264 History of Methodism 



rious employments of savage life. But lie had not 

 forgotten the home of his boyhood, and often sighed 

 for the society of his own much-loved kindred. At 

 length, the Indians, in their wanderings, took him 

 with them to Canada, and as the War of the Revolu- 

 tion was then in progress, he became a prisoner to the 

 British, and was treated by them with great barbarity. 

 By a bold stroke, he at length made his escape, and 

 after a long and tedious journey, reached his father's 

 house in Virginia on the 23d of February, 1783. He 

 called professedly as a traveler, and conversed with 

 his mother for some time before she had the slightest 

 suspicion that he was her son; and when, at length, 

 the revelation was made, no pen can describe the over- 

 whelming tenderness of the scene that followed. His 

 course of life during his wanderings was most un- 

 favorable to the cultivation of a serious habit of mind, 

 and hence not a vestige of any previous religious im- 

 pression seemed to remain with him. He was es- 

 pecially opposed to the Methodists who had begun to 

 preach in his father's neighborhood, and yet their min- 

 istrations became the means of bringing him to a deep 

 sense of his guilt, and ultimately to an acceptance of 

 the great salvation. In due time, he joined the Meth- 

 odist Society, and at length resolved to give himself 

 fully to the work of the ministry. He was admitted 

 into the itinerant connection in 1786, and appointed 

 to the Amelia Circuit; in 1787, to Halifax; in 1788, to 

 French Broad; in 1789, to Yadkin for three months, 

 when he was removed to Lincoln and Rutherford 

 counties to form a new circuit. Here he entered into 

 a matrimonial connection with Nancy L. Morris, who 

 survived him for many years.- In 1790 he was con- 

 tinued on the Lincoln Circuit, which he had formed 



