st Church, of which she remained an exemplary
member until her death. I became intimately acquainted with her in
1824, when she was twenty years of age, and after taking the advice
of an elder brother, who had travelled the circuit on which they
lived, at the strong solicitation of my parents, and the impulse of
my own inclinations, I made her proposals of marriage, which were
accepted. This was before I had any intention of becoming a
preacher in the Methodist Church, either travelling or local.

About this time the Lord laid his afflicting hand upon me;[37] I
was brought to the gate of death, and in that state became
convinced by evidence as satisfactory as that of my existence, that
in disregarding the dictates of my own conscience, and the
important advice of many members of the Church, both preachers and
lay, in regard to labouring in the itinerant field, I had resisted
the Spirit of God; and on that sick, and in the estimation of my
family, dying bed, I vowed to the Lord my God, that if He should
see fit to raise me up and open the way, I would no more disobey
the voice of His Providence and servants. From that hour I began
visibly to recover, and, though the exercises of my mind were
unknown to any but myself and the Searcher of hearts, before I had
sufficiently recovered to walk two miles, I was called upon by the
Presiding Elder, and several official members, and solicited to go
on the Niagara Circuit, which was then partly destitute through the
failure in health of one of the preachers. I could not but view
this unexpected call us the voice of God, and, after a few days'
deliberation and preparation, I obeyed, on the 24th of March, 1825,
the day on which I was twenty-two years of age.

This unanticipated change in the course of my life, while it
involved the sacrifice of pecuniary interests and some very
flattering offers and promises, presented my contemplated marriage
in a somewhat different light; though the possibility of such a
change was mentioned as a condition in my proposals and our
engagement. And I will here record it to the honour of the dead
that she who afterwards became my wife, wrote to me a short time
after I commenced travelling, that if a union between us was in any
respect opposed to my views of duty, or if I thought i