On Friday we rode to Tioga Point, Pennsylvania, to Dr. Hopkins’s. The Susquehanna was so high we could not cross, so the bishop preached in the academy from “Seek ye the Lord,” etc. Here he made this wonderful record, and who can read it without deep emotion? “Such roads, such rains, and such lodgings! Why should I stay in this land? I have no possessions or babes to bind me to the soil. What are called the comforts of life I rarely enjoy. The wish to live an hour such a life as this would be strange to so suffering, so toil-worn a wretch; but God is with me, and souls are my reward. I might fill pages with this week’s wonder.” Dr. Stevens, in his “Memorials,” says, “It is a pity he didn’t.” Is it not wonderful that he recorded as much as he did under the circumstances? I hope my journal will supply in some measure the deficiency. I was not merely a spectator of the wonderful scenes he hints at, but an actor. In the daily sacrifices and toils and sufferings I shared. To the bishop’s every-day martyr-like sufferings I was a witness, and it brings tears to my eyes now when I think of them. Our appointments were generally sent forward, and here, in consequence of heavy rains, swollen rivers, and muddy roads, we were eighty miles behind our Sabbath appointments. On Saturday, as the waters had abated, we crossed the Susquehanna, and rode to the mouth of Wyoming Creek, and put up at Stevens’s tavern. On Sunday we attempted to reach the place where George Lane was preaching, but we missed it. We met with an accident. The bishop says, “Brother Boehm upset the sulky and broke the shaft.” The only wonder is we did not upset twenty times where we did once. It was well I was in the sulky instead of the old bishop, or he might have fared hard. He might have had something worse than a “broken shaft:” a broken limb or a broken neck. This happened on Sunday; but we were traveling from necessity, not from choice. On Monday we went through the Narrows on the east side, not without considerable danger; then we crossed to the west side, dined at our friend Sutton’s, and came to Widow Dennison’s at Kingston. This is the place where Methodism was first introduced into Wyoming. My old colleague, Anning Owen, had the distinguished honor of being the pioneer. This valley is far famed for its beauty. Campbell has immortalized it in song, and it is embalmed in history. At Kingston we have now a splendid seminary. The next morning we crossed to Wilkesbarre, a very fine place, the seat of justice for Luzerne County. We have now a Wyoming Conference. It did not look much like it then. This region is now the garden of Methodism.[24] CHAPTER XXIII. SECOND ANNUAL TOUR—WESTERN AND SOUTHERN CONFERENCE.