PETER CARTWRIGHT (PART 4)

A Bold Stand: Confronting the Jew

“Well now, my dear sir,” said I, “let us test this matter. If you are in earnest, get down here and pray to God to stop this work, and if it is wrong He will answer your petition and stop it; if it is not wrong, all hell cannot stop it.” The rest of our company seeing me so bold took courage. The Jew hesitated. I said, “Get down instantly and pray, for if we are wrong we want to know it.” After still lingering and showing unmistakable signs of his unwillingness, I rallied him again. Slowly he kneeled, cleared his throat, and coughed. I said, “Now, boys, pray with all your might that God may answer by fire.”

The Outcome of the Challenge
Our Jew began and said, tremblingly, “O Lord God Almighty,” and coughed again, cleared his throat, and started again, repeating the same words. We saw his evident confusion, and we simultaneously prayed out aloud at the top of our voices. The Jew leaped up and started off, and we raised the shout and had a glorious time. Several of our mourners were converted, and we all rose and started into camp at the top of our speed, shouting, having, as we firmly believed, obtained a signal victory over the devil and the Jew.

The Kentucky Boy Starts Out
At the start of the Communion season the following year, Peter was surprised when his pastor presented him with a letter that acknowledged him as an “exhorter” for the Methodists. Peter Cartwright is hereby permitted to exercise his gifts as an exhorter in the Methodist Episcopal Church, so long as his practice is agreeable to the Gospel. Signed in behalf of the society at Ebenezer. Jesse Walker, A. P. May, 1802.

A New Chapter Unfolds
Peter had not sought this office, but he was persuaded to accept it. One provision of the office was that if the Spirit came upon him to preach, he could know that he had the right to do so. That fall, Peter’s father moved the family to Lewiston County, near the mouth of the Cumberland River-an area that just happened to be eighty miles from the nearest Methodist circuit. Peter and his mother asked for letters of membership so that they could hold meetings in their house, and in response, Peter received a letter authorizing him to form a preaching circuit in the area.

Facing Opposition and Trials
This permission was much more than he had expected, let alone hoped for. He had been planning to attend school and had considered circuit preaching too great a responsibility for him. Brother Page, the presiding elder from whom Peter had requested the letters of membership, advised him, when his father got settled down there if he could find a good moral school with a good teacher, to go to it through the winter; then, in the spring and summer, form the circuit and do the best he could. Peter agreed with Page, and he found a school that looked promising. It did not work out, however, because the teacher, though he was a minister, hated Methodists “more than he hated the devil.” The other boys at the school-branded Peter with the name “The Methodist Preacher” and taunted him, little deterred by the schoolmaster. At one point, two of the boys decided to throw Peter into a nearby creek at a place where the bank was about seven feet high, and the pool about ten feet deep. To lure Peter to the riverbank, they feigned anguish for their sins and asked him to pray for them. He was suspicious of the authenticity of their request, but not wanting to reject them in case they were in earnest, he agreed to go…

To Be Continued…