But he was made in the mould of heroes.  In his lifetime he traveled not less than two hundred thousand miles, preaching to more people than any other man of his time.  He went from New England to the extremities of the Union in the West again and again.  Several times he went to Canada, once to the West Indies, and three times to England, everywhere drawing great crowds about him.  Friend of the oppressed, he knew no path but that of duty.  Evangel to the pioneer, he again and again left the haunts of men to seek the western wilderness.  Conversant with the Scriptures, intolerant of wrong, witty and brilliant, he assembled his hearers by the thousands.  What can account for so unusual a character?  What were the motives that prompted this man to so extraordinary and laborious a life?

Lorenzo Dow was born October 16, 1777, in Coventry, Tolland County, Connecticut.  When not yet four years old, he tells us, one day while at play he “suddenly fell into a muse about God and those places called heaven and hell.”  Once he killed a bird and was horrified for days at the act.  Later he won a lottery prize of nine shillings and experienced untold remorse.  An illness at the age of twelve gave him the shortness of breath from which he suffered more and more throughout his life.  About this time he dreamed that the Prophet Nathan came to him and told him that he would live only until he was two-and-twenty.  When thirteen he had another dream, this time of an old man, John Wesley, who showed to him the beauties of heaven and held out the promise that he would win if he was faithful to the end.  A few years afterwards came to the town Hope Hull, preaching “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”; and Lorenzo said:  “I thought he told me all that ever I did.”  The next day the future evangelist was converted.

But he was to be no ordinary Christian, this Lorenzo.  Not satisfied with his early baptism, he had the ceremony repeated, and with twelve others formed a society for mutual watch and helpfulness.  At the age of eighteen he had still another dream, this time seeing a brittle thread in the air suspended by a voice saying, “Woe unto you if you preach not the gospel.”  Then Wesley himself appeared again to him in a dream and warned him to set out at once upon his mission.

The young candidate applied to the Connecticut Conference of the Methodist Church.  He met with a reception that would have daunted any man less courageous.  He best tells the story himself:  “My brethren sent me home.  Warren and Greenwich circuits, in Rhode Island, were the first of my career.  I obeyed, but with a sorrowful heart.  Went out a second time to New Hampshire, but sent home again; I obeyed.  Afterwards went to Conference by direction—­who rejected me, and sent me home again; and again I obeyed.  Was taken out by P.W. on to Orange circuit, but in 1797 was sent home again:  so in obedience to man I went home a fourth time.”