I have had no trouble to get along in business since my conversion. Just as soon as I tried to get business, when I was once really in earnest about it, I had a number of offers. I have still a number of offers. When I became a Christian man I determined, in my own mind, I would live up to Christianity so far as I could in every particular, humbly and conscientiously. The opinions of man have no weight with me now. All I am I hold by the grace of God, through Jesus Christ. FRED ROPKE. I think it was on the 25th of June, 1883, I was stopping at Fifth and Jefferson. Previous to that time I had been tramping the country for about eight years, from 1874 until the middle of 1883. My father was a Louisville man. He gave me all the advantages that wealth could command. He sent me to Germany in 1864, where I remained three years at school. In 1869 or 1870, I went into the sheriff's office here in Louisville. Previous to that time I had been with Theodore Schwartz & Co. I went from Theodore Schwartz & Co. into the sheriff's office. I got that position from courtesy of the sheriff to my father, who was his bondsman. I contracted the habit of drinking right there, through the associations. And, being ashamed to remain among my friends as a drunkard, I went then from pillar to post all over the country. I left home just after my father's death, in 1872, not knowing whither I was going. I dragged around the country from that time until the summer of 1883--eleven years; and if there ever was a man sick and tired, it was I. I beat my way through Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Kansas, Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. The box car was my home the greater part of the time. Of course, during those years, I came home off and on; but nothing could stop me in my downward course. As soon as I lost self-control I persuaded myself there was no hereafter, no God and no devil. I took to that idea to console myself for what I was doing more than for anything else; and I had a perfect indifference as to what became of me, except at times when I was alone and sober and thoughtful. But I never had any aim; no ambition at all; in fact, I had given up all hope. I do not know what I wandered for. I would come home and stay for a month or so, and I would get drunk and get ashamed of myself and go away. I would walk all night to get out of Louisville.