“Better be an hour early and stand and wait, Than to be a moment behind the time.” In filling appointments he observes the same rule. He finds it helpful to be on hand sufficiently early to meet and shake hands with the advance guards of the congregation. It affords a tonic for his wits and puts him in a mood to be at his best. On his new charge was a church known as Prairie Chapel. As usual, in his introductory services he exhorted his people to be punctual in their attendance, stating that he made it a point to be on time, and that if he at any time was not strictly “on the dot,” they might know that something was wrong. It so happened that at the very next service the scrupulously punctual preacher was behind time, and it also happened that something was desperately wrong. As a sort of background to the scene to be here presented, it would be well to state that he was clad in a new suit, as preachers usually were at the beginning of the year. The new suit consisted of a complete outfit from boots to hat and gloves, including also that luxury which not every circuit rider could afford, a fine shawl. It should further be explained that he was riding a colt, not the nineteen-year-old variety with which he traveled his first circuit, but a genuine three-year-old, with all the fire and perverseness of its kind. It might also be in order to add, by way of parenthesis, that the Illinois roads after the rains and frosts of September began their maneuvers, were no respecters of new clothes. Just before reaching Prairie Chapel, the road crossed a slough some three hundred feet wide. At this point the road was covered by about three feet of water, or perhaps, as it was difficult to tell just where the water left off and the mud began, it would be more exact to say that it was three feet from the top of the water to the bottom of the mud. It was covered with a thin coating of ice. Newgent, being the first to pass that way on that Sunday morning, had to break the ice as he went. The colt did not like the task to begin with, but as this was the only road to the church and was fenced on either side with a picket fence, a straightforward course was the only alternative.