Meanwhile, however, an occurrence had taken place, which appeared to make the opening of Trevecca College increasingly desirable and important. On the 12th of March, six students belonging to Edmund Hall, Oxford, were expelled the University, really and truly on the ground that they were charged with being Methodists. The event, as may easily be imagined, created a national sensation. Numbers of tracts and pamphlets, _pro et con_, were published; and, among others, one by Whitefield, entitled, “A Letter to the Reverend Dr. Durell, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford; occasioned by a late Expulsion of Six Students from Edmund Hall.” Whitefield’s letter was dated April 12, 1768, exactly a month after the expulsions took place. Fletcher read it with approbation, and wrote to Whitefield, thanking him for the service he had rendered to the cause of truth; and also referring to a recent visit to Bristol, to the Rev. Cradock Glascott, who had supplied for him at Madeley; and to the prospect there was of obtaining a suitable master, from Suffolk, for the College at Trevecca. Fletcher’s letter was as follows:— “MADELEY, _May 28, 1768_. “REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,—I thank you, though late, for the kind leave you gave me of trying to pipe where you trumpet the name of our dear Redeemer, in Bristol. I ask you, and my hearers there, and, above all, our gracious Lord, to pardon me for the wretched manner in which I performed, or rather spoiled, the glorious work. “I thank you, also, for your letter to the Vice-Chancellor. Mr. Talbot[156] treated us with the reading of it at our meeting of the clergy at Birmingham; and I saw applause and satisfaction sitting upon every brow. “Lady Huntingdon, in a few lines I had lately, mentions that Providence raises a master for her school from Suffolk, who promises well. She desires he may be secured, if approved of. Perhaps you know him; and you are the best judge whether he is likely to answer. For my part, I am willing to put my smoking flax to the tapers of my brethren and fathers, when they endeavour to throw some light and order upon her ladyship’s design; but I feel my place should be among the scholars, rather than among the Directors. “Mr. Glascott quitted himself as a faithful and able minister, during his stay here. Thousands attended him in the next parish, where he nobly took the field. Nevertheless, I see a curse of barrenness upon this neighbourhood, which makes me groan for a day of Pentecost. God hasten it in His time! You will please to remember that you are a debtor to our barbarians, as well as to the Greeks in London. When you come, my pulpit will be honoured, greatly honoured, to hold you, if my church cannot hold your congregation.”[157] Footnote 156: No doubt, the Rev. William Talbot, LL.D., Vicar of Kineton, in Warwickshire. Footnote 157: Fletcher’s Works, vol. viii., p. 255.