I mind how I helped to dig a well and worked on the turnpike. A gentleman many years after told me he saw me breaking stones, but this I do not remember. We did what we could, the mother and I, minding my old mother's caution,-"Don't look poor and don't tell." And then help came without our asking.

I was making some slim purchase at the one store for we were cutting down.- when Albert Engle, the owner, said: "You must not scrimp your family for anything we have in our store. The work will start up again, and you will pay me, I know, when you are able." Charles Bosler, the miller, came to see me, and said: "Come to my mill for all the flour and meal you need. I can trust you." And good George Heller followed suit about the rent. They are now no more. They made good the ancient promise, "Before you ask I will answer." And so I must record their names in my book of life. And then, when the time of the singing of birds had come and the grapes gave a goodly smell, the fires were lighted again and the hammers rang on the anvils. How well I remember the day when I made my first dozen hammers after that panic! I stood at the anvil about two years more, and then laid

down my hammer for good and all, except for some fragment of an hour about twelve years after. But this memory belongs to our life in Chicago.

VII

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No word has been said touching those years about the work I must do on Sundays, because I felt this must wait until the story was told of, shall I say, the bread and butter, the roof and the fire. While here also there was a panic which must be met and overcome not by the help of men now, but I say in pure reverence of the Most High. I brought a good letter from the brethren in England to the churches here of our faith and order; and soon after we landed in Philadelphia, dropping into a book store I was sure to do that found the bookseller, Thomas Stokes, was a Methodist and a local preacher. I took out my letter, and, Methodist fashion, he gave me at once the right hand of fellowship; asked me to go with him to church on the next Sunday, where I was presented to the minister, who was also glad to read my letter and welcome me. There was a prayer meeting after the regular service, and I was asked to "make a prayer." And, as we walked from the church, my friend said:

"I feel sure that was a good prayer, but we did not understand the half of what you said. I suppose you spoke in the Yorkshire dialect. You will have to speak as we do here in America if you are a local preacher."

I had never thought of this, had indeed rather prided myself on my good English. And it was not broad Yorkshire, but Brother Stokes did not know that. And no matter what it was, there was the truth: it was not good American. This was clear. Here was another panic. If I must learn the new tongue and forget the old before the people would hear me, rectify the aspirates, change the accents, alter the vowels, and all the rest, when could I begin to be heard at all? This was the situation when we had got our home in order and joined the church near at hand in Milestown, where again they gave us a warm welcome. So did the minister in charge of the circuit: but he also had heard me speak in a meeting, had admitted me to the band of local preachers, but had given me no chance to stand in a pulpit. Then I think I was angry; but it was not a sinful anger if I may judge from this distance in time, and, after waiting, it may be, two months, I set a snare for his feet.

I had noticed he was rather given to ask a brother of our rank to take the service when he was tired or had a very small audience, and small blame to him. He was to preach in a small schoolhouse on a blazing August Sunday afternoon on the hill above our town. So I went to the service in the hope that he would invite me to take the service and risk the dialect. He did risk it, the good, innocent man! for he was both. And I am not sure there was any overplus of the divine grace in me; but I felt the question must be settled that day, whether I must be what the Scotch call a stickit minister until I learned how to speak, or win against the formidable hindrance.

And at my work I had mused over those words of the prophet until my heart burned,— "Get thee up in thy chariot, for there is a sound of abundance of rain." I forgot all about the dialect, so did the small band about us. The farmer's kitchen on the moorside and the small schoolhouse on the hill opened each into the other. My brothers in the ministry will know what I mean. It was given me that day what I should say. In my poor measure and degree it was as when in the old time they spake to every man in his own tongue. I was