r most holy faith; but I had to be away
from home a great deal, and my exposure in all kinds of weather, and
the wear and tear of constant preaching, increased my lung disease.

While preaching at Cynthiana my spinal trouble returned, causing me to
close abruptly, and I could preach no more till July. On my return from
Cynthiana, some friends in Cincinnati induced me to visit a Dr. Cook (I
think that is the name). He was celebrated for his skill in such
afflictions. He was a corpulent, jolly old gentleman, full of humor.
When I was introduced, he looked at me for a moment without coming
near, and said: "Well, sir, you don't laugh enough. You take too
serious a view of life. Why, sir, at least two inches of your spinal
marrow is inflamed, produced by nervous exhaustion, the result of
overwork and no mental recreation. I tell you, sir, all the medicine in
the world will do you no good till you quit that and cultivate
laziness. You must take a more cheerful view of life. And you must
learn to laugh, not giggle a little, but laugh away down to the bottom
of the abdomen. Then you will get well. I used to be a little, scrawny,
sallow, nervous, overworked thing like you are, but I saw it was going
to kill me, and I quit it and went to laughing, and now see what I am?"
And this was all the prescription he gave me. There is, doubtless, a
good deal of philosophy in it.

At Glendale a rather singular circumstance occurred. The first night of
the meeting, I observed a very intelligent looking lady in the
audience, and she was intensely interested. When we got back to the
place where I was stopping, I asked the sister who this lady was. She
gave her name, stating that she was the pride of the Methodist Church
in that country; that her talk at the love-feast a few weeks before had
been the topic of conversation ever since. I remarked that she would
not be a Methodist when that meeting was over. But they would not
listen to the idea that she would ever be anything but a Methodist. She
was present the second and third nights, and manifested the same
intense interest. The next morning early, she sent to ascertain if she
could have a private interview. When she came, she made her business
known at once. She wanted to learn if I would immerse her and let her
remain in the M. E. Church. Without answering her question, I asked her
what she wanted to be immersed for. She said she had become convinced
that she had never obeyed the gospel, an