After all, it was a perilous thing for a young, sprightly fellow, like Samuel Wesley, whose father and grandfather had, by the existing Government, been ejected from their livings, reduced to beggary, and hunted to a premature grave, and whose mother, in consequence of such tyranny, was even now pining in some obscure dwelling, crushed with the sorrows of a too early widowhood, and compelled to submit to the humiliation of being, to some extent, dependent upon the charity of her friends; we say, it was a perilous thing for such a young man to be brought into close connexion with such political parsons. No wonder that he acknowledges that, when he came to Mr Morton’s school, “he was forward enough to write lampoons and pasquils;” “was abundantly zealous in the cause;” “was fired with hopes of suffering;” “and often wished to be brought before kings and rulers, because he thought what he did was done for the sake of Christ.” Such were the ministerial tempters of this high-spirited and exceedingly clever youth. In Morton’s academy, there were about fifty pupils, many of whom were doubtless as headstrong as himself, and at least two of whom were a great deal worse than this, being not only headstrong, but lewd and vicious. Would it have been surprising, if, under such circumstances, Samuel Wesley had fallen into worse errors than what he did? and is it not owing to the prayers of his dead father, the training of his widowed mother, and the restraining grace of God’s good Spirit, that, in after life, he was able to tell his enemies, face to face, without fear of contradiction, that, though he was not an “exemplary liver” while at Mr Morton’s academy, he was not a “scandalous one?” He admits that he was too keen and revengeful, and that if he thought a person had injured him, he could not forgive such a person, without receiving something which he thought to be satisfaction. That seems to have been one of his greatest crimes; but now all such revengeful feeling was done away; and it was the greatest pleasure of his life to forgive and to oblige an enemy. Before quitting the “school days” of Samuel Wesley, perhaps it may be interesting to add, that, besides himself, several of his school-fellows rose to great eminence. For instance, there was Timothy Cruso, “the golden preacher,” as he was called, and who was so great a textuary, says Dunton, that he could pray two hours together in Scripture language. Also Obadiah Marriott, who was Dunton’s uncle, and for many years officiated as minister at Chiswick, and at Croydon.