_Gent. Mag._, 1785, p. 487. ----- Samuel Wesley’s father was John, the son of the ejected rector of Catherston and Charmouth, and was born about the year 1636. Even when a boy at school, he had deep religious convictions and feelings, and began to keep a diary of God’s gracious dealings with him, which, with slight interruptions, was continued to the end of life. That diary is now unfortunately lost, or at all events, if it still exists, no one seems to know where it is. At the usual age he was entered a student of New Inn Hall, Oxford, and, in due course of time, became M.A. At the period when John Wesley matriculated, Dr John Owen, who was Cromwell’s chaplain, filled the office of vice-chancellor, and treated the young student with marked attention. Wesley was serious and diligent, and applied himself particularly to the study of the Oriental languages, in which he made great proficiency. Owen was elected vice-chancellor in 1652, when John Wesley was about sixteen years of age, and continued in that high office until 1657, which was a few months before Wesley’s entrance upon the ministry; so that it is not improbable that Wesley was at Oxford during the whole of the administration of this distinguished man. Owen found this ancient seat of learning in an exceedingly disordered state. After withstanding a long siege, it had recently been obliged to surrender to the parliament forces, and was now left so desolate, that men said, in their excitement, it looked like Jerusalem in ruins. Broken trees and trampled gardens were seen on every hand. Sculptured stones and pictured windows lay shattered in the grass. Nettles and brambles were growing round the walls of colleges. The rich wood-work in the quadrangle of Christ Church had been used for fuel. The halls had been turned into granaries, and the colleges into barracks. So long had Mars usurped the place of Minerva, and students been accustomed to exchange cap for helmet, that the scholastic air had almost vanished. “There was little or no education of youth. Poverty, desolation, and plunder,—the sad effects of war,—were to be seen in every corner.” To correct these evils, to curb the licentiousness of the students, to maintain the rights of the university, and to support its character for piety and learning, Owen set himself most vigorously, and he happily succeeded. Anthony Wood describes him as putting down “formalities and all ceremony, and as undervaluing his office by going in _quirpo_, like a young scholar, with powdered hair, snake-bone band strings, a large set of ribbons pointed at his knees, and Spanish leather boots, with large lawn tops, and his hat mostly cocked.” Be this as it might, among the students Owen acted as a father. While he discountenanced and punished the vicious, he encouraged and rewarded the modest and the indigent; and, under his administration, the whole body was reduced to good order, and contained