The chances had been strongly against him, yet he had been saved.
"God did it," thought James reverently, "He has saved my life against large odds, and He must have saved it for some purpose.

He has some work for me to do." Few boys at his age would have taken the matter so seriously, yet in the light of after events shall we not say that James was right, and that God did have some work for him to perform?
This work, the boy decided, was not likely to be the one he was at present engaged in.

The work of a driver or a bowman on a canal is doubtless useful in its way, but James doubted whether he would be providentially set apart for any such business.
It might have been this deliverance that turned his attention to religious matters.

At any rate, hearing that at Bedford there was a series of protracted meetings conducted by the Disciples, as they were called, he made a trip there, and became seriously impressed.

There, too, he met a gentleman who was destined to exert an important influence over his destiny.
This gentleman was Dr.J.P.Robinson, who may be still living.