But before I enter upon those events which belong more immediately to my subject, it is due to many pious and very excellent individuals to record of them, that the author ever found in them a spirit becoming the christian, and principles of oral and religious conduct which demonstrate, that, as there were seven thousand in ancient Israel, who had not bowed to the image of Baal, so there are many in _modern_ Israel who are true to their profession. These he will delight to remember, and to cherish for them the warmest emotions of gratitude, while life remains. They are of that number who make _actions_ the criterion of _character_, and who expect to be _judged_ according to their _works_; and who claim not to be esteemed _christians_ any farther then they _live_ like christians. As soon as the author was released from his long and dreary confinement, he united with the church with a view to the ministry, and to spending his life in publishing salvation to prisons. To this course he had been urged by many of his particular friends, and prompted by his most sanguine feelings; and to his mind, there was but one objection against it. This objection grew out of the popular interpretation of St. Paul's language, that a minister must have a good report of them that are without; which is generally understood to exclude from the desk all those who have, in any way, rendered themselves infamous, however sincerely they may have repented, and however thoroughly they may have reformed. On this he balanced for some time; but when he reflected that John Bunyan and the American Fuller, had been useful in the ministry, after having a very _bad_ report of them who were without, he thought that he might be excused if he followed their steps. It occurred to him, also, that if Christ came into the world to save _sinners_--if the pious king of Israel came into the courts of his God, after washing his hands from the blood of _murder_, and bathing himself from the pollution of an _adulterous bed_--if the sacred orator of MAR'S HILL came to the ministry from off a sea of martyr's blood, which his _wicked hands had spilt_--if the preacher on the day of Pentecost had been the _Satan_ whom Jesus ordered to get behind him, and the _profane denier_ of his accused Master--if, in fine, he who was with Jesus in Paradise, in the _evening_, had been conducted, in the _morning_, from a _criminal's dungeon_ to the cross of an _ignominious death_; no good reason could be assigned why a man might not leave a prisoner's cell, and take that course to usefulness which providence seemed to point out. The objection thus obviated, and a sense of duty prompting him, he cheerfully followed in the opening of providence; and in the usual time, after the customary examination, he was admitted into the ministerial fellowship of the Methodist denomination, and licensed to preach the gospel.