Peter piled up the excitement. He sang and
prayed all night; and, before morning, about
fifteen converts had professed religion. This
was the beginning of an enthusiastic Revival
in that part of the country.

Peter was no respecter of persons. Intolerant
and insolent, he was, at the least
consistent, and the same to all, as he proved
himself to General Jackson, when he had the
chance. Preaching one evening in a brother
Methodist's church,who should come in but the
General. He walked up the aisle to the middle
post, where he stood, leaning very gracefully,
for want of a seat. Brother Mac, the preacher
of the church, pulled Cartwright's coat-tails,
whispering, "General Jackson has come in.
General Jackson has come in." "I felt a
flash of indignation run all over me like an
electric shock," says Peter, "and facing about
to my congregation, and purposely speaking
out audibly, I said, Who is General Jackson?
If he don't get his soul converted God will
damn him as quick as he would a Guinea
negro!"

"The preacher tucked his head down,
squatted low, and would no doubt have been
thankful for leave of absence;" but the congregation
and the General, too, laughed right
out, and the next day General Jackson
thanked the rough backwoods-preacher and
shook him by the hand. All finery, too, he
hates. To one man with a ruffled shirt he
calls out, that it was no doubt borrowed. To
a Doctor Bascour, playing with his seals,
Brother Axley, the hero of Governor Tiffins's
supper, stopping suddenly in his sermon,
says, "Put up that chain, and quit playing
with those seals, and hear the word of the
Lord." The claret rushed to the surface of his
profile.

A lady, very fashionably dressed, he
preached into Methodism and hysterics.
Anxious to join the next day's excited love-feast,
she was troubled about her fashionable
attire. So she sat up all night altering and
fixing the plainest gown site had, that she
might go to the love-feast in the clothing
suitable to a Methodist. At the love-feast she
rose, gave her experience, and told of all the
trouble she had taken to fix herself a dress
proper for the occasion. She was a glorious
Christian. Two young ladies, going through
the same process of shrieking, struggling,
wailing, and ultimate triumph, shouting
necessary for conversion, took off all their
chains, rings, earrings, &c., and handed them
to the preacher, saying, "We have no more
use for these idols."

A gentleman with a ruffled shirt and an
awakened conscience could not get to the
shouting part. It seemed as if there was
something he would not give up. Suddenly
he opened his shirt, tore off his ruffles, and
flung them down in the straw, and in less
than two minutes he was converted, and,
springing to his feet, shouted with the rest.

Peter has a grim sense of humour. When
any who have been very violent against
the Methodist church and "exercises," as
their fits and feelings are called, are themselves
overtaken, the preacher never fails to
task them with all kinds of sarcasm and
contempt.

We have no room for further anecdotes,
though we have left behind as many as we
have selected. But the curious, who would
read the book for themselves, may find
them all in The Backwoods-Preacher; or,
Peter Cartwright's autobiography, just published
in London. It is a most interesting
work: the life of an earnest, racy, impudent,
ranting, but perfectly sincere, Methodist
itinerant preacher. Full of the richest
Americanism, and quaintest anecdotes, it
gives the details of a religious phase of
society almost unknown in England. Camp-meetings
and revivals, with their hundreds
of men and women falling here and there,
like men slain in mighty battle; screaming,
shrieking, crying, writhing on the ground,
dishevelled and disordered—the blazing pine-torches
flashing upon them, wild and excited
as the Corybantes of old—then, when the
morning sun rises over them, shouts and
songs of victory swelling up to heaven, and
frantic rushings over the encamping-ground,
and frenzied calls to all to come and witness
the power of the Lord on their souls—this
is the kind of religious life to which the
preacher introduces us, and which is the only
kind he knows or respects. Anything else is
tame; nay, it is not religion at all. But, in
spite of his extravagance and coarseness, the
preacher's figure is a noble one, as he moves
through that wild backwoods life. Rugged
and in earnest, he shrinks from no peril, and
he flatters no sensibilities: his heart is in
his work, and he does his work faithfully,
through every trial, and against all opposition.
And if his words are broader, and his
deeds rougher than any of which we know,
here, in silken-shod Europe, we must remember
the condition of the society in which he
lived, and the material on which he wrought;
and if we cannot love him for his meekness,
nor admire him for his refinement, at
least we must honour him for his truth, and
respect him for his zeal.

             MR, CHARLES DICKENS'S
                        READINGS.
MR. CHARLES DICKENS will read at LEICESTER on the
4th of November; at READING on the 8th; at SOUTHAMPTON
on the 9th and 10th; at PORTSMOUTH on
the 11th; and at BRIGHTON on the 12th and 13th of
November;
WHICH WILL TERMINATE THE SERIES OF READINGS