Page:Daniel Minort Baxter - Bishop Richard Allen and His Spirit (1923).pdf/25

Rh body and soul; so that no sooner than Allen was set free in heaven he went about to get free on the earth. Converted at seventeen, and at twenty–two he began to preach the gospel, but like Paul caring for his own necessities by cutting wood, making bricks, doing what his hands found to do in the field and in the city, but preaching the gospel, and never failing to keep up the payments to his master for his freedom. He did not have the comforts the ministers of today enjoy, it was common for him to walk several hundred miles stopping and preaching as he went. He went often foot sore, and hungry, he had a horse he purchased on credit, but being a large man the creature was too light for his stalwart structure, so he traded the horse for a heavier one which was blind. In all Allen’s dealings he wanted results, looks counted for nothing with him where the thing used could serve his purpose. Every effort he put forth was for the advancement of the church and the race and mankind.

After a long tour of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Western Pennsylvania in