d to join them.

I have given the account of my religious experience exactly as it seemed
to me at the time, and as I now remember it. It corresponded with the
common course of religious experiences in the Methodist church, except
that with me the struggle was harder than commonly happens. I did not
doubt at the time that it was truly a supernatural change, as much the
work of the Spirit as the sudden conversions recorded in the Acts of the
Apostles. Others can form their own opinion about it. I will only add
that subsequent experience has led me to the belief that the reality of
a man's religion is more to be judged of by what he does than by how he
feels or what he says.

The change which had taken place in me, however it is to be regarded,
was not without a decided influence on my whole future life. I no longer
considered myself as living for myself alone. I regarded myself as bound
to do unto others as I would that they should do unto me; and it was in
attempting to act up to this principle that I became involved in the
difficulties to be hereafter related.

Meanwhile I resumed my voyages in the Sarah Henry, in which I continued
to sail, on shares, for several years, with tolerable success.
Afterwards I followed the same business in the schooner Protection, in
which I suffered another shipwreck. We sailed from Philadelphia to
Washington, in the District of Columbia, laden with coal, proceeding
down the Delaware, and by the open sea; but, when off the entrance of
the Chesapeake, we encountered a heavy gale, which split the sails,
swept the decks, and drove us off our course as far south as Ocracoke
Inlet, on the coast of North Carolina. I took a pilot, intending to go
in to repair damages; but, owing to the strength of the current, which
defeated his calculations, the pilot ran us on the bar. As soon as the
schooner's bow touched the ground, she swung round broadside to the sea,
which immediately began to break over her in a fearful manner. She
filled immediately,--everything on deck was swept away; and, as our only
chance of safety, we took to the main-rigging. This was about seven
o'clock in the evening. Towards morning, by reason of the continual
thumping, the mainmast began to work through the vessel, and to settle
in the sand, so that it became necessary for us to make our way to the
fore-rigging; which we did, not without danger, as one of the men was
twice washed off.

About a quarter of a mile inside was