“It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” In all my connection with the scenes here truthfully described, as in the training and discipline of earlier years through which I was brought into them, I have been led in a way that I knew not.

I was born on the border of Western Pennsylvania and Virginia, within the wilds of the vast range of the Alleghanies, where the howl of the wolf, the scream of the panther, and the Indian’s tomahawk were my dread. In infancy my father died, and a few years later my pious mother. But God raised up a foster-mother, and in her family an intelligent Scotch female teacher, who made me her special charge during my first year at school. Here, in connection with faithful preaching from a tent in the woods on the Sabbath, and instruction in the log-cabin day-schools, I received those rudiments of education, and was indoctrinated in that sound system of faith and morals from which “old Scotia’s grandeur springs.”

Conscious of my ruin by sin and need of the “new birth,” as set forth in old standard works of Flavel and Boston which I read, for three years from ten to thirteen, I was often deeply impressed as to the state of my soul. I attended constantly on preaching and the monthly examinations, committed to memory catechisms and scriptures, and wrestled with God in prayer that I might be truly converted and become a minister of the gospel; and sometimes I indulged a trembling hope in Christ.

But among the snares and flatteries of ungodly companions, my alarm and faint hopes of salvation gradually subsided. I was at length led to show my manhood by tobacco-chewing, card-playing, and even profanity. Next I was enticed to read works on Universalism, and for four years sought to stifle conscience by arguments to prove that all will be saved. Yet a still small voice was whispering, “The soul that sinneth it shall die;” and though jovial in company, when alone hell would seem to flash up before me in all its horrors. Two great powers were striving in my heart: one to lead me into deeper sin; the other crying, “Turn ye, turn ye; for why will ye die?” At seventeen I went with an ungodly young man into the then wilderness of Central Ohio, where for half a year I heard no sermon, hunted on the Sabbath, threw off restraints, and as it were dared the vengeance of God. Oh how astonishing the mercy of God, to continue to strive with such a rebel!

When I arrived at eighteen, I spent two or three nights in a week at the card-table, to “kill time” and drown the whispers of the Spirit. I thought of enlisting in the army, and then resolved to go to sea: but in the providence of God, a young woman just then engaged my affections; thoughts of the army and the sea were dislodged, and in a few months we were married, depending on our personal exertions for the means of support.

We rented a piece of land, and entered upon the scenes and responsibilities of real life. After six months, I was seized with acute inflammatory rheumatism, and the verdict of the physician was, that the disease was incurable, and I must die. Every feature was distorted with agony; and yet the agony of soul at the thought of being dragged into the presence of God with all my sins unpardoned was unspeakably more terrible. I saw that I had shut my heart against the calls of God’s word and Spirit a thousand times, and that I deserved the deepest hell. I tried to pray, but there seemed to be no God to hear, no Saviour to intercede, no Spirit to comfort my lost and wretched soul.

As I was recovering, “The Afflicted Man’s Companion,” received from a friend, was greatly blessed to me, and I resolved by God’s help to live the life and die the death of the righteous. The struggle now began in earnest. Such was my agony of soul, that I often went to the woods and rolled on the ground for hours. Most of those around me, for miles in every direction, were living in neglect of God; intemperance fearfully prevailed; there was not one religious friend to whom I could reveal the feelings of my heart. I tried to surrender myself to Christ, but in vain. A voice seemed to follow me continually, “He that is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will I be ashamed before my Father and his holy angels.” I felt that a public acknowledgment of Christ and his cause was the only way of relief; but I shrunk from the duty, wishing to be a secret Christian, and go to the Saviour, like Nicodemus, by night. This distress continued for some months.

At length I was enabled to ask a blessing at my table, which seemed a hard task before my then irreligious wife; and after this it was a struggle of six months before I could summon courage to commence family prayer, even on a Sabbath evening. This duty was then performed, and peace of mind followed. After a few months I made known the state of my mind to the officers of a church some miles distant, and was admitted, though with many sore misgivings and fears that I had no right to the Lord’s supper, and was self-deceived.

