubtless Charles Wesley, Benjamin Ingham[115] and James Hervey (both of whom joined them in 1733), John Gambold, and, probably, Charles Kinchin. All honour to such names! They kept the fire burning when it was in danger of going out. Wesley was their master spirit; but they were faithful and willing co-workers. Mr. Clayton, in the letter just quoted, refers to confession and to constant communion. Did the Oxford Methodists recommend confession? It would seem they did; hence the following extract from a long, unpublished letter, written at this period, and addressed to Wesley, by his sister Emily:— “To lay open the state of my soul to you, or any of our clergy, is what I have no inclination to at present; and, I believe, I never shall. I shall not put my conscience under the direction of mortal man, frail as myself. To my own master I stand or fall. Nay, I scruple not to say, that all such desire in you, or any other ecclesiastic, seems to me like church tyranny, and assuming to yourselves a dominion over your fellow-creatures, which was never designed you by God.... I farther own that I do not hold frequent communion necessary to salvation, nor a means of Christian perfection. But do not mistake my meaning; I only think communing every Sunday, or very frequently, lessens our veneration for that sacred ordinance, and, consequently, our profiting by it.”