“I had been in great distress as a sinner, off and on for more than two years. At times I would be in the greatest distress, and have a horror of conscience beyond description, and then it would wear off and I would return to my sinful courses. The first of my permanent conviction was while in the port of Charleston in March, 1785, after I had engaged to make a voyage to London as second mate, when I became continually alarmed, lest if I went to sea another voyage I should never see land, nor the face of God in peace; my day of grace would be past. In this awful distress of mind I obtained my discharge, and under this salutary but distressing conviction, I set out for the back settlement of South Carolina. On Saturday I came to a tavern house near the Eutaw Spring, and told the family, I made it a matter of conscience not to travel on the Sabbath, and wished to tarry with them till Monday. But they misunderstood my case, and got some of the neighbors to watch the house on Sunday night; imagining I was a robber, and had accomplices to aid in robbing the house. But I did not blame them, for I felt deeply my wickedness against God, and appeared to my self worse than any robber on earth. “On Monday morning I fell in company with some backwoods people, who had been to Charleston and were going to Fishing river settlement on the frontiers. Both parties soon became well suited; for I wanted to teach school, and they wanted a teacher. They treated me kindly, and I went home with them, and in a few days a school was made up, and I engaged to teach for them one year. I now endeavored to abstain from every appearance of evil, read the Scriptures, and prayed in secret several times in a day. I was so far from knowing the gospel method of salvation, that, notwithstanding the instruction given me in childhood, from the Bible and the Presbyterian catechism, I sincerely thought that true religion consisted only in outward reformation of conduct. My moral and serious deportment surprised my employers, who were irreligious and not over much righteous. They thought it very singular that a man who had followed a sea-faring life, should be so humble and religious, and often spoke of it. But they no more comprehended the state of my mind, nor understood my case than they could lessons in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew.