Rev. Sanders was born in Cornwall, England, in the year 1832. His father and mother were both members of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, thus giving him the advantages of a pious home. In addition to parental instruction and example he had the sound Scriptural teaching of the ministers of the Parent Connexion in England; therefore his views of Christianity were in perfect harmony with the standards of our Church. He was never troubled with misgivings or doubts respecting the importance and necessity of experimental religion.

At the age of sixteen he gave his life to God, finding peace and acceptance with Him, while listening to the preaching of a local preacher. He soon began to exhort others to seek like precious faith, and was in due time put upon the plan as a local preacher in his native town.

While the Superintendent of the Davenport Circuit, England, was negotiating with him to enter the itinerancy there, he received a letter from a friend in Canada.

He arrived here in the fall of 1854, and was at once appointed to assist the late Rev. Henry Wilkinson in the City of London C.W., where he labored with great acceptability until the Conference of 1855, when he was received on trial and appointed to the Yonge Street Circuit, in the Toronto District.

The work, however, proved to be too much for his strength. His health failed; and at the district meeting of 1856, he requested to be allowed to retire, fully intending to return to his native land; but after a few months' rest among his attached friends on the Yonge Street Circuit, his health was measurable restored, which led him to change his purpose of leaving Canada, so he went to Belleville, to assist the Rev. John Carroll.

From this time he continued to labor with more or less usefulness on the Three Rivers, Bradford, Lloydtown, Weston, Brampton, Whitby, and Oshawa Circuits.

On the last-named his health failed again, and a change to an Indian mission, as being less laborious, was deemed desirable. At the end of two years his health was so far restored as to encourage him to ask for an appointment in the regular circuit work.

In 1871 he received an appointment to the Baltimore Circuit, in the Cobourg District. During the greater part of the time he was able to do his work with some degree of comfort, and the usual success attended his faithful labors.

In the latter part of the year the disease which at last brought him down to the grave began to appear. His days were numbered - the messanger had come to take him from his labors to the promised reward. The Master was calling for him, and he must go. He, however, had to be made perfect through suffering. In his case, patience had its perfect work. His sufferings were severe, yet not a murmur ever fell from his lips.

At times, such was his consciousnes of the Devine presence, as to raise him above his bodily sufferings; and, as his end approached, his confidence grew stronger. "There was not a cloud to darken his sky." He could say, "I am ready to depart and be with Christ, which is far better." "Christ is all."

Thus lived and died Joseph L. Sanders, a brother beloved; in the forty-first year of his age, and eighteenth of his ministry.

...from the minutes of the 1855 Wesleyan Methodist Conference in Toronto C.W.