PRIESTLEY. 71 



to make a point of reading, daily, ten pages of Greek, 

 and every week one Greek play, a practice which they 

 continued after they left the school, corresponding 

 with each other on the subject of their studies. On 

 quitting Daventry, having taken orders, he was ap- 

 pointed minister of a congregation at Needham Mar- 

 ket, in Suffolk. He had been brought up by his 

 father and aunt in the strictest Calvinistic principles, 

 most of which he very soon from conviction aban- 

 doned ; and so early did his spirit of free inquiry show 

 itself, that having before he left his aunt's house desired 

 to be admitted as a communicant at the chapel which 

 she attended, he was rejected by the minister on his 

 preparatory examination, in consequence of doubts 

 expressed respecting original sin, and eternal damna- 

 tion as its punishment. He describes the deep distress 

 into which he was thrown by feeling that he was 

 unable to experience due contrition and repentance 

 for Adam's fault ; and the rigid divine who tested the 

 state of his mind on this point, withheld the sacred 

 ordinances in consequence. At Needham his salary 

 never exceeded thirty pounds ; indeed it seldom 

 amounted to so much, and he could only subsist by 

 the aid which certain dissenting charities afforded to 

 augment this poor stipend. His predecessor, Dr. 

 Doddridge, had never received above thirty-five pounds 

 a-year, and his board then (1723) only cost him ten 

 pounds. Priestley's opinions proved distasteful to the 

 congregation, who probably regarded the eternity of 

 hell-torments as a peculiar privilege rudely invaded 

 by him ; and he removed in 1758 to Nantwich, ^ in 

 Cheshire, where he obtained some thirty pupils, beside 

 teaching a few young ladies and acting as private tutor 

 in an attorney's family. This increased his income, 

 and enabled him, by means of the strictest frugality, 

 to purchase a scanty apparatus ; for he had now added 

 a little natural philosophy to his favourite theological 

 studies, the fruit of which had been already two works, 



