Like every new convert he became anxious for the spiritual welfare of his fellow men, and first of all he became solicitous for the salvation of those in his own home. His father having married again, and all the members of the family being strangers to the joy of the forgiveness of sins, his first care was for their salvation. On the Sunday that he found peace, he spoke to his brothers one by one, waking them from sleep, and they too, were led into the light. Then he roused his father and stepmother, and they besought him to pray for them, and peace came to their souls. And the climax was reached, when next day his sister found the Lord. Thus the whole family through his exhortations and prayers, became earnest followers of Christ. Along with the joy of seeing all at home possessors of the joy of forgiveness, he set up the family altar, and then became anxious for the souls of his neighbors. As he passed them on the road he lifted his heart in prayer for their conversion, in company, he seized the opportunity of denouncing sin, much to the annoyance of some, but ultimately with spiritual profit. His early efforts at winning souls were so richly blessed, that he seized every opportunity of speaking of the good things of Christ.
In the summer of 1780, at a Quarterly Meeting held at Mr. Trueman's, he received so great a blessing that he wept, and the same evening at Fort Lawrence he made his first attempt at exhortation. From that hour he exhorted or prayed at every meeting, and though his knees trembled with fear, his tongue was loosened, and he spoke with much liberty. During the following winter he was invited to Tantramar to hold meetings, and had great joy in seeing many led to Christ. Assisted by some of the old class leaders and local preachers, he travelled over the country, exhorting as often as his duties on the farm would permit.
His first attempt at preaching from a text was in the spring of 1781, when he visited a settlement on the Petitcodiac River, and the word was with power. With so many tokens of the divine favor, it was evident that he was a marked man, and though not quite twenty-one years of age, and without any special training, he was being literally thrust out, and seemed destined to be the man who should lead the forces, and lay the foundations of Methodism, far beyond the limits of his own neighborhood. The man possessed of gifts and grace, in whom the people had confidence, and who was singularly blessed in winning souls had come, and the stripling on the farm was called to leave the plough and go forth, to proclaim the great truths of the Gospel of Christ. He was truly a chosen vessel, and fitted for a great work.
III.
The Maritime Itinerant.
The population of Nova Scotia in 1781 numbered twelve thousand, of whom there were about one hundred Acadian families, and exclusive of Cape Breton, three hundred warriors of the Micmac, and one hundred and forty of the Malicete tribes of Indians. Places of worship were few and widely scattered over a large extent of country, and so destitute were the people of religious privileges that many of them seldom heard a sermon, and as some of these people had been brought up in the bonds of the faith, they naturally felt very keenly their condition.
These facts could not fail to impress very deeply such a sensitive soul, rejoicing in his first love, and possessed of a burning passion for the salvation of men, whose lips had been touched with holy fire. When his labors had been so richly blessed in the conversion of many souls, while preaching in the time spared from his labor on the farm, his mind was led toward a complete consecration to the work of a Christian minister, and when he had arrived at the age of twenty-one years, he dedicated himself wholly to the cause of Christ, as the first Methodist missionary in the Maritime Provinces. Without any college training, or the help of any minister or church institution, he left his father's home on November 10th, 1781, and commenced a career of undaunted energy, and boundless influence, laying foundations for others, and becoming essentially the founder of Methodism in Eastern British America.
During the eight years of his life from 1781 to 1789, he passed from the position of a raw youth, entering alone amid great difficulties upon the work of a pioneer evangelist, to that of Superintendent of the Methodist Church in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland. With the zeal of an apostle he entered upon a career of usefulness, which for courage and incessant travelling and preaching, place him side by side with John Wesley and Francis Asbury. Here and there, all over the province he went proclaiming the message of salvation, preaching every day, and sometimes more frequently, as we learn of him preaching eighteen times in eight days, and upon another journey which occupied eighteen days, he preached twenty-four times.
He travelled on snow-shoes in the winter, and by boat or on horseback in the summer, and when these failed, he journeyed by log canoe, or walked over the bad roads. Once he walked forty five miles that he might spend the Sabbath with the people in Windsor. Sometimes he was in dangers by the sea, and glad after a hard day's work in the winter to have a little straw to lie upon, and a thin cover to shelter him from the cold. Like the early preachers he was often compelled to suffer opposition, rough fellows disturbing the services by shouting and seeking to break up the meeting, and some who were possessed of education demanding his authority for preaching the gospel, but to them all, he was patient, and some of his revilers were soundly converted, and learned to revere him as a man of God.