ABSTRACT
About this time [when I was five years old] there came a servant maid to live with my father, who had heard of, and felt some little of the power of inward religion. It was among the people called Methodists she had received her instructions. Seeing the uneasiness my sister was under, she took some opportunities of conversing with her. I was at this season with my grandmother. On my return home my sister repeated the substance of these conversations to me. I well remember the very spot we stood on, and the words she spake, which, though we were but a few minutes together, sunk so deeply into my heart, that they were never afterward erased. My reflections were suited to a child not seven years old. I thought if I became a Methodist I should be sure of salvation; and determined, if ever I could get to that people, whatever it cost, I would be one of them. But after a few conversations, and hearing my sister read some little books which this servant had given to her, I found out, it was not the being joined to any people that would save me, but I must be converted, and have faith in Christ; that I was to be saved by believing; and that believing would make me holy, and give me a power to love and serve God.
