teaching and other chance employments. While at college he became a member of the Methodist church.

In the autumn of 1828 the late Bishop Roberts presided over the Ohio conference of the Methodist church, which was held at Chillicothe. To see their manner of doing business, and to obtain some knowledge as to the growth of the church, the young collegian attended the session. Bishop Roberts, who had a rare discernment of men, saw the youth and that there was something more than ordinary in him. The result of their acquaintance was, that, acting on the advice of the bishop to "go west," young Ames accompanied him a few weeks later to the Illinois conference, held that year in Madison, Indiana. Here he made further acquaintance with active Methodists from the western states, and, at their suggestion, he proceeded to Illinois and opened a high school at Lebanon, in the present county of St. Clair. He had fine success as a teacher, and remained here, making friends and influence, till 1830. In the autumn of this year he was licensed to preach by the Illinois conference, and was admitted and appointed to Shoal Creek circuit, embracing an indefinite extent of country.

Thenceforward, for some years, his was the usual history of a Methodist itinerant. He was elected as a delegate from the Indiana conference to the general conference, which met in Baltimore in 1840, and, by that body, was elected corresponding secretary of the