Fifty years as a presiding elder Author:Peter Cartwright Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. INCIDENTS OF EARLY LIFE. AT an early day in my itinerant life, before I was married and after I was ordained deacon, I was appointed in the Ken... more »tucky Conference to a new circuit, where the people were greatly demoralized and very ignorant of the plan of salvation by faith in Christ. During this year I was requested to take in a new preaching place, in a very wicked settlement. I complied with the request and sent an appointment. When the time arrived and I reached the place, I found the cabin filled to overflowing. We had a very precious season under the administration of the Word; many were moved to tears. At the next appointment there was a large and attentive audience present, who seemed affected by the Word, and we had a manifest display of Divine power; many appeared deeply convicted, and some six really professed to be converted. Toward the close of the meeting several rose and requested me to open the doors of the Church and organize a regular class. I complied with their request, and, after reading the rules of the Methodist Episcopal Church, I invited those who believed in our doctrines and were willing to be governed by theDiscipline of our Church and be Methodists, to come and give me their hand, and a number came forward and united with the Church. Several others desired me to baptize their children, stating that they had never had the services of an ordained minister; consequently the privilege of consecrating their children to God had not been offered to them, and now they were anxious to avail themselves of the first opportunity. I explained to them the nature of water baptism, and baptized their children. The last lady who presented her child was bathed in tears, and was very much affected when I took the child in my arms to baptize it. At this ...« less