In spite of every precaution, he was frequently interrupted, suffering imprisonment for months together, and at four different times within a few years. At last, by frequent imprisonment, poverty, and failing health, the poor man's crushed spirit could stand it no longer, and he died at the early age of forty-two years, leaving wife and children homeless and helpless. All this the grandfather of John Wesley endured for conscience' sake. He was a graduate of Oxford; as a classical scholar he had few equals--a man of deep piety and distinguished talents. His father, Bartholomew Wesley, had early dedicated his son to the Gospel ministry, and God seems to have accepted the dedication. And because he conscientiously objected to conducting public worship strictly according to the Prayer Book, the unchristian laws regarding Conformity were enforced, and the tears, blood, and suffering which befell those godly men lay at the door of the Established Church. Cruel persecution marked this man for its prey even after death. When his inanimate body, followed by weeping wife, little children, and sympathizing neighbors, was borne on a bier to the gates of the consecrated burial place of Preston, the gates were closed against it by order of the minister of the Established Church. So the remains of this good and great man were deposited in an unknown and unmarked grave. Samuel Wesley was sixteen years old at the time of his father's death. He had been under the careful tuition of his learned father, and under such training his mind had become highly educated for one of his years. He had a genius for poetry, and possessed a highly sensitive nature. His associations with Dissenters were not the most favorable, and what he saw and heard at the meetings of what was known as the "Calf's Head Club" disgusted him. Added to this, he was not pleased with the school of the Dissenters in which he was being educated, and, being not a little impulsive and hasty in his decisions, he concluded that all Dissenters were of the same character. He determined to examine the grounds of Dissent and Conformity, and, as might be expected, being more or less controlled by youthful prejudice, he concluded to renounce his former opinions and the faith of ancestors, and unite with the Established Church. And, as is often the case in such sudden changes, he did not stop until he had become a high churchman. But, notwithstanding his change, he had too much good practical common sense to carry out his theory. While it is true that he became a high Tory, he possessed too much benevolence, and too nice a sense of right, to give countenance to arbitrary power, such as had been exercised toward his ancestors. He could not forget what his honored father had suffered at the hands of churchmen.