With grateful hearts we bade adieu to the hermit, and proceeded on our perilous journey. After dining at Hill’s Inn we crossed the stream, which was full of drift logs. The wheels were taken from our carriage, and they and the body placed in a canoe, in which we also got, and were rowed over by two men, while our horses were obliged to swim across. The stream was swollen and the waters rapid, but fortunately we all reached in safety the other shore; then we had to put on our wheels to get our sulky in order to prepare for our journey. I was lame and the bishop feeble. To add to the gloom, clouds gathered over us dark and heavy. It thundered and lightened, and the rain fell in torrents, and when we were over the stream to begin our journey we had to ascend a rough, high, craggy mountain; but as Mr. Asbury wrote, “God brought us in safety to Muddy Creek. Deep roads and swollen streams we had enough on our route to Northumberland on Wednesday.” Northumberland is a pleasant, quiet, romantic place on the Susquehanna. The distinguished Dr. Joseph Priestley spent the evening of life here, and died in 1804, aged seventy. He was a splendid scholar, and a great man; but how different his life, labors, and influence from that of the apostolic Asbury. They both were adopted citizens of America; both died at the age of seventy. On Friday, after an unparalleled week of toil and suffering, we reached Middletown, Pa., and took dinner with our old friend Dr. Romer. A number of the neighbors heard of the bishop’s arrival and came to see him, and urged him to preach; but he had only time to pray with them, and say “farewell.” But it was very refreshing, after having for so long put up at miserable taverns, and been among strangers, and through such perils, to meet with so many familiar faces and kind friends. In the afternoon we journeyed on to my father’s. My aged parents embraced me with joy, while I felt “there is no place like home.” Bishop Asbury and my father gave to each other the kiss of affection, and mutually encircled each other in their arms. That day we rode fifty miles. From Charleston to my father’s house we had traveled two thousand two hundred and twenty-five miles. The bishop preached on Saturday evening at “Boehm’s Chapel.” His letters were generally sent to the care of my father, and at his house he answered them, so he was generally busy with his pen after our arrival home. He found fifteen letters waiting this time, and he answered them all on Saturday. CHAPTER XXVI. ANNUAL TOUR, 1810—WESTERN CONFERENCE.