ncy throughout the country
concerning Methodist preachers had been located on me, and that when the
congregations came to hear me, they expected little else but a bundle of
eccentricities and singularities, and when they did not realize
according to their anticipations, they were disappointed, and that this
was the reason they were disappointed. So on the Sabbath, when I came to
the Bethel, we had a good congregation, and after telling them that
Brother Taylor had given me the liberty to preach to them after the
Western fashion, I took my text, and after a few common-place remarks, I
commenced giving them some Western anecdotes, which had a thrilling
effect on the congregation, and excited them immoderately--I can not say
religiously; but I thought if ever I saw animal excitement, it was then
and there. This broke the charm. During my stay, after this, I could
pass anywhere for Peter Cartwright, the old pioneer of the West. I am
not sure that after this I fell under the expectations of my
congregations among them."

Sixty-seven years have passed away since the old pioneer began his
preaching, and still he labors in the cause of his Master. Age has not
subdued his zeal or dimmed his eye. His labors make up the history of
the West. Where he first reared his humble log-hut, smiling farms and
tasteful mansions cover the fertile prairies of the West; cities and
towns mark the spot where his backwoods camp-meetings drew thousands
into the kingdom of God; the iron horse dashes with the speed of the
wind over the boundless prairies which he first crossed with only the
points of timber for his guides; the floating palaces of the West plow
the streams over which he swam his horse or was ferried in a bark canoe;
and stately churches stand where the little log chapels of the infant
West were built by him. It is a long and a noble life upon which he
looks back, the only survivor of the heroic band who started with him to
carry Christ into the Western wilds. He has outlived all his father's
family, every member of the class he joined in 1800, every member of the
Western Conference of 1804, save perhaps one or two, every member of the
General Conference of 1816, the first to which he was elected, all his
early bishops, every presiding elder under whom he ever ministered, and
thousands of those whom he brought into the Church. "I have lived too
long," he said, in a recent lecture; but we take issue with him. He has
not lived too long w