Next morning I rose, feeling wretched beyond expression.  I tried to read in the Testament, and retired many times to secret prayer through the day, but found no relief.  I gave up my race-horse to my father and requested him to sell him.  I went and brought my pack of cards and gave them to mother, who threw them into the fire, and they were consumed.  I fasted, watched, and prayed, and engaged in regular reading of the Testament.  I was so distressed and miserable that I was incapable of any regular business.”

Several months passed away, during which time Peter had seasons of comfort and hopes of forgiveness, but during the greater portion he was wretched and miserable, filled with such a fear of the devil that he was almost convinced that Satan was really present with him to keep him from God.  A camp-meeting, held in the vicinity of his father’s house, in the spring of 1801, completed his conversion and gave him peace.

“To this meeting,” says he, “I repaired a guilty, wretched sinner.  On the Saturday evening of said meeting I went, with weeping multitudes, and bowed before the stand, and earnestly prayed for mercy.  In the midst of a solemn struggle of soul, an impression was made on my mind as though a voice said to me:  ‘Thy sins are all forgiven thee,’ Divine light flashed all around me, unspeakable joy sprang up in my soul.  I rose to my feet, opened my eyes, and it really seemed to me as if I was in heaven; the trees, the leaves on them, and every thing seemed, and I really thought were, praising God.  My mother raised the shout, my Christian friends crowded around me and joined me in praising God....  I have never doubted that the Lord did, then and there, 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