Previously in this work I have spoken of the early training received from my dear old grandmother and I believe that I was really converted at a very tender age, between five and seven years. But was not encouraged to make a public profession of religion and unite with the church. As I grew older, I gradually drifted towards the world and its allurements, but my conscience would not allow me to indulge in any very great immorality. I went to one circus when fifteen years of age, and the next one was when I took five of my children to a circus and animal show combined, and I have been to no more. I never was at a horse race or anything of like character, and but once at a theater. When about sixteen years of age, card-playing for amusement, and dancing at private houses, was indulged in by most every one. Both old and young, in the neighborhood where I then lived, and I became very fond of both and thoroughly enjoyed it, especially dancing. When eighteen years of age I went to the only ball I ever attended. It was at the Oil springs, in Clark Co., KY. Quiet a number of my friends and associates were there, as were also some young men from another locality whom I knew to be dissolute and immoral. I saw these dissolute young men obtain introductions to as good young ladies as were there and danced with them, and I went to one of my best young lady friends and asked her to dance with me, and told her it would be my last, and it was; nor have I ever touched a card since. All my life I have attended church and kept the Sabbath regularly. After I was eighteen years of age, during the latter part of the year. On one Sunday, my brother Robert (whom I was then living with) and I started to go to a country Methodist church. But on the way met some friends who told us that at Cynthiana, some six miles distant, there was a great meeting going on, conducted by the eminent revivalist, T. J. Fisher, and we went there; the minister's theme was "The Messiahship of Jesus Christ," and it made an impression on me such as I had never before felt. So that I went back the next night, and the next. Being more and more impressed each night that I ought to make a profession of religion, which I did before the end of the week, and was baptized on Sunday, Oct. 23, 1853, in Licking River, being the first Baptist ever baptized at Cynthiana. The man who baptized me was Rev. Jos. R. Barbee, (who had been a Methodist minister for many years, before he became a Baptist) and he was baptized by Rev.

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Thanks to Candy Hearn for transcribing this page.