God graciously removed these doubts, and I felt the claims of Christ to do something for others. I first engaged in loaning such good books as I could get, especially The Afflicted Man’s Companion, Doddridge’s Rise and Progress, and Pike’s Persuasives to Early Piety; feeling assured that no one could prayerfully read either of these books without being converted.
When I was in my twenty-third year, a devoted Christian settled in a very wicked community about five miles from me, where he started a Sabbath-school. I went to see it, and was greatly pleased with it. At the close, I was introduced to Mr. P----; and to his influence, under God, more than to that of any other individual, is to be traced all I have been enabled to do for the salvation of souls. He told me all about the management of a Sabbath-school, and how to get books from the American Sunday-school Union, which had just begun its heaven-born work in our country. I immediately set to work, raised five dollars, procured ten dollars’ worth of books, and opened a Sabbath-school in my own house. The room soon became too small; but God put it into the heart of an irreligious neighbor to offer a larger room, where the school was continued for a year, and where I also held a weekly meeting, usually reading one of Burder’s Village Sermons. More room soon became necessary, and a large school-house was built; and there, for twelve long years, the Sabbath-school and religious meetings were kept up, until nearly all the youth and most of the adult population in the neighborhood were brought into the church.
This Sabbath-school and that of Mr. P---- were the means God used to build up a good congregation in one of the most wicked and hopeless communities.
With these results before me, as soon as I heard of Colportage my heart beat with joy at the thought that the poor would soon have the gospel preached to them, and that thousands of children, untaught at home, would be reached by soul-saving truth adapted to their opening minds.
But the question came into my mind at once, “Who will go into these ignorant communities, and deny themselves the comforts of home, to do this work?” little thinking that God, by fifteen years training, had selected me for that very work in the Alleghanies.