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Updated: June 25, 2025
William Butler tells us that on one occasion, when Lincoln was a farmhand at Island Grove, the famous circuit-rider, Peter Cartwright, came by, electioneering for the Legislature, and Lincoln at once engaged in a discussion with him in the cornfield, in which the great Methodist was equally astonished at the close reasoning and the uncouth figure of Mr. Brown's extraordinary hired man.
A preacher should not remain so long in a place as to become cheap or commonplace. New faces keep one alive and alert. And the circuit-rider can give the same address over and over and perfect it by repetition until it is most effective.
He always stood his ground fearing nor man, nor dog nor devil. Ten minutes later, the Squire took his seat on the platform, while the circuit-rider squatted down beside him. The crowd, men and women and children, took the rough benches. To one side sat and stood the Dillons, old Tad and little Tad, Daws, Nance, and others of the tribe.
After an al fresco lunch, everybody doggedly returns to hear another circuit-rider expound and denounce at the top of his voice until late afternoon as long as "the spirit lasts" and he has "good wind." When he warms up, he throws in a gasping ah or uh at short intervals, which constitutes the "holy tone."
The Chaplain had formerly been an old-fashioned Methodist circuit-rider in Indiana. He was full of fiery zeal, and portrayed the terrors of eternal punishment so vividly that His hearers could almost feel the heat of the flame and smell the fumes of brimstone that are popularly believed to roll out unceasingly from the mouth of the bottomless pit.
Wherever there was a group of log cabins, thither some Methodist circuit-rider made his way or there some Baptist preacher took up his abode. Their prejudices and narrow dislikes, their raw vanity and sullen distrust of all who were better schooled than they, count for little when weighed against their intense earnestness and heroic self-sacrifice. They proved their truth by their endeavor.
The circuit-rider, the local preacher or class-leader, the classes, the "love-feast," or general meeting these were quite enough in the way of religious machinery. Finally, however, Wesley became convinced that in large cities an indoor meeting-place was necessary in order to keep the people banded together.
The sheriff snatched the light, and both men hastened to examine the prisoner's hand. After a single glance their eyes met and each set of optics inquired of the other. At length the sheriff remarked: "He's your pris'ner." The circuit-rider flushed and then turned pale.
Indistinctly he had caught the old story from the nasal drawl of the circuit-rider, and he thought that here, among these wild Tennessee mountains, Elijah had lived and had not died.
He had newly come out from a cathedral city in the south of England and was shocked to find the log school had not a robing-room. The end was that a Methodist circuit-rider took in our settlement in his rounds, which resulted in a majority of those who attended his services uniting with the Methodist church.
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