sh that young Butler should be educated for the ministry in that church.
The boy was placed under the care of the Rev. Philip Barton, master of the
grammar school at Wantage, and remained there for some years. He was then
sent to Samuel Jones's dissenting academy at Gloucester, and afterwards at
Tewkesbury, where his most intimate friend was Thomas Seeker, who became
archbishop of Canterbury.

While at this academy Butler became dissatisfied with the principles of
Presbyterianism, and after much deliberation resolved to join the Church of
England. About the same time he began to study with care Samuel Clarke's
celebrated _Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God_, which had
been published as the Boyle Lectures a few years previously. With great
modesty and secrecy Butler, then in his twenty-second year, wrote to the
author propounding certain difficulties with regard to the proofs of the
unity and omnipresence of the Divine Being. Clarke answered his unknown
opponent with a gravity and care that showed his high opinion of the
metaphysical acuteness displayed in the objections, and published the
correspondence in later editions of the _Demonstration_. Butler
acknowledged that Clarke's reply satisfied him on one of the points, and he
subsequently gave his adhesion to the other. In one of his letters we
already find the germ of his famous dictum that "probability is the guide
of life."

In March 1715 he entered at Oriel College, Oxford, but for some time found
it uncongenial and thought of migrating to Cambridge. But he made a close
friend in one of the resident fellows, Edward Talbot, son of William
Talbot, then bishop of Oxford, and afterwards of Salisbury and Durham. In
1718 he took his degree, was ordained deacon and priest, and on the
recommendation of Talbot and Clarke was nominated preacher at the chapel of
the Rolls, where he continued till 1726. It was here that he preached his
famous _Fifteen Sermons_ (1726), including the well-known discourses on
human nature. In 1721 he had been given a prebend at Salisbury by Bishop
Talbot, who on his translation to Durham gave Butler the living of
Houghton-le-Skerne in that county, and in 1725 presented him to the wealthy
rectory of Stanhope. In 1726 he resigned his preachership at the Rolls.

For ten years Butler remained in perfect seclusion at Stanhope. He was only
remembered in the neighbourhood as a man much loved and respected, who used
to ride a black pony ver