It is somewhat difficult to determine what Wesley means by his “gathered church,” and by its members not being fit for him “to exercise _office-work_ among them.” The probability is, that at the death of old Mr Walton there were no really converted persons in the parish, and, therefore, none whom Wesley deemed to be fit and proper persons to receive the sacrament. His endeavour, for the past three years, had been to get the people converted, and, to some extent, he had succeeded; but still, he even yet scarce considered his new converts, the members of his gathered church, sufficiently instructed and established to justify him in his exercising “office-work” among them; or, in other words, to justify him in administrating to them the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. If this is not the meaning of this technical and obscure verbiage, the reader, so far as the writer is concerned, must be content to remain in ignorance. Wesley’s conversation with Bishop Ironside occurred sometime during the year 1661. About the same period he was arrested, on the Lord’s-day, as he was coming out of church, and was carried to Blandford, where he was committed to prison. The reason of this arrest was exactly the same as that which brought him before the Bishop of Bristol. He would not use the Liturgy. His enemies had accused him to the bishop, but without effect, for the bishop as yet was really without jurisdiction. King Charles had appointed bishops to several dioceses, and the Liturgy had been introduced into those churches, where the ministers were avowedly Episcopalians; but it was not until the month of November 1661, that the prayer-book was revised by Convocation; and it was not until August 1662, that the use of it was made binding. It is true that, during the summer of 1660, a bill had been passed by parliament giving power to expel from church livings every incumbent that had not been ordained by an ecclesiastic; and by this act, John Wesley might have been expelled from the living of Winterborn, Whitchurch. But this was not the ground taken by Sir Gerrard Napper and the other parishioners who were inimical to his person and ministry. Probably they were not aware, or were not in a position to prove, that he had not received ordination; and hence their illegal plot to imprison and expel him, because, in conducting divine service in his church, he persisted in his refusal to use the Book of Common Prayer.