a great number of excellent scholars, and persons of distinguished piety. At this period, Dr Thomas Goodwin, distinguished for his piety, learning, and industry, was president of Magdalen College; George Porter, a man of great gravity, integrity, self-denial, and charity, was Proctor of the University; Stephen Charnock was Senior Proctor of New College; Ralph Button, whom Baxter describes as “a most humble, worthy, godly man,” was Canon of Christ Church; Thomas Cole, the tutor of John Locke, was Principal of St Mary’s Hall; John Howe was Fellow of Magdalen College; Dr Edmund Staunton, who was a living concordance to the Bible, was President of Corpus Christi College; Dr Wilkins, who married Cromwell’s sister, and was afterwards Bishop of Chester, was Warden of Wadham College; Dr Pococke, the greatest Oriental scholar of his time, was Professor of Arabic. Such were some of the celebrated men who flourished at Oxford at the time when John Wesley was a student there. And among others who, during the same period, received a part or the whole of their academical education in the same university, may be mentioned:—William Penn, the celebrated Quaker; Philip Henry, the eminent Nonconformist; Dr South, so famed for his pungent sermons; Sir Christopher Wren, the illustrious architect; Dr Whitby, the learned commentator; Launcelot Addison, father to Joseph Addison, the essayist; Bishops Spratt and Compton, who afterwards ordained John Wesley’s son Samuel; Bishops Crewe, Cartwright, Hopkins, Ken, Fowler, Wiseman, Hooper, Marsh, Huntingdon, Cumberland, Turner, and Lloyd; Joseph Alleine, subsequently John Wesley’s companion in tribulation; and Charles Morton, in whose academy Samuel Wesley was afterwards a student. Such were the distinguished contemporaries of Samuel Wesley’s father in Oxford University. John Wesley first began to preach, among seamen, at Radipole, a village about two miles distant from Weymouth. In the meantime the vicar of Winterborn-Whitchurch died, and the people of that parish wished Wesley to preach to them as a minister on probation. He went; his ministry and life gave satisfaction to those who invited him; he passed his examination before Cromwell’s “Triers;” and, by the trustees, was appointed to the living. This was in May 1658, when he was about twenty-two years of age. Winterborn-Whitchurch is a village about five miles from Blandford, in Dorsetshire, and in 1851 had a population of 595. The income of the living, when it was presented to John Wesley, was about £30 a year. He was promised an augmentation of £100 a year; but, on account of the many changes in public affairs which soon afterwards took place, the promise failed in its fulfilment.