Fire in My Bones
Memoir and journals of Brother Joseph Hewitt 1811-1888
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Our next visit was to Dodgeville and what a sight we beheld, not the poor miserable thing that used to be, but a commodious church fifty feet long, filled with a crowd of people who were much interested. From thence we went to Platteville and were much blessed and gladdened when we saw the grace of God in the salvation of some souls. We stayed Sabbath over with them and led the love feast, which was one of a rich character. Three young converts spoke with great fluency and power. I made inquiries about them after meeting and received the following information. The father of one of them had been often reproved but as often had hardened his heart. At length he was suddenly cut down without remedy on this wise. He was attempting to return home one night under the influence of the demon Alcohol, his horses took fright in the woods, ran away and his brains were dashed out against a tree. The brother of the deceased, a praying man, came to pay a visit to the family. The result was they were led in penitence to the feet of the Savior, and the destruction of one became the means of the salvation of several. God can bring good out of evil.
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About the Book
This book is the personal journal of Joseph Hewitt, a profligate and degenerate young Englishman, who was powerfully converted by the power of the Holy Spirit, an experience he describes as “a fire in my bones.” He joined the Primitive Methodist Church, where he was commissioned a lay preacher and sent to America to preach the gospel to the Cornish miners on the American frontier. Brother Hewitt’s journal is a day-by-day record of a circuit-riding preacher in the nineteenth century, the era of slavery, the Civil War, and Lincoln. He traveled on foot, on horseback, and by buggy through Wisconsin blizzards and floods, often preaching several times a week. Read his journal; it may kindle a fire in your bones.
About the Author
Donald A. Weir was born on a Minnesota farm in 1928. While growing up in the depths of the Great Depression, he attended public schools, and later earned a BA in English and an MDiv in theology from the University of Dubuque. Commissioned as a chaplain in the US Navy, he served for twenty-two years, which took him to four continents and seven seas. He is retired and living in Maitland, Florida. His memoir, Heretic Son was published in 2013.