my older sisters and brother John dated their hopes of salvation from that summer's revival under the ministry of the Rev. Edward Mills. I cannot say as I was a subject of the work; but this I can say that I then began to hear preaching. I can now recollect most if not all of those I heard preach, and what their texts were. The change in our family was great; family worship set up by brother John was ever afterward continued. There was a revival of singing in Canton and our family became singers. Conference meetings were kept up constantly and singing meetings—all of which brought our family into a very good association—a very great aid of restraining grace."
Thus this young freeman of the woods was born into a religious atmosphere; not that of stern, intellectual Puritanism, but of a milder and a more sensitive type. Even this, however, the naturally skeptical bent of his mind did not receive unquestioningly. The doctrines of his day and church did not wholly satisfy him and he became only "to some extent a convert to Christianity." One answer to his questionings did come, however, bearing its own wonderful credentials—and credentials all the more wonderful to the man of few books and narrow knowledge of the world of thought—the English Bible. He grew to be "a firm believer in the divine authenticity of the Bible. With this book he became very familiar." He read and reread it; he committed long passages to memory; he copied the simple vigor of its English,
