I recollect one day of finding a crooked tree which bent over the river or over one fork of the river, where it was divided by an island.  I should think that the tree was at least twenty feet from the surface of the water.  I picked up my little child, and my wife followed me, saying, “if we perish let us all perish together in the stream.”  We succeeded in crossing over.  I often look back to that dangerous event even now with astonishment, and wonder how I could have run such a risk.  What would induce me to run the same risk now?  What could induce me now to leave home and friends and go to the wild forest and lay out on the cold ground night after night without covering, and live on parched corn?

What would induce me to take my family and go into the Red river swamps of Louisiana among the snakes and alligators, with all the liabilities of being destroyed by them, hunted down with blood hounds, or lay myself liable to be shot down like the wild beasts of the forest?  Nothing I say, nothing but the strongest love of liberty, humanity, and justice to myself and family, would induce me to run such a risk again.

When we crossed over on the tree we supposed that we had crossed over the main body of the river, but we had not proceeded far on our journey before we found that we were on an Island surrounded by water on either side.  We made our bed that night in a pile of dry leaves which had fallen from off the trees.  We were much rest-broken, wearied from hunger and travelling through briers, swamps and cane-brakes—­consequently we soon fell asleep after lying down.  About the dead hour of the night I was aroused by the awful howling of a gang of blood-thirsty wolves, which had found us out and surrounded us as their prey, there in the dark wilderness many miles from any house or settlement.

My dear little child was so dreadfully alarmed that she screamed loudly with fear—­my wife trembling like a leaf on a tree, at the thought of being devoured there in the wilderness by ferocious wolves.

The wolves kept howling, and were near enough for us to see their glaring eyes, and hear their chattering teeth.  I then thought that the hour of death for us was at hand; that we should not live to see the light of another day; for there was no way for our escape.  My little family were looking up to me for protection, but I could afford them none.  And while I was offering up my prayers to that God who never forsakes those in the hour of danger who trust in him, I thought of Deacon Whitfield; I thought of his profession, and doubted his piety.  I thought of his hand-cuffs, of his whips, of his chains, of his stocks, of his thumb-screws, of his slave driver and overseer, and of his religion; I also thought of his opposition to prayer meetings, and of his five hundred lashes promised me for attending a prayer meeting.  I thought of God, I thought of the devil, I thought of hell; and I thought of heaven, and wondered whether I should ever see the Deacon there.  And I calculated that if heaven was made up of such Deacons, or such persons, it could not be filled with love to all mankind, and with glory and eternal happiness, as we know it is from the truth of the Bible.