Yet it served its purpose and helped him, through Dunton, to become acquainted with a few men of letters and learning.

He had something better, too, to cheer his start in London.

Dunton in 1682 had married Elizabeth, one of the many daughters of Dr.Samuel Annesley, the famous Dissenter, then preaching at a Nonconformist church which he had opened in Little St.
Helen's, Bishopsgate.

Young Wesley, a student at Newington Green, had been present at the wedding, with a copy of verses in his pocket: and there, in a corner of the Doctor's gloomy house in Spital Yard, he came on the Doctor's youngest daughter, a slight girl of fourteen, seated and watching the guests.
She was but a child, and just then an unhappy one, though with no childish trouble.

Minds ripened early in Annesley House, where scholars and divines resorted to discuss the battle raging between Church and Dissent.