Jacob was far from happy in those days. His father had not got on as well as he had hoped and was a discouraged man. His mother was overworked and weary with having to look after the needs of so many children, with very little money. At fifteen Jacob was earning only thirty cents a day. He could neither read nor write. The hours of labour at the mill were such that he had seldom even played. There was little for him to do but work, eat and sleep. He had no ambition, for there had been nothing in his life so far but poverty and hardship and it seemed as though he were destined to become, like his father, a discouraged man. Then something happened which completely changed Jacob Kindleberger’s life. One Sunday evening he was standing with a number of other lads of his own age, near the Carrollton Methodist Church. One lad said, “Let us go into the church and have a good laugh.” They agreed and went in, Jacob among them. But instead of having a good laugh Jacob sat spell-bound as the minister preached. The man spoke about life, its possibilities and responsibilities. He asked his hearers what they intended doing during the next ten, twenty or thirty years. Would they be bigger, better, happier, more useful? As he listened Jacob became suddenly dissatisfied with his life. He felt it was all so meaningless and empty. He seemed to be going from nowhere to nowhere; but what help could he get? He who could neither read nor write. The minister invited those who earnestly wanted God to help them, to come forward, and Jacob got up in his seat and accepted the invitation. For the first time in his life Jacob went to a school. It was Sunday School and he found that boys half his age could both read and write. They treated him kindly and he felt at home among them but he determined there and then, that he would not be pitied. He would learn to read and write and meet these boys on an equal footing. One thing which greatly helped him was that he made a new set of companions. He had never known such lads before and he did not know that there could be so much kindness and sympathy in the world. Nobody around that church or Sunday School ever said an unkind word, or did a mean thing to Jacob, but when he saw them reading the Bible or singing out of hymn-books, it almost seemed as if they lived in another world.