Page:The rock of wisdom.djvu/14



The author of this small treatise thought proper to give a small sketch of his life while residing at home with his father in the county of Sussex, State of Delaware. My Father, B Cannon, who was born in the same county together with my mother,who both enjoyed the love of God at an early period of life and often endeavored to instill upon my mind the great advantage of making prayer unto my maker, which lovely instruction often reached my heart, I still lived a good while in a moral state and thought I was good enough and so procrastinated the time until I was about or between fourteen and fifteen years of age, I then took their advice that there must be something besides living in a moral state, and I being in a class meeting on one Thursday I heard the experience of a young girl about fourteen years of age, which deeply impressed my mind more, that I must be born again or never see God's face in glory; under this conviction I went with a bowed down head like a bullrush until I was about sixteen years of age, it pleased the Almighty to speak peace to my soul through the experience of the child and preaching of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. My father lived until the 6th of January, 1813, and departed this life triumphantly in the faith, and I believe this day he is in Heaven, and he gave me this advice on his death bed, to follow his example set before me and to keep Christ in my heart if I traveled far or near, that I would always find friends; after the death of my father I lived in the same county about three years, I took a notion to go on the water for the space of one year in which I did keep Christ my foremost object in life all the time, and then I went to Philadelphia and joined the society, and at last I was called on to take