He became a colporteur for a tract society, and was given as territory the towns on the east side of the Hudson River.  Tract selling in this generation is probably the most thankless, profitless work that any human being could undertake.  The poor old man was burdened with a heavy bundle of the worst literary trash of a religious kind ever put out of a publishing house.  He was to get twenty-five per cent. on the sales; so he shouldered his kit, with his heart full of enthusiasm, and began the summer journey on foot.  He carried his diary with him, and although the entries are very brief, they are to the point.

“August 29.  Sold nothing.  No money for bread or lodging. God is good. Night came and I was so tired and hungry.  I went into a grove and with a prayer of confidence on my lips, I went to sleep.  A clock not far away struck two.  Then, rain fell in torrents and a fierce wind blew.  The elements drove me from the grove.  A constable held me up.  ‘I am a servant of God, dear friend,’ I said.  ’Why doesn’t he give you a place to sleep, then?’ he answered.  ‘God forgive me,’ thinks I to myself, ’but that is the same unworthy thought that was in my own mind.’  I went into a building in course of erection and lay down on some planks; but I was too wet to sleep.”

Next day hunger drove him to work early.  He was turned from one door after another, by saints and sinners alike, until finally he was so weak with hunger that he could scarcely walk.  Then he became desperate to a degree, and his diary records a call on another reverend doctor.

This eminent divine had no need for religious literature, nor had he time to be bothered with beggars.  Dowling records in his diary that he told the minister that he was dropping off his feet with hunger and would be thankful for a little bread and a glass of water.  It seems almost incredible that in a Christian community such things could happen; but the diary records the indictment that those tender lips in life were never allowed to utter—­it records how he was driven from the door.

He had letters of introduction from this rich tract society, and again he presented them to a minister.

“A very nice lady came,” says the record.  “I gave my credentials, explained my condition and implored help.

“We are retired from the active ministry,” the woman said, “and cannot help you.  We have no further use for religious books.”

A third minister atoned for the others, and made a purchase.  This was at Tarrytown.  On another occasion, when his vitality had ebbed low through hunger and exposure, he was sitting on the roadside when a labourer said, “There is a nigger down the road here who keeps a saloon.  He hasn’t got no religion, but he wants some.  Ye’d better look him up.”  And he did.  The Negro saloon-keeper informed him that being a saloon-keeper shut him and his family from the church.

“Now,” he said, “I am going to get Jim, my barkeeper, to look after the joint while I take you home to talk to me and my family about God.”  So they entertained the tinker-preacher, and the diary is full of praise to God for his new-found friends.  The Negro bought a dollar’s worth of tracts, and persuaded the colporteur to spend the night with them.