The relation of my first annual tour with Asbury has convinced the reader that the office of a bishop was then no sinecure, and that his traveling companion had something more to do than play the gentleman. It indeed was toil, intense toil, as much so as soul and body could bear. During the tour I visited all the conferences, and preached the Gospel in fifteen states, and became acquainted with the great men of Methodism in the ministry and laity, East, West, North, and South. Never was a mariner, after a perilous voyage, more rejoiced to get into harbor than we were to reach the old family mansion of my father. We arrived there on Friday, July 28, 1809, but both my parents were from home, therefore Mr. Asbury concluded he would go right on, and I got a friend to go with him a distance, while I went to see my parents. I could not bear the thought of being gone ten months without having an interview with them before I left. They were infirm and I might never see them again. I went to a camp-meeting near Morgantown, where I met my parents, and they embraced me with joy. I had been in seven different states besides the Province of Maine since I saw them. Mr. Asbury wrote: “On Friday a thirty mile ride brought us to Martin Boehm’s. Delightful rest! but it may not be so.” The next morning found him on his way to Lancaster. At the camp-meeting I heard my father preach from Luke on the Gospel Supper. He preached in German; I immediately after in English. Sabbath was a great day. James Smith preached in the morning on the peculiar doctrines of Methodism, in opposition to antinomianism; I at noon from Isaiah xxxii, 17; then Thomas Burch. The next day I went home with my parents, remained a few hours, and then bade them farewell till the next spring. My next business was to overtake Mr. Asbury, who had gone on, waiting for no one. I did not overtake him till the third of August at James Hunter’s, Fort Littleton. I found him in a sad plight. He was not able to stand, preach, kneel, or pray. He had needed both a traveling companion and a nurse. Suffering from rheumatism, he had applied several blisters to relieve him. He had put them on too strong, and the remedy was worse than the disease. Camp-meetings he still zealously engaged in, and said, “We must attend to them; they make our harvest times.” In crossing the Alleghanies we were in great danger, and came near being dashed in pieces, but were providentially preserved. Mr. Asbury wrote: “The hand of God was manifested to-day in saving man and horse from wreck; the danger appeared exceeding great.” At Berlin the German Presbyterian minister caused the church-bell to be rung, and Mr. Asbury says: “Brother Boehm preached to them in high Dutch.”