God graciously removed these doubts, and I felt the claims of Christ to do something for others. I first engaged in loaning such good books as I could get, especially The Afflicted Man’s Companion, Doddridge’s Rise and Progress, and Pike’s Persuasives to Early Piety; feeling assured that no one could prayerfully read either of these books without being converted.

When I was in my twenty-third year, a devoted Christian settled in a very wicked community about five miles from me, where he started a Sabbath-school. I went to see it, and was greatly pleased with it. At the close, I was introduced to Mr. P——; and to his influence, under God, more than to that of any other individual, is to be traced all I have been enabled to do for the salvation of souls. He told me all about the management of a Sabbath-school, and how to get books from the American Sunday-school Union, which had just begun its heaven-born work in our country. I immediately set to work, raised five dollars, procured ten dollars’ worth of books, and opened a Sabbath-school in my own house. The room soon became too small; but God put it into the heart of an irreligious neighbor to offer a larger room, where the school was continued for a year, and where I also held a weekly meeting, usually reading one of Burder’s Village Sermons. More room soon became necessary, and a large school-house was built; and there, for twelve long years, the Sabbath-school and religious meetings were kept up, until nearly all the youth and most of the adult population in the neighborhood were brought into the church.

This Sabbath-school and that of Mr. P—— were the means God used to build up a good congregation in one of the most wicked and hopeless communities.

With these results before me, as soon as I heard of Colportage my heart beat with joy at the thought that the poor would soon have the gospel preached to them, and that thousands of children, untaught at home, would be reached by soul-saving truth adapted to their opening minds.

But the question came into my mind at once, “Who will go into these ignorant communities, and deny themselves the comforts of home, to do this work?” little thinking that God, by fifteen years training, had selected me for that very work in the Alleghanies.

An incident that occurred some years previous made a deep impression on my mind. The ecclesiastical body with which I was connected had requested the officers of vacant churches to visit all the families in those churches, and talk and pray with them. I shrunk from the task; but encouraged by Mr. P——, I entered on it with fear and trembling. By the time the first visit was paid I felt as if I should like to spend my days in such a work. Late in the evening of my first day I stopped at a house where the man and his wife were members of our church. A young man was present who was to be married in a few days. I had some acquaintance with him, and asked him if he had ever felt any concern about his soul. He said, “A little sometimes, but not much.” I urged him to seek first the kingdom of God: and his righteousness, and said to him, “For aught you know, before another morning you may be dead, or on a sick-bed from which you may never rise.” At midnight that night he woke up sick. In a day or two I was sent for. He told me the moment he woke sick he thought of what I said, and felt that he should never get well. He lingered three months; but more than a month before he died he professed his faith in Christ. From that time till he died, he daily urged his ungodly, intemperate parents to repent and meet him in heaven. The father soon became much distressed about his soul; and a year after, he died a most triumphant death, committing his children to my care for religious instruction. Within a few years the mother and most of the children were united with God’s people. All attributed their salvation to the exhortations of that son and those of us who attended him and his father. This encouraged me to try to do more.

On the morning of October 20, 1844, I rose in peace, with my happy little family around me; but a holy Providence ordered that in twelve hours my dear wife was to be in the cold embrace of death, and that her death was to be the first of a chain of providences to lead me “out into the highways and hedges.”

The next Sabbath morning our pulpit was occupied by Rev. Mr. W——, who presented the moral and religious wants of our country, and tenderly appealed for laborers. At the close of the service I was introduced to him, and he accompanied me to the new-made grave of my beloved companion. The band that had bound me to my home was loosed. On Monday morning the preacher called on me again; preliminaries were arranged; and I was commissioned as colporteur for Western Virginia, consenting first to labor a short time among the colliers in Western Pennsylvania.