For ten years before his death, he made a regular circuit, monthly, extending from Fox creek on the Merrimac, twenty miles, west-south-west from St. Louis, round by Coldwater, where was the church to which his membership was attached, and of which he was pastor. There, and near the Spanish pond, a settlement farther east, he held meetings for two, and sometimes three days in succession. At one period he crossed the Mississippi at a ferry a short distance below the mouth of the Missouri. That ferry being stopped, he turned down the course of the river to St. Louis, and passed over on the ferry-boat there. His route then was through the Six-Mile prairie, where he had a regular preaching station. From thence he occasionally diverged to Edwardsville, but more frequently went up the American bottom to Upper Alton, thence to Lofton’s prairie, Judge Brown’s, near the Maconpin, Carrollton, and above Apple Creek to a settlement called Henderson’s Creek, where he collected a small church. Returning, he would deviate from this route to visit other settlements, on the right or left, as occasion called. The whole distance on these routes and back to Fox creek, was about two hundred and forty miles, and in the excursion he preached from thirty to forty times. Some three or four times each year he visited the churches and his friends in St. Clair, and Monroe counties. At that period a congregation could be gathered on any day of the week by timely notice. The ferry-boat already noticed below the mouth of the Missouri, was destroyed in a flood, and the ferry not again established. Without knowing this, Mr. Clark started from the Spanish pond, intending to cross at this upper ferry, which would have been a gain of thirty miles. He was obliged to turn down to St. Louis. His appointment next day was at Judge Lofton’s, sixteen miles above Alton. Resolute on fulfilling his engagements, though threescore and ten years had brought on him the infirmities of age, he made his way by St. Louis, and crossed the ferry about dark. In traveling along the muddy pathway, in thick darkness, twenty-four miles to Upper Alton, through the dense forest of the American bottom, he became fatigued, and was repeatedly compelled to rest, by leaning against a tree. He reached the hospitable family of a Presbyterian friend at breakfast. He was excessively fatigued, and on inquiry, the family were astonished to learn he had traveled the whole night and preceding day. Regarding such an effort as an undue sacrifice from a feeble old man, his hospitable friend ventured an admonition that he should not expose himself. He received a response in the mildest language and intonations of voice,--“O, my dear brother, souls are precious, and God sometimes uses very feeble and insignificant means for their salvation. The people expect me to fill my appointments, and the only way was to reach here this morning. This is nothing to what our divine Master did for us.”