"Although he was confounded, he still clave to his G.o.d-dishonoring doctrine, waxing worse and worse, till it was generally believed he was guilty of a most heinous crime."
Argumentative battles were not the only troubles Cartwright had to encounter from Universalists. They came to his revivals, he says, to hoot and create disturbance. At one of these meetings two sisters, Universalists in belief, were present. They came to "make fun," but one of them was overcome by Cartwright"s preaching, and went up to the mourner"s bench to be prayed for. When her sister heard of it, she commenced to make her way to the altar, with the angry determination to force the penitent from it. "I rose and met her in the crowded aisle,"
says Mr. Cartwright, "and told her to be calm and desist. She made neither better nor worse of it than to draw back her arm and give me a severe slap in the face with her open hand. I confess this rather took me by surprise, and, as the common saying is, made the fire fly out of my eyes in tremendous sparkling brilliancy, but, collecting my best judgment, I caught her by the arms near her shoulders and wheeled her to the right about, moved her forward to the door, and said, "Gentlemen, please open the door; the devil in this Universalist lady has got fighting hot, and I want to set her outside to cool." The door was opened, and I landed her out."
Concerning his tilts with the Baptists, he has given a ma.s.s of curious reminiscences, from which we take the following:
"We preached in new settlements, and the Lord poured out his Spirit, and we had many convictions and many conversions. It was the order of the day, (though I am sorry to say it,) that we were constantly followed by a certain set of proselyting Baptist preachers. These new and wicked settlements were seldom visited by these Baptist preachers until the Methodist preachers entered them; then, when a revival was gotten up, or the work of the Lord revived, these Baptist preachers came rushing in, and they generally sung their sermons; and when they struck the _long roll_, or their sing-song mode of preaching, in substance it was: "Water! water! You must follow your blessed Lord down into the water!" I had preached several times in a large, populous, and wicked settlement, and there was serious attention, deep convictions, and a good many conversions; but, between my occasional appointments these preachers would rush in and try to take off our converts into the water; and indeed they made so much ado about baptism by immersion that the uninformed would suppose that heaven was an island, and there was no way to get there _but by diving or swimming_."
He once preached a sermon on the true nature of baptism, at which were present the daughters of a Baptist minister, one of whom was converted.
That night it rained violently, and all the neighboring streams overflowed their banks. Riding along the next day, he met the Baptist minister on the road.
"We"ve had a tremendous rain," said Cartwright.
"Yes, sir," said the Baptist brother, "the Lord sent this rain to convince you of your error."
"Ah! what error?"
"Why, about baptism. The Lord sent this flood to convince you that much water was necessary."
"Very good, sir," said Cartwright, "and in like manner he sent this flood to convince you of your error."
"What error?" asked the Baptist brother.
"Why," replied Cartwright, triumphantly, "to show you that water comes by pouring, and not by immersion."
Free and easy as he was in his manner, our preacher had a deep sense of the dignity of his mission, and he was resolved that others should share the feeling, and accord him, in his ministerial capacity, the respect and deference that were his due. His manner of accomplishing this was characteristic, as the following incident will show: Traveling on his circuit in 1805, he put up on one occasion at the house of an old man known as Father Teel, a whimsical old fellow, and supposed to be Cartwright"s match in oddity. He had been warned that the old man, though a good Methodist, showed little deference to preachers. It was his custom to rise early, and, as soon as dressed, to give out his hymn, sing it himself, and then go to prayers, without waiting for his family to get up. He served preachers in the same way. Cartwright resolved to beat him at his own game, but the old man was too wary for him.
"Just as day broke," says Cartwright, "I awoke, rose up, and began to dress, but had not nigh accomplished it when I heard Teel give out his hymn and commence singing, and about the time I had got dressed, I heard him commence praying. He gave thanks to G.o.d that they had been spared during the night, and were all permitted to see the light of a new day, while at the same time I suppose every one of his family was fast asleep. I deliberately opened the door and walked out to the well, washed myself, and then walked back to my cabin. Just as I got to the door, the old brother opened his door, and, seeing me, said, "Good morning, sir. Why, I didn"t know you were up."
""Yes, said I, "I have been up some time."
""Well, brother," said he, "why did you not come in to prayers?"
""Because," said I, "it is wrong to pray of a morning in the family before we wash."
"The old brother pa.s.sed on, and no more was said at that time. That evening, just before we were about to retire to rest, the old brother set out the book and said to me: "Brother, hold prayers with us."
""No, sir," said I.
