The next day I returned to my father’s house a healthier, wiser, and better man than when I left. The scenes I witnessed on the tour are very vivid before me after the lapse of over threescore years. Dr. Chandler’s kindness to me was unparalleled. He lives in my affections, and I look back upon him as one of the finest specimens of a Christian gentleman with whom it has been my good fortune to be associated. When I arrived at home my father was about to take a ministerial tour through Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the great valley of Virginia, or what was known as “New Virginia.” He wished me to accompany him, and I did so. We were absent from home about a month. It was in September and October. I kept a diary in the German language, written every day, of where we were and what we were doing. It is still carefully preserved. My father was a German preacher, then holding some connection with the “United Brethren.” The Rev. William Otterbein was with the same people. We traveled every day, and my father preached in German, and I exhorted after him, sometimes in German and sometimes in English. He preached with great life, power, and success, and had many seals to his ministry. We went as far as Winchester, Va., where he preached in the Methodist church, and under the sermon one was awakened, namely, Simon Lauck, who afterward became a traveling preacher and a member of the Baltimore Conference. My father also preached at the Rev. Henry Smith’s father’s. I remember his text and sermon well. I had an opportunity of getting more particularly acquainted with the distinguished ministers connected with the United Brethren. They held great meetings that were often attended with power. Their annual meeting was held September 25, at Peter Kemp’s, in Frederick County, Maryland. This was important in many respects. First, they resolved to call themselves “_The Church of the United Brethren in Christ_.” Second, they elected bishops for the first time. William Otterbein and Martin Boehm (my father) were unanimously chosen. Here were assembled their great men: Gueting, Newcomer, Draksel, and the two brothers Crums. The meeting was full of interest. Reports were given from different parts of the work, and each minister gave an account of the progress of the work of God in his own soul. They had at that time but little order and discipline, and what I had seen of the order and discipline of the Methodists at the General Conference in Baltimore and at the Philadelphia Conference showed me the vast superiority of the latter, and I made up my mind to enter their itinerant ministry. CHAPTER VI. MY FIRST CIRCUIT, DORCHESTER.