ll sketch God's dealings with my own soul.

EARLY PRAYER.

I was born September 30th, 1877, at Westfield, Indiana. My parents were
both ministers in the Society of Friends, and I can not remember When I
first began to pray, for my mother taught me to go to God with
everything, even when a very small child. When I was five and a half
years of age we moved to Walnut Ridge, Indiana, where there was a
Friends' meeting of more than ordinary size and activity. It was here
that my conversion took place. I remember the event as distinctly as if
it were yesterday.

CONVICTION.

I always prayed at the family altar, and that was an institution which
was never neglected for anything in our home, and I had never omitted
my evening devotions; but one summer day while playing by myself under
the trees in the front yard, a great fear came upon me lest I had never
had a change of heart. Though less than six years old, I had sat in the
"gallery" behind my father as he preached too often to be ignorant of
the necessity of the new birth. It was a perfect day, but conviction
settled upon me more and more deeply, and a dark shadow seemed to take
the brightness from everything. Unable to endure the heartache any
longer, I ran into the house and sat down with my father and mother,
waiting in silence for some time. Finally I asked them if I had "ever
been converted," told them I "wanted to be," and immediately we knelt
in prayer. How I did weep, and how badly I felt! I can see the back of
that little sewing-rocker now swimming in my tears. (I wonder where
that rocking-chair is now! The last I knew it was in California, having
left us at an auction--an occasion not unfamiliar to most of
preacher-families.) They told me to pray, and I prayed with all my
heart. If ever there was a little boy who felt that he was a great
sinner, I was the boy. I remembered all the things I ever did that I
knew were wrong. My boyish wickednesses, things that seem a rather
absurd lot now in the light of the sins of the average lad of six that
I know to-day, caused me great pain. Soon peace came, and what
happiness! When I went out doors again the very birds twittered with
increased gladness, and the sky seemed a far deeper blue, and the grass
and flowers rejoiced with me in my new-found experience.

RETROGRESSION.

Would God I had retained my simple faith in Jesus! But it was not long
before I wandered away from Christ, and the life of prayerfulness and
obedi