which the effort had awakened in me, and a desire for an education. The shop was often idle; I had plenty of time for study, and made the most of it. At one of the subsequent Quarterly Meetings, a Rev. Mr. Brainard, who had considerable reputation as a revivalist, preached one Sunday night a vivid and thrilling sermon on Noah’s Ark and the Flood. So marked was the impression on the audience, that, at the close, according to the Methodist custom, “mourners” were invited to the altar. Many accepted the invitation. A young friend sitting beside me was greatly affected. With streaming eyes he said, “Dan’l, let us go, too,” rising up and starting as he spoke. After a few moments I followed. By this time the space about the altar was well filled. There was great excitement and no little confusion—exhortation, singing, and prayer going on all at once. A number of persons made profession of religion, and soon my young friend joined them. He was full of joy, and was surprised to find that I was not so, too. The meetings were continued night after night, and each night I went to the altar. As I look back upon it from this distance, it seems to me that, with much exhortation to repent and believe, there was not enough of clear and definite instruction regarding the plan of salvation, or the offices and work of Christ. One night, in a quiet hour at home, the grounds and method of a sinner’s acceptance of Christ became clear to me, and He became my Lord. Soon after, when invitation was given to the new converts to join the church as probationers, I was urged by some good friends to join with the rest; and was myself not a little inclined to do so. It was no doubt the influence of my cousin that enabled me to withstand the excitement of the revival and the gentle pressure of my Methodist friends, and to join, instead, my father’s old church at Buffalo. But I owe more than I shall ever know to that Sunday School, and since then I have always loved the Methodist Church. Meanwhile the prospects for an education grew no brighter, though Mr. Brantley, then a young graduate in charge of the Pittsboro Academy, but afterward a distinguished Baptist minister of Philadelphia, gave me a place in his school at idle times; and a Dr. Hall used to lend me books to read. When the opportunity for acquiring an education finally came, it was as unexpected as a clap of thunder out of a blue sky. The celebrated Bingham School, now in Asheville, North Carolina, was then, as now, the most noted in the South. It was started by Rev. William Bingham in Pittsboro, North Carolina, in the closing years of the eighteenth century. It was moved to Hillsboro by his son, the late William J. Bingham, father of the present Principal. The school was patronized by the leading families of the South. The number of pupils was strictly limited. To secure a place, application had to be made a year or more in advance.