With this attractive sphere before me, I gave up my living and work in the country, and accepted the curacy at l. 120 a year, with a house rent-free.  My rector was a dry Churchman, who had no sympathy with me; but he seemed glad to get any one to come and work amongst such a rough, and in some respects unmanageable, set.  He had bought a chapel from the Primitive Methodists for Divine service, and had erected schools for upwards of three hundred children.  These he offered me as my ground of operation, promising, with a written guarantee, that if I succeeded, he would build me a church, and endow it with all the tithes of that portion of the parish.

Here was a field of labour which required much prayer and tact, as well as energetic action.  In accordance with Scriptural teaching, “I determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”  I made up my mind that I would not begin by having temperance addresses for drunkards, or lectures on the Evidences of Christianity for the infidel, but simply with preaching the Gospel.

One thing that simplified my work very much was the fact, that the people were spiritually dead.  I used to tell them, that in this free country every man is accounted innocent till he is proved to be guilty, but that in the Bible every man is guilty before God till he is pardoned, and dead till he is brought to life.  In one sense it does not matter very much whether a man is an infidel, a drunkard, or anything else, if he is dead in trespasses and sins.

It is of very little consequence in what coloured raiment a corpse is shrouded; it remains a corpse still.

Taking this position positively, I avoided much religious controversy, to the disappointment of many eager disputants, who longed to ventilate their views.  ’I told them plainly, that whether they were, right or wrong, my business was with the salvation:  of souls, and my one desire was to rescue the lost:  by bringing’ them to Christ.

Hitherto I had been to places where the Lord had previously prepared the hearts of the people, and therefore it had been my joy to see a revival spring up, as if spontaneously; that is, without the ordinary preparation by the people of the place.  These extraordinary manifestations of God’s power and love; and they showed me what He could and do.  Now that I was somewhat more intelligent on the subject, He sent me forth to prepare and work for similar results.

Hayle was to all appearances a very barren soil, and the people I had to labour amongst were greater and mightier than myself.  They already had possession of the ground, and were perfectly content with their own way.  Moreover, they did not desire any change, and were ready even to resist and oppose every effort which was designed to ameliorate their condition, or to change their lives.  In this undertaking I knew and understood that without prayer and dependence upon God to work in me and by me, my mission would