The time of holding the annual conference having been changed from spring to fall, the next session was held at the Simmons’ chapel, in Lewis County. I was again made presiding elder, stationed on Parkersburg District, and soon moved to Pennsboro, where my headquarters remained for the next four years. My diocese extended from Parkersburg to Irondale, a distance, east and west, of one hundred and sixteen miles, and from the Ohio River on the north far interior to the south. The fields embraced were Parkersburg Station, Parkersburg Circuit, Volcano, Pennsboro, Troy, Middle Island, Littles Mills, Grafton, Irondale, Hessville, Tanner, Sylvan Mills, and Smithton. A vast amount of hard work, I soon discovered, would be necessary to make anything like a commendable showing in a territory so large and difficult to cultivate. The first duty with me was to care for my preachers. It was my notion then, and my views have not changed in all these years, that if a presiding elder wants his men to do good work he must, first of all, do his best for them financially. If the salary was insufficient, and it nearly always was, as I have shown many times over, it had to be supplemented in one way or another. If the stewards were worthless, I asked them to resign. If they did not know how to collect, I went along and instructed them as best I could. In some cases we would canvass the entire neighborhood with a two-horse team and wagon, and gather up flour, corn, potatoes, chickens, meat, eggs, sorghum, butter—in a word, anything and everything that could be used at the parsonage, or exchanged for groceries. When nothing better could be done, I would load up my own horse with flour and meat and lead him to the preacher’s home with his precious cargo of provisions. Then what a good time we would have! Some who are yet at work in the conference were helped in this way. I also found it profitable to have the people on each field, if at all possible, make the pastor a present of a new suit of clothes each year. The plan is usually a popular one, and in most cases can be worked, if placed in the hands of the right persons. It is the equivalent of just so much extra cash to the preacher. But with some it may be a query as to how I managed the indifferent pastor. Sometimes one way, and sometimes another. Every presiding elder, I suppose, has his own methods. My plan was first to aid and encourage him all I possibly could. I tried to prove to him, in a substantial way, that I was his friend, and wanted to help him make his work a success. If, after all this, he persisted in being a failure, I frankly told him he would have to drop out. Such a step requires courage, I know, but it must be taken once in a while. No railroad company or any other business concern would think of employing inefficient, untrustworthy men; such a policy would be suicidal; nor can an elder afford to supply his fields with those who are utterly devoid of fitness for a work so high and responsible.