Those who opposed him little knew of the reckless earnestness of his character—the trait which lay at the bottom of his whole remarkable career, and brought him success in spite of all his disabilities and all the external chances against him. He seemed to have accepted as his all-sufficient credentials the Lord’s charge to his disciples in the tenth chapter of Matthew; accepted it as literally and confidently as if it had been delivered specially to a sickly young convert in Connecticut about the close of the eighteenth century, instead of having been given to certain other illiterates in Judea eighteen centuries before. He always took the whole Bible literally, and acted and talked it in dead earnest. So providing neither gold, silver, brass nor scrip in his purse, nor two coats, nor shoes, nor staff for his journey, he started to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” He stood not on the order of his going, but went at once. If any would receive him, well; if not, worse for them, as saith Matthew x:14. He asked no gifts nor collections; rejected most of that which was voluntarily offered—giving frequent offense thereby—taking only what would suffice for the day. Sleeping in woods and under fences was small privation to him, for he never slept in beds, any way; the floor or a bench was his choice, on account of the asthma, he said. He was used to long fasts, and would travel fifty miles and preach half a dozen times without food. Indeed, his defiance of all precautions against sickness, and reversal of all physical conditions gave him rather a grewsome reputation with the simple folk among whom the invalid exploited, and some were afraid to entertain him. What a saint he would have made in those good old times when asceticism, energy, fanaticism, piety and dirt were of the popular odor of sanctity! A modern Peter the Hermit on a crusade! To talk and to walk were his chief functions, and he rarely intermitted either. At that time the qualifications of a circuit preacher were said to be covered by these points: “Is he converted; is he qualified to preach; has he a horse?” Lorenzo had no need of the last of these qualifications. He was the champion pedestrian of the day. He could out-travel the public conveyances and tire out any horse over such roads. He was known throughout the south as “the walking minister.” But through New England, New York and Canada his quaint figure, queer actions and rude and vehement exhortations soon got him the general sobriquet of “Crazy Dow.” We read in his journal: