Hill farm, Frooms Hill Ledbury. Herefordshire, Elder W. Richards Dear Brother. May grace, preace, strength, faith & victory, rest upon you & Sister Richards from God our father & our Lord Jesus Christ. Dear Brother ^it^ is amid peculiar feelings that I take up my pen to address you this morning. I have so many things in my mind at this time that I wish to communicat & so little time & room to do it in that I hardly know whare to begin or how to End. I feel that there never was a store House ten story high filled from top to bottom with Merchantdize that cant have more of a variety in it than I have in my mind at this time. & I hardly know how to go to work to give you a description of my situation but I will try to do it by parible. figure, similee or sumthing or other. I am far from feeling vain vane or like trifling lent I take the Liberty of making expressions to you that I would not to the world, that you may ketch my view of the situation of things here. In the first place permit me to say that I never before witnessed such a scenery as I am Experiencing here neither did I every expect to in my generatoion. The Lord of Hosts is with me in power & sone some of the time the Devil to. I have had some mighty Battles with the devil sword in hand since I have been here & God has enabled me to give him a deadly wound & routed him out of his camp & he has fled from me wounded & roaring like a Lion [&] I can hear the sound of his roar about 10 miles off & I expect him to return for an other Battle by & by for you are aware thant an Enemies camp cannot be brock up without some noise & so you can form sumthing of an Idea of it from the following description. I have been here 21 days preached 20 times & Baptized Mr Thomas Kington the superintendant of the preachers of the United Brethren, a branch of or broke off from the Methodist Church & with Mr Kington I Baptzed 23 preachers of the same Order that was under his superintendance & also I Baptzed 46 of the members of the same church making 70 in all, this scenery has committed into my hands & charge & my controll mostly 45 esstablished places of preaching most of which are licensed according to Law, & also 48 Preachers 24 of which I have already Baptzed & most of the rest are ready as soon as they can have an opportunity. as I said before I say a gain their will be a mighty harvest here for all the churches which these preachers are over are ready to receve the word. should I judge from outward appearances I should think their would spedily be 500 Baptzed in this region & probably more still I dont wish to count chickens before they are hatched. I am now Baptzing about 10 daiy daily day before yesterday 12 & yesterday 9 sone days I have to go in the water 3 time a day. I Baptzed 6 preachers yesterday & I have a number to Baptze to day. yesterday 3 preachers came in a charriot or Gig to visit me they never had herd me preach at all. I had on wet cloths & going to the pool to Baptze. I testified of Jesus Christ unto them the power of God rested upon us & they kneeled down & wept & prayed, & their Gig stood still & they all went down into the pool the same hour & I Baptzed them & they went their way rejoiceing & praising God. Mr Kington is an humble man I have Ordained him an Elder & I ordained two priest their will be many worth[y] labourers raised up in this country. you see by this time Brother Richards I am not Idle but have much to do & need much wisdom from God to do it well, for it is the strongest fishing ever I have done & I domt expect any thing els but while gathering the Salmon I shall get among them some ells & snakes for their has already been sone after they would were Baptzed that would pitch & Bound like a porpose or jump & roll like a hen with their head cut off manifesting ev[er]y kind of spirit but that of order & if ever an Elder had any triming to do I expect to have my share of it by & by for in doing such a rapid work as this I have to become all things to all men for I cannot get time to do much triming as yet. in fact some have before I was aware of it