On Friday, September 2, we reached Cincinnati, and were the guests of Brother Lines. This is a family given to hospitality, and therefore deserving of grateful remembrance. Cincinnati was first settled by emigrants from New England and New Jersey. At the time of our visit it was a small village of less than two thousand inhabitants. The first Methodist sermon in Cincinnati was preached in an upper room to twelve hearers, in 1804, by Rev. John Collins. The next who preached there was John Sale, who organized a society of eight persons, just as many as were in the ark. The first Methodist chapel was erected in 1806, and was built of stone. In this church the bishop and I both preached. He gave an admirable sermon in the morning from 2 Cor. v, 14, “For the love of Christ constraineth us,” etc., and then called on me to preach immediately after in the German language. I did so from John i, 11, 12, “He came unto his own and his own received him not.” This is believed to be the first sermon preached in Cincinnati in the German language; certainly it was the first Methodist sermon in that tongue. In the afternoon Brother Lakin preached from Luke xvi, 8; and I again in the evening, in English. I made this record in my journal: “The house was crowded both day and night; there is a good prospect in this town for a revival of religion.” This record was made fifty-seven years ago. Was it prophetic? How strange it sounds now to speak of “the Queen City of the West” as “this town.” Bishop Asbury advised the society to enlarge their house of worship, and to invite the Western Conference to hold its next session there. They did so, and the invitation was accepted. On Tuesday we left Cincinnati, accompanied by Brother and Sister Lakin. We put up in Lawrenceburgh, in the Indiana territory, with Elijah Sparks. He had moved from Maryland, and was a brother of Robert Sparks. Elijah was a local preacher and a lawyer. The Indiana territory was then one vast wilderness. The bishop said: “In this wild there may be twenty thousand souls already. I feel for them.” How would his great soul rejoice if he could return to that territory and see a rich populous state teeming with inhabitants and four flourishing annual conferences! In what Mr. Asbury called “that wild” there are now one million three hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants. In traveling the Indiana territory the next day, in thirty-three miles we passed only six houses. This will give an idea of the sparseness of the population at that time. “The wilderness and the solitary place has been made glad, and the desert has rejoiced and blossomed as the rose.” We crossed the Ohio at the mouth of the Licking River in what Mr. Asbury most appropriately called a “crazy flat.” With great difficulty we reached the other side. It was leaking, and like to have sunk with the bishop and all on board; but we were mercifully preserved. THE WESTERN CONFERENCE.