eyed, but with a sorrowful heart. Went out a second time to New
Hampshire, but sent home again; I obeyed. Afterwards went to Conference by
direction--who rejected me, and sent me home again; and again I obeyed. Was
taken out by P.W. on to Orange circuit, but in 1797 was sent home again: so
in obedience to man I went home a fourth time."

As a matter of fact there was much in the argument of the church against
Lorenzo Dow at this time. The young preacher was not only ungraceful and
ungracious in manner, but he had severe limitations in education and
frequently assumed toward his elders an air needlessly arrogant and
contemptuous. On the other hand he must reasonably have been offended by
the advice so frequently given him in gratuitous and patronizing fashion.
Soon after the last rebuff just recorded, however, he says, on going out on
the Granville circuit, "The Lord gave me souls for my hire." Again making
application to the Conference, he was admitted on trial for the first time
in 1798 and sent to Canada to break fresh ground. He was not satisfied with
the unpromising field and wrote, "My mind was drawn to the water, and
Ireland was on my mind." His great desire was to preach the gospel to the
Roman Catholics beyond the sea. Accordingly, on his twenty-second birthday,
acting solely on his own resources, the venturesome evangelist embarked at
Montreal for Dublin. Here he had printed three thousand handbills to warn
the people of the wrath to come. He attracted some attention, but soon
caught the smallpox and was forced to return home. Back in America, he
communicated to the Conference his desire to "travel the country at
large." The church, not at all impressed in his favor by his going to
Ireland on his own accord, would do nothing more than admit him to his old
status of being on trial, with appointment to the Dutchess, Columbia, and
Litchfield circuits. Depressed, Dow gave up the work, and, desiring a
warmer climate, he turned his face toward the South. From this time forth,
while he constantly exhibited a willingness to meet the church half way, he
consistently acted with all possible independence, and the church as
resolutely set its face against him.

Dow landed in Savannah in January, 1802. This was his first visit to the
region that was to mean so much to him and in whose history he himself was
to play so interesting a role. He walked on foot for hundreds of miles in
Georgia and South Carolina, everywhere preach