"Said he, "Come, brother, take the book and pray with us."
""No, sir," said I; "you love to pray so well, you may do it yourself."
"He insisted, but I persistently refused, saying: "You are so fond of praying yourself, that you even thanked G.o.d this morning that he had spared you all to see the light of a new day, when your family had not yet opened their eyes, but were all fast asleep. And you have such an absurd way of holding prayers in your family, that I do not wish to have any thing to do with it."
"He then took the book, read, and said prayers, but you may rely on it, the next morning things were much changed. He waited for me, and had all his family up in order. He acknowledged his error, and told me it was one of the best reproofs he ever got. I then prayed with the family, and after that all went well."
Among his clerical brethren was a poor hen-pecked husband, whose wife was possessed of a temper that made her the terror of the neighborhood.
Cartwright had often been invited by the poor man to go home with him; "but," he says, "I frankly confess I was afraid to trust myself" but at length, yielding to his importunities, he went home with his oppressed brother, intending to spend the night with him. His visit roused the fury of the wife, and "I saw in a minute," says our preacher, "that the devil was in her as big as an alligator, and I determined on my course."
The woman held her tongue until after supper, when her husband asked her kindly to join them in prayers. She flew into a rage, and swore there should be no praying in her house that night. Cartwright tried to reason with her, but she cursed him roundly. Then, facing her sternly, he said, "Madam, if you were my wife, I would break you of your bad ways, or I would break your neck."
"The devil you would," said she. "Yes, you are a pretty Christian, ain"t you?"
She continued cursing him, but Cartwright sternly bade her hold her peace, and let them pray. She declared she would not.
"Now," said he to her, "if you do not be still, and behave yourself, I"ll put you out of doors."
"At this," says he, "she clenched her fist and swore she was one-half alligator and the other half snapping-turtle, and that it would take a better man than I was to put her out. It was a small cabin we were in, and we were not far from the door, which was then standing open. I caught her by the arm, and swinging her round in a circle, brought her right up to the door, and shoved her out. She jumped up, tore her hair, foamed, and such swearing as she uttered was seldom equaled, and never surpa.s.sed. The door, or shutter of the door, was very strongly made, to keep out hostile Indians; I shut it tight, barred it, and went to prayer, and I prayed as best I could; but I have no language at my command to describe my feelings. At the same time, I was determined to conquer, or die in the attempt. While she was raging and foaming in the yard and around the cabin, I started a spiritual song, and sung loud, to drawn her voice as much as possible. The five or six little children ran and squatted about and crawled under the beds. Poor things, they were scared almost to death.
"I sang on, and she roared and thundered on outside, till she became perfectly exhausted, and panted for breath. At length, when she had spent her force, she became perfectly calm and still, and then knocked at the door, saying, "Mr. Cartwright, please let me in."
""Will you behave yourself if I let you in?" said I.
""O yes," said she, "I will;" and throwing myself on my guard, and perfectly self-possessed, I opened the door, took her by the hand, led her in, and seated her near the fire-place. She had roared and foamed until she was in a high perspiration, and looked pale as death. After she took her seat, "O," said she, "what a fool I am,"
""Yes," said I, "about one of the biggest fools I ever saw in all my life."... Brother C. and I kneeled down, and both prayed. She was as quiet as a lamb."
Six months later, our preacher tells us, this woman was converted, and became "as bold in the cause of G.o.d as she had been in the cause of the wicked one."
In 1823, Mr. Cartwright resolved to move across the Ohio, and selected Illinois as his new home. The reasons which influenced his actions are thus stated by him:
"I had seen with painful emotions the increase of a disposition to justify slavery.... and the legislatures in the slave States made the laws more and more stringent, with a design to prevent emanc.i.p.ation.
Moreover, rabid abolitionism spread and dreadfully excited the South. I had a young and growing family of children, two sons and four daughters; was poor, owned a little farm of about one hundred and fifty acres; lands around me were high and rising in value. My daughters would soon be grown up. I did not see any probable means by which I could settle them around or near us. Moreover, I had no right to expect our children to marry into wealthy families, and I did not desire it, if it could be so; and by chance they might marry into slave families. This I did not desire. Besides, I saw there was a marked distinction made among the people generally between young people raised without work and those that had to work for their living.... I thought I saw clear indications of Providence that I should leave my comfortable little home, and move into a free State or territory, for the following reasons: First, I would get entirely clear of the evil of slavery. Second, I could raise my children to work where work was not considered a degradation. Third, I believed I could better my temporal circ.u.mstances, and procure lands for my children as they grew up. And fourth, I could carry the Gospel to dest.i.tute souls that had, by removal into some new country, been deprived of the means of grace."
