Thirty Years in the Itinerancy

ged to enter the Ministry.--Shrinks from the Responsibility.--Flies to Modern Tarshish.--Heads for Iowa.--Gets Stuck in

so wide a circuit that the curve they describe is too slight to furnish a basis for reliable mathematical calculations. Hence the orbit of a comet is a mystery, and the return not unfrequently a surprise. If this be true of what seem to be the unfinished or exploded worlds, that swing like airy nothings in the heavens and fringe the imperial realm of physical being, then what may not be predicated of the profounder mysteries that lie bosomed in those unexplored depths of the Universe, where the fixed stars hold high court? When our feet trip at every step of our advance to know th

of them, though much of mystery must always remain. And in no one particular do these understandable portions find a clearer illustration than in those interve

d, were also required to create a single grain of sand and assign it its place as a part of the grand whole. So, while great and honorable men pass into the world's history as the proteges of a special providence, let it also be remembered that the humbler ones, though their names may never be chronicled, are not forgotten by

ing place for the record that is to follow. On the contrary, these utterances

ought myself settled in my convictions and fixed in my purpose. Yet I am not able to say, that at times it did not require some effort of the will to keep my conscience quiet and my thought steady. A young man, from eighteen to twenty-two years of age, who was subject to so many attacks, especially in high places, and who constantly felt himself preached to and prayed at in almost every religious assembly, must be more than human, not to say less than a Christian, to bear up under such a pressure. I clearly saw that one of two things must be done, and that speedily. Either I must yield to the manifest demand of the church or "go west." I chose the latter. Nor was this decision mere obstinacy. There were several things to be considered and carefully weighed and determined before entering upon a work of such grave responsibilities as the Itinerant ministry. First of all, the question must be settled in a man's conviction of duty; then the question of one's fitness for the work; and, finally, the financial question could not be ignored. To enter the Itinerancy involved responsibilities that could only be sustained under the deepest convictions that can possibly penetrate a human soul. The minister is God's ambassador to lost men. He can only enter upon this work under the sanction of Divine authority. Having entered he is charged with the care of souls, and if these shall suffer harm, through his inefficiency or want of fidelity, he must answer in the Divine assizes for the b

the other side can only be seen when the beholder occupies the proper stand-point, and this position I certainly had not attain

n full view of the cataract, and not look upon it until my feet were planted on Table Rock. But from that hour to the present, I have never regretted the effort, for therein I learned the importance of position, when face to face with any great question. The position gained, I raised my eyes upon Niagara Falls. I need not say my whole being was thrilled. There lay the great "horse shoe" full before me, and I seemed to stand upon its outer crest and look down into its deep chasm, where the angry waters wrestled with each other in their wildest frenzy. Then the floods from either side, that had

of his family had been looking enquiringly in that directi

orm than any water craft that I had ever seen, landed us on a pier in the night, and from the pier we were taken ashore in a scow. We reached Racine in June, 1844. Racine at that time was a very small village, but, like all western towns, it was in the daily belief that, at some time in the near future, it would be a very large city. We spent the Sa

just in the middle of a broad marsh. In such case the gentlemen would take to the water, not unfrequently up to the loins, build a chair by the crossing of hands, as they had learned to do in their school days, and give the ladies a safe passage to the prairie beyond. But woe worth the day if the wheels refused to turn, as they sometimes did, in the middle of some deep, broad mud-hole. The light prairie soil, when thoroughly saturated, is capab

ed with the praises of the country, and especially the counties of Dodge and Fond du Lac. By the time we had spent several days at Delavan, and were ready to move on toward Iowa, this clamor had become so decided in its tone, that, as a result of the consultation, it wa

, Oak Grove and Waupun. At the last named place we found a few scattered log houses, and, within a radius of five miles, perhaps a dozen families. The location was beautiful. With its prairie of from one to two miles in width, skirted on the north by groves of timber, through which ran the west branch of Rock River, and fringed on the south by extended openings, it took us captive at once. Passing up the stream two or three miles we found the looked for water-power, and abundance of unappropriated lands. By setting our stakes on the crown of the prairie, and making the lines pass down to the river and

, are a necessity. To secure these at the outset requires the emigration of ministers from the older States as well as people. Perhaps the motives of neither class in coming will always bear a thorough scrutiny; yet who shall say that their c