Father Timon refused to go under these circumstances; but, learning afterward that a rumor was in circulation that he had pledged himself to be on the ground, he changed his mind, and reached the scene of the meeting--which was in the open air--just after one of the preachers had finished a discourse on Transubstantiation and the Real Presence. "There is a Romish priest present," this orator had said, "and, if he dares to come forward, the error of his ways will be pointed out to him." So Father Timon mounted a stump, and announced that in a quarter of an hour he would begin a discourse on the Real Presence. This was more than the ministers had bargained for. They had been confident he would not attend. They surrounded him, in considerable excitement, and declared that he should not preach. Father Timon appealed to the people, and they decided that he should be heard. He borrowed a Bible from one of his adversaries, and with the aid of numerous texts explained and supported the Catholic doctrine. The discussion was long and earnest. The preachers at last were silenced, and Father Timon continued for some time to exhort the crowd and urge them to return to the true church. Which was, to say the least, a curious termination for a Methodist conference meeting. One of the most serious difficulties which the pioneer missionaries had to encounter was the want of opportunities of private converse with people whose hearts had been stirred by the first motions of divine grace. The log-dwellings of the settlers rarely contained more than one room, and that often held a pretty large family. Many anecdotes are told of confessions made among the cornstalks in the garden, or under the shadow of the forest, or on horseback in the lonely roads. On one occasion Father Timon had been summoned a long distance to visit a dying man. The cabin consisted of a single room. When all was over, the wife of the dead man knelt beside the body and made her confession, the rest of the family and the neighbors, meanwhile, standing out-doors in the rain. Then the widow was baptized into the church, and, as the storm was violent and the hour past midnight, Father Timon slept on the bed with the corpse, while the rest of the company disposed themselves on the floor.