It was the last reason, no doubt, that decided our preacher. Men of his stamp were needed west of the Ohio. Kentucky was becoming too old a State for him, and he felt that his true field of labor was still on the frontier, and thither he turned his steps. Setting out first on horseback to seek an eligible location, he reached Sangamon County, Illinois, where he bought a claim on Richland Creek. He then returned to Kentucky and wound up his affairs there, obtained a regular transfer from the Kentucky Conference to the Indiana Conference, which then controlled Illinois, and in October, 1824, set out for his new home in Sangamon County. A great affliction overtook him on the way, in the death of his third daughter, who was killed by the falling of a tree upon their camp. The affliction was made more grievous by the heartless refusal of the people in the vicinity to render them any aid. "We were in great distress," he says, "and no one even to pity our condition....
I discovered that the tree had sprung up, and did not press the child; and we drew her out from under it, and carefully laid her in our feed trough, and moved on about twenty miles to an acquaintance"s in Hamilton County, Illinois, where we buried her."
Leaving that lonely little grave behind them, they hurried on to their new home. Springfield, the capital of the State, was but a small collection of shanties and log huts, and Sangamon County was the extreme frontier. It was the most northern county of Illinois, and just beyond it lay the unbroken Indian country. Numbers of Indians roamed through the Sangamon River bottom, and spent their winters there. It was as wild and unsettled a region as our preacher could have desired, and one which gave him a fine field for the exercise of his peculiar abilities. Mr.
Cartwright was promptly received into the Indiana Conference, and he lost no time in looking about him. He at once established his family in their new home, and then set about his work. The work was hard, and money was scarce. The first year he traveled the Sangamon Circuit he received forty dollars, and the next year sixty dollars, which he says was a great improvement in his financial affairs. He was successful from the first, and in the two years referred to added one hundred and sixty persons to the Methodist Church in this thinly settled district. For forty-six years he has labored in this region, adding many souls to the kingdom of G.o.d.
Arduous as his labors had been in the Kentucky Conference, they now increased very greatly. He had a larger amount of territory to travel over, people were more scattered, and the dangers to be encountered were greater. In 1827, he was made presiding elder, and given the Illinois District, then a very extensive region, and in 1828 Galena charge was added to this district. The district thus enlarged extended from the mouth of the Ohio River to Galena, the entire length of the present State of Illinois, and over this immense distance our preacher was obliged to travel four times in the year. The journeys were made either on horseback or in an old-fashioned sulky or one-seat gig. There were miles of lonely prairie and many rapid streams to cross, and roads, bridges, or ferry-boats were almost unknown. Yet Peter Cartwright was not the man to be deterred by obstacles. When he set out on his official journeys, he allowed nothing that it was possible to overcome to prevent him from keeping his appointments. In crossing the prairies, he would guide himself by the points of timber, for there were no roads over these vast plains. Oftentimes the streams to be crossed were swollen, and then he would swim his horse across them, or ride along the sh.o.r.e until he found a tree fallen over the current. Stripping himself, he would carry his clothes and riding equipments to the opposite bank, and then, returning, mount his horse and swim him across the river. Dressing again, he would continue his journey, and perhaps repeat the proceeding several times during the day. When overtaken by night, he would seek a place in some grove, and, lighting a fire with his tinder-box and steel, tie up his horse, and, throwing himself on the ground, sleep as peacefully as on a bed of down. Sometimes night would come on before he had crossed the prairie or made his way to the timber point he was aiming for, and then he would sit down on the ground, in the darkness and alone, and, holding his horse by the bridle, await the return of light to enable him to see his landmark. Sometimes he would find a little log-hut with a settler"s family in it, and he says it was "a great treat" to come upon one of these lonely cabins and enjoy the privilege of a night"s lodging. If the family were Methodists, there was sure to be preaching that night; and if they were strangers to that church, our preacher set to work at once to convert them. He labored faithfully, faring hard, and braving dangers from which his city brethren would have shrunk appalled. He carried the Gospel and the Methodist Episcopal Church into all parts of the great State of Illinois, and even into Iowa and the Indian country.
