ayer of confidence on my lips, I went to sleep. A clock
not far away struck two. Then, rain fell in torrents and a fierce
wind blew. The elements drove me from the grove. A constable held me
up. 'I am a servant of God, dear friend,' I said. 'Why doesn't he give
you a place to sleep, then?' he answered. 'God forgive me,' thinks I
to myself, 'but that is the same unworthy thought that was in my own
mind.' I went into a building in course of erection and lay down on
some planks; but I was too wet to sleep."

Next day hunger drove him to work early. He was turned from one door
after another, by saints and sinners alike, until finally he was so
weak with hunger that he could scarcely walk. Then he became desperate
to a degree, and his diary records a call on another reverend doctor.

This eminent divine had no need for religious literature, nor had he
time to be bothered with beggars. Dowling records in his diary that he
told the minister that he was dropping off his feet with hunger and
would be thankful for a little bread and a glass of water. It seems
almost incredible that in a Christian community such things could
happen; but the diary records the indictment that those tender lips in
life were never allowed to utter--it records how he was driven from
the door.

He had letters of introduction from this rich tract society, and again
he presented them to a minister.

"A very nice lady came," says the record. "I gave my credentials,
explained my condition and implored help.

"_We are retired from the active ministry_," the woman said, "and
cannot help you. We have no further use for religious books."

A third minister atoned for the others, and made a purchase. This was
at Tarrytown. On another occasion, when his vitality had ebbed low
through hunger and exposure, he was sitting on the roadside when a
labourer said, "There is a nigger down the road here who keeps a
saloon. He hasn't got no religion, but he wants some. Ye'd better look
him up." And he did. The Negro saloon-keeper informed him that being a
saloon-keeper shut him and his family from the church.

"Now," he said, "I am going to get Jim, my barkeeper, to look after
the joint while I take you home to talk to me and my family about
God." So they entertained the tinker-preacher, and the diary is full
of praise to God for his new-found friends. The Negro bought a
dollar's worth of tracts, and persuaded the colporteur to spend the
night with them.

With this