MY MOST EVENTFUL YEAR.

CHAPTER XI.

TO MRS. Z. BOOTH.

DECEMBER 31,

1833.

My Dear Sister: I have thought often of writing to you; but from some cause or other, could never find myself in a proper frame of mind and with sufficient energy for the task. For some months past, religion has been all my theme, and to write upon that subject I must be in the Spirit. I have often sat down, as I thought, with a religious fervor sufficient to carry me through a letter of ordinary length, but I had hardly begun, before it completely subsided, and I found myself too cold to proceed. I pray the Lord to give me grace in this effort, to carry me successfully through the labor of love I have undertaken.

This day closes the year 1833, and to me

WITHOUT HOPE IN CHRIST.

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it has been a most eventful one. On the first day of last January, I was the husband of an amiable wife whom I tenderly loved, and by whom I was no less beloved. She was then upon a bed of languishing, and I was beginning to feel apprehensions that her earthly career was soon to be brought to a close. And what was more distressing and awful than even the apparently near approach of death, (though I did not then regard her case as hopeless,) was, that she was a stranger to that blood which bought her pardon on the tree. I was also living "without God and without hope" in the world-and without even a desire for the present attainment of religion. I was comfortably situated in life and actively engaged in an honorable and lucrative profession. I was addicted to many

FASHIONABLE BUT ODIOUS AND DEGRADING

VICES; and to all human appearance there were few then farther from God and righteousness than I was, and whose final destruction seemed more sure than mine. "But God who

is rich in mercy

was pleased to lead me to

himself, "by a way I knew not." To my dear Elizabeth he granted repentance unto life, and enabled her to die in the triumphs of faith. My own eyes also he mercifully opened, and freely forgave all my sins, and extended to me redemption through the blood of his Son; so that I was enabled to rejoice in hope of His glory, and to "feel his love shed abroad in my heart, by the Holy Ghost given unto me. The Spirit itself bore witness with my spirit that I was a child of God. I perfectly well remember the time and place of my conversion. It was too remarkable-the change was too striking, and the transition from darkness to light, from fear to hope, from sorrow to joy, from anxiety of care to perfect peace, and a calm, holy serenity of soul, a child-like confidence in God, and love to Him and to all the world, too sudden and entire to be soon forgotten. The fourteenth day of February, 1833, will be long, if the Lord spares my life and mental faculties, remembered by me

A HOUSELESS WANDERER.

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as a day of rejoicing and thanksgiving to God. In May I united with the Methodist Episcopal church, and about the last of July, having disposed of my professional business and most of my books, I commenced calling sinners to repentance; at first, as an exhorter and local preacher in my own vicinity. Four weeks ago, I left Charleston and commenced traveling as a preacher on the Galliopolis circuit in Ohio-thus becoming a houseless wanderer with no certain dwelling place, "having here no continuing city, but looking for one which is to come." "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ." I have, however, yet to feel the first regret for having relinquished my worldly prospects, and made Jesus my portion and my all. I have not chosen an easy or an inactive life; and rest assured I am not in pursuit of that which promises wealth, or distinction, or worldly honor. My full reward is not in this life, but in that great day for which all other days were made. I hope to be found among those

"who have come out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb."

But I have one more event in the history of the present year to record. I am again married. Last Thursday, the 26th instant, I became the husband of Mary Jane Lewis. And you will naturally ask, Who is Miss Lewis? Her father was Col. Andrew Lewis of this (Mason) county, a gentleman of highly respectable standing, who died in May last, leaving a widow and six children, the third of whom, and second daughter, is Mary Jane, aged a little upward of twenty-two years. In last June she became a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. I have received her as a gift of the Lord.

As her mother lives just opposite a part of my circuit on the Virginia side of the Ohio river, I expect to make her house my home, while I continue to travel my present circuit. I am in a most kind and amiable family, and feel entirely at home here. In a few days