I decided, however, not to stay there more than the year, and on October 11, 1867, I left and returned to my own home. I obtained a job as a team-man with a farmer of the name of Thomas Blyth, at a farm called Botnay Bay. I lived in and received a wage of 2s. per week, with board and lodging, and had to feed and groom five horses. Here I increased my efficiency as a horseman and workman. My employer, though an old tyrant, did put me to all kinds of work. I was set to drill and at the harvest to stack and thatch. The thatching I followed for several years after I left my regular work as a farm hand. I stayed at this place until 1869, when an unhappy affair happened that caused me to leave my farm work for some few years. This farmer had threatened to thrash me and my fellow worker several times. My colleague's name was Sam Spanton. One day when we were at plough he came and accused us of stopping at the end of the field. With an oath I denied this and called him a liar. He thereupon struck me with his clenched fist and knocked me down. As I got up I struck him on the side of the head with my whip-stalk and knocked him down. I at once got on to him and struck him with my fist. My colleague came to my assistance, and between the two of us, after a rough tussle, we thus far came off victorious, for he never again attempted to hit us. This, however, finished us with this employer. This affair took place in the last week in March 1869, and I obtained work for the summer on a brickfield at Bessingham. It was, however, a turning-point in my life, greatly to the delight of my mother, for I had begun to adopt rather bad habits whilst in this man's employ. I had taken to snaring hares and catching rabbits and selling them for pocket-money. I had also begun to visit the public-houses, although I never got drunk. This caused my saintly mother some anxious moments. On leaving this employer I attended a little Primitive Methodist chapel one Sunday evening, when a very earnest lay-preacher, by name Samuel Harrison, was preaching. He took for his text: "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" His sermon was a thoroughly orthodox one, and it certainly did appeal to me, and I was led to see I had not been pursuing a right course. I became what we used to call in those days "saved," but which I term now the spiritual forces coming into contact with the forces of evil, which up till then were completely controlling my life, and which, had I not been brought under the influence of the Eternal Spirit at this particular time, might have altered the whole course of my life. I at once embraced the simple faith of Christ as the Great Saviour of man, although in a rather different light then to what I do now. But I continued to maintain my faith in Christ as the Eternal Son of God, and as the Great Leader and Saviour of men, and in the principles of righteousness advocated by Him as the true solution for all the evils affecting humanity.