In 1832, the first Illinois Conference met in the town of Jacksonville, and Mr. Cartwright attended it. He had now been a traveling preacher for twenty-eight years, and, as he felt himself sorely in need of rest, he asked and obtained a superannuated relation for one year. On the same day, Bishop Soule, who presided at the Conference, came to him to ask his advice with reference to the Quincy District. It was very important, but the bishop could not find a presiding elder willing to take charge of it, as it was an almost unbroken wilderness. The bishop was in sore distress, as he feared that he would be obliged to merge it into another district. The spirit of the backwoods preacher at once took fire, and, declaring that so important a field ought not to be neglected, he expressed his willingness to relinquish his superannuated relation and accept the charge. The bishop took him at his word and appointed him to the district, which he served faithfully. His adventures in traveling from place to place to fill his appointments are intensely interesting, and I would gladly reproduce them here did the limits of this chapter permit.
It required no small amount of courage to perform the various duties of a backwoods preacher, and in this quality our preacher was not deficient. He was frequently called upon to exercise it in his camp meetings. These a.s.semblies never failed to gather large crowds from all parts of the surrounding country, and among others came numerous rowdies, whose delight it was to annoy the preachers and worshipers in every conceivable way. Cartwright put up with the annoyance as long as he could, and then determined to put a stop to it. He believed in fighting the devil with fire, and put down many a disturbance. The following is the way he went about it:
"Our last quarterly meeting was a camp meeting. We had a great many tents and a large turnout for a new country, and, perhaps, there never was a greater collection of rabble and rowdies. They came drunk and armed with dirks, clubs, knives, and horsewhips, and swore they would break up the meeting. After interrupting us very much on Sat.u.r.day night, they collected on Sunday morning, determined on a general riot. At eight o"clock I was appointed to preach. About the time I was half through my discourse, two very fine-dressed young men marched into the congregation with loaded horsewhips, and hats on, and rose up and stood in the midst of the ladies, and began to laugh and talk. They were near the stand, and I requested them to desist and get off the seats; but they cursed me and told me to mind my own business, and said they would not get down. I stopped trying to preach, and called for a magistrate. There were two at hand, but I saw they were both afraid. I ordered them to take these two men into custody, but they said they could not do it. I told them as I left the stand to command me to take them, and I would do it at the risk of my life. I advanced toward them. They ordered me to stand off, but I advanced. One of them made a pa.s.s at my head, but I closed in with him and jerked him off the seat. A regular scuffle ensued. The congregation by this time were all in commotion. I heard the magistrates giving general orders, commanding all friends of order to aid in suppressing the riot. In the scuffle I threw my prisoner down, and held him fast; he tried his best to get loose. I told him to be quiet, or I would pound his chest well. The mob rose and rushed to the rescue of the two prisoners, for they had taken the other young man also. An old, drunken magistrate came up to me, and ordered me to let my prisoner go. I told him I should not. He swore if I did not he would knock me down. I told him to crack away. Then one of my friends, at my request, took hold of my prisoner, and the drunken justice made a pa.s.s at me; but I parried the stroke, and, seizing him by the collar and the hair of the head, and fetching him a sudden jerk forward, brought him to the ground and jumped on him. I told him to be quiet, or I would pound him well. The mob then rushed to the scene; they knocked down seven magistrates, several preachers, and others. I gave up my drunken prisoner to another, and threw myself in front of the friends of order. Just at this moment, the ringleader of the mob and I met; he made three pa.s.ses at me, intending to knock me down. The last time he struck at me, by the force of his own effort he threw the side of his face toward me. It seemed at that moment I had not power to resist temptation, and I struck a sudden blow in the burr of the ear and dropped him to the earth. Just at this moment, the friends of order rushed by hundreds on the mob, knocking them down in every direction."
Once, while crossing a river on a ferry-boat, he overheard a man cursing Peter Cartwright and threatening dire vengeance against him, and boasting that he could "whip any preacher the Lord ever made." This roused our preacher"s ire, and accosting the man, he told him he was Peter Cartwright, and that if he wanted to whip him he must do so then.
The fellow became confused, and said he did not believe him.
"I tell you," said Cartwright, sternly, "I am the man. Now, sir, you have to whip me, as you threatened, or quit cursing me, or I will put you in the river and baptize you in the name of the devil, for you surely belong to him." "This," says Cartwright, "settled him."
Once, having gone into the woods with a young man who had sworn he would whip him, he sprained his foot slightly in getting over a fence, and involuntarily placed his hand to his side. "My redoubtable antagonist,"
says he, "had got on the fence, and, looking down at me, said, "D---- you, you are feeling for a dirk, are you?"
"As quick as thought it occurred to me how to get clear of a whipping.