We are in a small garrison town called Templemore in the county of Tipperary. The population is 80% Roman Catholic. The potato crop has failed for the second year running and this, notwithstanding the blessing of the crops by the local priests. Doudney is here, he is a missionary to the Irish people involved in the relief of those who are starving. He goes from cabin to cabin, or should I say, from hovel to hovel, distributing to the inhabitants a bag of meal or a pint of soup. He now has access to homes that had been barred to him and along with providing relief from starvation, he takes the opportunity of preaching the gospel to the people.

With graphic pen he sketched out the poignant scenes he daily witnessed. "Man a sinner, Christ a Saviour is the one theme of our mission," he writes, "Salvation without money and without price and irrespective of the intercession of Mary, Peter or the saints." The people gathered round the doors, listening with eager attention. One old Romanist dying in a dark hovel said that nothing weighed with him, neither food nor comforts, as did the thought of how his soul could be prepared to meet God. He listened closely while the way of salvation was declared. Two weeks later he entered the hovel to find Moriarty lying dead. Moriaty's last words were "Mercy! Mercy! " "I went in," he says, "gazed on his face and talked to the family about his happy condition if indeed he had found mercy."

His charge at Templemore included, besides the famine relief work in the cabins of the town, preaching at the barracks once a week, visiting and speaking at the two hospitals, going into the mountains two or three times a week to visit and teach the Protestant children in the tiny unendowed school: he also had to preach at one or another of the scattered farmhouse, during the week. (One day he found that about forty poor Romanists were crowded into an adjoining room at one of the farms, listening to all he said, but secretly for fear). The country was wildly beautiful and he drew much refreshment from his long walks from place to place, meditating on the subjects for his "lectures" as he calls them.

At his very first week-day lecture at a farmhouse he tells us that he had decided, on considering the distressed state of the country, to take the text about the barrel of meal and cruse of oil not failing for God's people, when he had another text brought powerfully to his mind, "And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring and they shall hear my voice and there shall be one fold and one Shepherd." This text seemed so specially spoken to him that he resolved to speak on it. When he reached the place he found them all in great trouble: two nights before their little farm stock of six sheep had been stolen. "Time after time the farmer used to leave his bed at midnight to go down the meadow and see that they were safe, but now they were gone and for two days the police and they themselves had searched for them in vain. This circumstance bore forcibly on my subject and whilst led to dwell upon the sovereignty of the Good Shepherd's choice and the effectiveness of His call I found it delightful to comment upon the security of His hold of the sheep (in contrast to the poor man's) and their safety within the fold of the Good Shepherd. Then begging the Lord to sanctify the loss or restore the sheep I left them. But alas! in the unbelief of my heart I secretly felt it was nearly an absurdity to ask the Lord to restore the sheep, for such were the ravages of starvation upon the poor peasantry that both sheep and cattle were constantly stolen, killed and carried away, the skins only being left behind. Even the meal being brought to feed the people had to have an escort of soldiers or the dray would be seized and robbed. It therefore seemed hypocrisy or mockery to have prayed for the restoration of these sheep. But, reader, never shall I forget the salutation with which I was met on the following Sunday on approaching another farmhouse where I was to speak. People came running across the field to meet me, shouting, 'O, Sir, David's sheep are all restored!' It seemed the thief had been overtaken by daylight and though quite a distance away had been seized with fear of discovery and had himself driven them into a pound and left them! O how great was the contrast as I spoke that Sabbath afternoon as compared with what I had felt in the midst of the little weeping company at the other farm! What a testimony had I in proof that the Lord God Almighty was still, and ever would be, the hearer and answerer of prayer, even when Satan and unbelief are pressing a stifling burden of impossibilities upon the heart. This marvellous act of the Lord was the pivot upon which the whole of my future turned. With what intense pleasure I used in the days following, to look upon these six sheep, grazing on that mountainside."