rom
Heaven, providing me with every earthly blessing within their
ability, and proposing that I should stay with them for ever. They
wanted me to marry right away, offered to furnish me a house,
provide me with a horse to enable me more readily to get about the
country, and proposed other things that they thought would please
me.

"With them I spent perhaps the happiest eighteen months of my life.
Of course my horizon was much more limited in those days than it is
now, and consequently required less to fill it.

"Although I was only twenty-three years of age and Lincolnshire was
one of the counties that had been most privileged with able
Methodist preaching for half a century before, and I had to
immediately follow in Spalding a somewhat renowned minister, God
helped me very wonderfully to make myself at home, and become a
power amongst the people.

"I felt some nervousness when on my first November Sunday I was
confronted by such a large congregation as greeted me. In the
morning I had very little liberty; but good was done, as I
afterwards learned. In the afternoon we had a Prayer, or
After-Meeting, at which one young woman wept bitterly. I urged her
to come to the communion rail at night. She did so, and the Lord
saved her. She afterwards sent me a letter thanking me for urging
her to come out. In the evening I had great liberty, and fourteen
men and women came to the communion rail; many, if not all, finding
the Saviour.

"On the Monday I preached there again. Four came forward, three of
whom professed to find Salvation. I exerted myself very much, felt
very deeply, and prayed very earnestly over an old man who had been
a backslider for seven years. He wept bitterly, and prayed to the
Lord to save him, if He could wash a heart as black as Hell. By
exerting myself so much I made myself very ill, and was confined to
the house during the rest of the week. My host and hostess were
very kind to me.

"The next Sunday I started from home rather unwell. I had to go to
Donnington, some miles away, in the morning and evening, and to
Swineshead Bridge in the afternoon.

"But at night God helped me to preach in such a way that many came
out, and fourteen names were taken of those who really seemed
satisfactory. It was, indeed, a