o the extremities of the
Union in the West again and again. Several times he went to Canada, once to
the West Indies, and three times to England, everywhere drawing great
crowds about him. Friend of the oppressed, he knew no path but that of
duty. Evangel to the pioneer, he again and again left the haunts of men to
seek the western wilderness. Conversant with the Scriptures, intolerant of
wrong, witty and brilliant, he assembled his hearers by the thousands. What
can account for so unusual a character? What were the motives that prompted
this man to so extraordinary and laborious a life?

Lorenzo Dow was born October 16, 1777, in Coventry, Tolland County,
Connecticut. When not yet four years old, he tells us, one day while at
play he "suddenly fell into a muse about God and those places called heaven
and hell." Once he killed a bird and was horrified for days at the act.
Later he won a lottery prize of nine shillings and experienced untold
remorse. An illness at the age of twelve gave him the shortness of breath
from which he suffered more and more throughout his life. About this time
he dreamed that the Prophet Nathan came to him and told him that he would
live only until he was two-and-twenty. When thirteen he had another dream,
this time of an old man, John Wesley, who showed to him the beauties of
heaven and held out the promise that he would win if he was faithful to the
end. A few years afterwards came to the town Hope Hull, preaching "This is
a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came
into the world to save sinners"; and Lorenzo said: "I thought he told me
all that ever I did." The next day the future evangelist was converted.

But he was to be no ordinary Christian, this Lorenzo. Not satisfied with
his early baptism, he had the ceremony repeated, and with twelve others
formed a society for mutual watch and helpfulness. At the age of eighteen
he had still another dream, this time seeing a brittle thread in the air
suspended by a voice saying, "Woe unto you if you preach not the gospel."
Then Wesley himself appeared again to him in a dream and warned him to set
out at once upon his mission.

The young candidate applied to the Connecticut Conference of the Methodist
Church. He met with a reception that would have daunted any man less
courageous. He best tells the story himself: "My brethren sent me home.
Warren and Greenwich circuits, in Rhode Island, were the first of my
career. I ob