Others might be mentioned, and, besides these, a large number of other clergy, who, though not so eminent for their learning and literary productions, were quite equal for unassuming and zealous piety. It is scarce credible that, with such bishops at the head of the English Church, there should not be hundreds of quiet, godly, earnest, useful ministers, acting under them, all of them of the same sterling character as Samuel Wesley. It is a great mistake to imagine that, up to the time of Samuel Wesley’s sons, John and Charles, the English clergy were, almost without exception, ignorant, indolent, heterodox, worldly, and wicked. Doubtless there were a large number of such men; but there were likewise a large number of another and much better class. At the same period, the Dissenters also had a considerable number of able and useful preachers. For example, there was Daniel Williams, the most influential Presbyterian minister of his day; the successor of Richard Baxter at Pinner’s Hall, the author of six volumes of cumbrous controversy, and the founder of the magnificent library of Red Cross Street. There was Daniel Burgess, extremely popular on account of his quaint and familiar style of pulpit oratory. There was Benjamin Keach, once sentenced to stand in the pillory for publishing his “Child’s Instructor,” and whose “Travels of True Godliness” and “Scripture Metaphors” have been read by myriads; a man whom Dunton represents as mounted upon an Apocalyptic Beast, with Babylon before him, Zion behind him, and a hundred thousand bulls and bears roaring and ramping round about him. There was Vincent Alsop, a man of piety and worth, with a glowing fancy and a lively wit. There was Matthew Henry, whose labours as a preacher were almost incessant, and who yet found time to write one of the largest and most useful Expositions of the Holy Bible ever published. There was Matthew Sylvester, a man of “godly life and great ability in the ministerial work,” to whom, as an intimate friend, Baxter left his “MS. Narrative of his Life and Times.” And there were also still surviving not a few of the noble Nonconformist ministers ejected in 1662. As Samuel Wesley was not only a Christian minister, but likewise an author of considerable eminence, this attempt at photographing portraits will scarce be perfect, without a passing glance at the literary and other celebrities, who were flourishing at the time of Wesley’s ordination, and with some of whom he ran a literary race.