e, forgive my sins
and give me religion." He went on his way rejoicing, and in June, 1801,
was formally received into the Methodist Episcopal Church. In May, 1802,
he was appointed an exhorter. He shrank from accepting the position, as
he distrusted his own abilities, but finally yielded to his presiding
elder's wishes and entered upon his work. In the fall of that year his
parents removed to Lewiston County, toward the mouth of the Cumberland
River.

Although he was but eighteen years old, his presiding elder had detected
in him signs of unusual promise, and had resolved to bring him into
active labor for the Church at once, and accordingly, upon his departure
for his new home, Peter was given authority to lay out and organize a
new circuit, the plan of which he was to submit to the presiding elder
for approval. The boy hesitated, frightened by the magnitude of the
task, but being encouraged by his superiors, accepted the trust, and
thus began his labors as a preacher of the Word. Upon reaching his new
home, he attended a tolerably good school in the vicinity, hoping to
acquire a better education, but the pupils and teacher persecuted him so
sorely that he was obliged to withdraw. Determining to lose no time in
waiting for an education, he at once began the work of preaching. Being
possessed of strong natural sense, a ready wit, and being thoroughly
imbued with the spirit of frontier life, he was just the man to carry
the Gospel home to the hearts of the rude pioneers of the great West.
His manner was that of a backwoodsman, and he had no city airs and
graces to offend the plain, rough people to whom he preached. He was
emphatically one of them. He offered them the plain Gospel, and gave
theological theories a wide berth.

His plan of operations was adapted to the rudest intellect. It was to
thunder the terrors of the law into the ears of his converts, or, in his
own words, to "shake them over hell until they smelt brimstone right
strong," and make them see the fearful condition in which they lay by
reason of their sin. Man was to him a wretched, degraded creature, and
the only way to bring him to God was to drive him there by the terrors
of the law. Our preacher had very little faith in the quieter, more
persuasive means of grace. His first effort was to give the souls of his
hearers a good shaking up, bring them face to face with hell and its
torments, and then, having forced them to flee from the wrath to come,
to