For nine years, from the time that I was ten and a half till I was nineteen and a half, preparing for a clergyman, I was living far from God. For six years-from the time that I was fourteen till I was twenty years of age-I never read one single chapter of the Bible-not one single verse. I read the Hebrew and the Greek New Testament, and had the Bible in my own language, but I never read it. I had never in my early life heard the Gospel till I was twenty years and five months of age. I had never heard of a real true Christian in my life. No doubt there were many; but I had never heard or seen one. And yet I was one of a number of students in the University preparing to become clergymen.

About this time I was led to a little prayer meeting which was held in the house of a tradesman. There were about a dozen or fifteen citizens in the room; and here I, for the first time, heard of Christ. I entered the house of this tradesman as dead in trespasses and sins, and as utterly reckless and careless of divine things as any person in existence. I came away from that little prayer meeting a happy young man-a happy believer in Christ! There were at this time twelve hundred and sixty students in the University; but only three of them were believers in Christ, and I became the fourth, and I have been most unspeakably happy ever since, which is now for seventy-one years and five months. I am now ninety one years and six months of age, with the prospect of heaven very near-very near the end of my earthly pilgrimage. Still I am able to work every day, and all the day long. I preach five or six times a week besides. But although in my ninety second year, speaking after the manner of men, there is a prospect of being taken away, yet I am unspeakably happy!