When I was set apart to preach, I had no pastorate in view and sought none. I looked over the field in reach of me and found a large log church house with rustic seats and pulpit, with two members on a [blank] and they not working at the King’s business. It was about eighteen miles from me and eight miles north of Lake Butler, Florida. No one was preaching there, and its helplessness appealed to me. No one sent for me, and no one sent me, unless it was the Holy Spirit. So, I would plough all week, saddle up my plow mule, start early, get there soon, and preach with all the ardor of an untrained youth. One beautiful Sabbath morning a leading citizen brought his newspaper along. When I began to preach, he spread out his and began to read. It flashed across my mind to outpreach his reading, which I did, for he quit. Years after that I met him and inquired whether he remembered the incident. He laughed and said he did. After that, he went to the Legislature, and asked that body to put him on the committee to examine the insane asylum. Another member made a motion to put him on, as that place would suit him. He got mad about it, but what could he do? An old man sent word for me to take dinner with him. He was a Primitive Baptist. We had a big time together. He knew there more popular things around there than a young missionary Baptist preacher. They were not much use to church collections, but I decided to take one and sent my hat around and got it back, but after dismission, a man brought me twenty cents and saved my face. That was the nearest failure I ever had on that line.

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