We submit that in such an absence there was nothing to justify such a story. At least, an entire week would be spent in mere journeying. Then, there were the sittings of convocation, which we know were unusually important and exciting. Then there was the fact that Samuel Wesley was a literary man, and had already, in London, published a large number of literary works—a fact giving rise to business transactions, which the rector would doubtless attend to, now that he was personally present. And then, finally, there was the fact that his brother Matthew was resident in London, and probably also his mother, besides a large number of his early and literary friends, with all of whom, it is natural to suppose, he would wish to spend as much time as his other duties would permit. Put all these things together, and what is there to be gaped at in the rector of Epworth, as “_convocation man_,” being absent from his family and his church, once, or even twice, at the beginning of the years 1701 and 1702, for about ten or a dozen weeks? It is far from our intention to accuse either John Wesley or Adam Clarke of wilful misrepresentation; in this respect they are both far above suspicion, but the tale, as first told to John Wesley, was doubtless told in an exaggerated form; and it is no disrespect to the wonderful memory of Adam Clarke to say, that during the thirty or more years which elapsed between the time when John Wesley told the story and the time when Adam Clarke published it, the remembrance of the latter was not so vivid as to be infallible. We begrudge the space which has been filled with this unfortunate anecdote; but Samuel Wesley is too great and good a man to permit his character to be injured undeservedly. Let the full truthfulness of the legend be admitted, and Wesley’s fair fame is branded. Viewed in such a light, the thing is serious, and deserves some research and trouble in refuting it. This is the only matter, in the whole of Mr Wesley’s history, that in the least affects his morality and honour; and, in our conscience, we believe that everything in the story, which is deserving of being censured, is unfounded fiction, and utterly unworthy of the public credence. Samuel Wesley attended convocation thrice. It is certain that one of these occasions was in 1701, and it is probable that a second was in the same year; and hence we give a brief account of the proceedings of both these ecclesiastical gatherings.