In South Carolina.- 193 



He had not read long before the Lord, the King of 

 glory, for the sake of his Son, baptized him with the 

 Holy Ghost and with fire from heaven. He was never 

 better satisfied of the truth of any fact in his life than 

 he was of his conversion at this time. "With no 

 human being near me," says he, " I immediately got 

 on my knees and thanked God, and then and there 

 dedicated myself, soul, body, and spirit, to him, and 

 then and there covenanted to be his forever. I re- 

 turned immediately to the house of my friend and told 

 him the whole story. He blessed God, called his 

 family together, told them what had taken place, anl 

 then we all united in prayer and praise for my con- 

 version." Mr. Gassaway joined the Methodist Episco- 

 pal Church, and after awhile, feeling himself called to 

 warn his fellow-men of the danger of living in sin, and 

 to publish to them the riches of God's redeeming and 

 saving mercy, he received from the Church authority 

 to preach, and was admitted on trial as a traveling 

 preacher in the South Carolina Conference, in 1788. 

 After traveling the Edisto, Bush River, and Little 

 Pedee circuits, he located from family necessities; but 

 in the year 1801 he reentered the itinerant ranks, and 

 continued until the expiration of the Conference-year 

 1813, when he again located, having traveled in all 

 sixteen years with a large family and poor pay. 

 "When but a youth," says Mr. Travis, "I was accus- 

 tomed to hear him preach at my uncle's, in Chester 

 District in South Carolina, and when I entered the 

 itinerancy it was in the same Conference to which he 

 belonged. He was a sound, orthodox preacher, and on 

 suitable occasions argumentative and polemical — a 

 great lover and skillful defender of Methodist doctrines 

 and usages." His method of pulpit preparation was 

 13 



