distractions of the nation. The invitation was declined; and, on December 23d, James again set sail for France, where he landed two days after; and thus was England happily delivered from the popish, perfidious, dissolute, and despotic dynasty of the Stuarts.[37] Seven weeks afterwards both Houses of Parliament agreed to the resolution, “That William and Mary, Prince and Princess of Orange, be, and be declared, King and Queen of England, France, and Ireland, and the dominions thereto belonging.” ----- Footnote 37: The following is John Wesley’s character of King James: “He appears to have been proud, haughty, vindictive, cruel, and unrelenting; and though he approved himself an obedient subject, he certainly became one of the most intolerable sovereigns that ever reigned over a free people. He could have no true religion, at least while in England, as he made no conscience at all of adultery. He is said afterwards to have been a new man. Probably the loss of his crown was the saving of his soul.”—WESLEY’S _History of England_, vol. iii., p. 348. ----- It was in the midst of this national revolution that Samuel Wesley left the University of Oxford, and became an ordained clergyman of the Church of England. Perhaps this digression may be thought too long, and yet, at the risk of wearying the reader’s patience still further, a few more sketches of the state of the country, at this momentous period of its history, are added. They are chiefly taken from Macaulay, and it is hoped that they may help to convey some idea of the condition of affairs when Samuel Wesley commenced his ministry. Things at that time were widely different from what they are at present, and that must be borne in mind if the reader wishes rightly to understand the difficulties and discouragements of a Christian minister like the subject of this biography.