father, was born in Montgom August 23, 1767. The fa descended were originally fro orphan at nine years of ag father, his moral and religio fided to the care of his o Soon after the death of her removed with her family to 1 tled near the Redstone Fort, greatly infested by the Indi 1793, she emigrated with he and settled on Bracken Cre limits of Mason county.

Under the preaching of the coat, in 1791, and before the to the West, during a season Mr. Lakin was awakened an

*Sprague's Annals of American I

Feeling divinely called to the work of the ministry, he became an itinerant preacher on the Hinkstone Circuit in 1794, under the direction of Francis Poythress, the Presiding Elder. In 1795, he joined the Conference, and was appointed to the Green Circuit, in East Tennessee. In 1796, he returned to Kentucky, and traveled on the Danville, and in 1797, on the Lexington Circuit.

During this year he married, and, finding it impossible to support his family in the itinerancy, he located at the close of the year. "Such was the prejudice that existed in the Church, at that day, against married preachers, that it was almost out of the question for any man to continue in the work if he had a wife.”*

He continued in a local sphere for only a few years, when, in 1801, he was reädmitted into the Conference, and appointed to the Limestone Circuit. The two following years the field of his ministerial labor was on the Scioto and Miami Circuit, including all of Southern Ohio. In 1803, he was returned to Kentucky, where he remained for three years, and traveled successively the Salt River, Danville, and Shelby Circuits. In 1806 and 1807, he was again appointed to the Miami Circuit, and then traveled successively on the Deer Creek, Hockhocking, Cincinnati, White Oak, and Union Circuits-all lying beyond the Ohio River. In 1814, he again returned to Kentucky, where he preached and labored as long as he was able to be effective.

* Finley's Sketches of Western Methodism, p. 180.

His last appointment was to the Hinkstone Circuit, where he continued for two years.*

At the Conference of 1818, he was placed on the list of supernumerary preachers; but the following year, on the superannuated roll, which relation he sustained until his death.

For a few years after the failure of his health, he remained in Kentucky; but, at a later period, he removed to Ohio, and settled in Clermont county, near Felicity. Although unable to perform the work of an efficient preacher in the position he occupied, he never spent an idle Sabbath when it could be prevented. Having regular appointments at accessible points, when no longer able to perform the arduous labors that had characterized him in the strength of his manhood, even down to the grave, he determined to "make full proof of his ministry," by contributing his wasting life to the proclamation of the truths of the gospel. In the morning of his life, "he was one of those ministers who stood side by side, and guided the Church through that most remarkable revival of religion that swept like a tornado over the western world. In the greatest excitement, the clear and penetrating voice of Lakin might be heard amid the din and roar of the Lord's battle, directing the wounded to the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world. Day and night he was upon the watch-tower; and in the class and praying circles,

* Mr. Lakin received into the Church, among others, the Rev. John P. Durbin, D. D., and Bishop Kavanaugh.