as on a bed of down.  Sometimes night would come on before he had crossed the prairie or made his way to the timber point he was aiming for, and then he would sit down on the ground, in the darkness and alone, and, holding his horse by the bridle, await the return of light to enable him to see his landmark.  Sometimes he would find a little log-hut with a settler’s family in it, and he says it was “a great treat” to come upon one of these lonely cabins and enjoy the privilege of a night’s lodging.  If the family were Methodists, there was sure to be preaching that night; and if they were strangers to that church, our preacher set to work at once to convert them.  He labored faithfully, faring hard, and braving dangers from which his city brethren would have shrunk appalled.  He carried the Gospel and the Methodist Episcopal Church into all parts of the great State of Illinois, and even into Iowa and the Indian country.

In 1832, the first Illinois Conference met in the town of Jacksonville, and Mr. Cartwright attended it.  He had now been a traveling preacher for twenty-eight years, and, as he felt himself sorely in need of rest, he asked and obtained a superannuated relation for one year.  On the same day, Bishop Soule, who presided at the Conference, came to him to ask his advice with reference to the Quincy District.  It was very important, but the bishop could not find a presiding elder willing to take charge of it, as it was an almost unbroken wilderness.  The bishop was in sore distress, as he feared that he would be obliged to merge it into another district.  The spirit of the backwoods preacher at once took fire, and, declaring that so important a field ought not to be neglected, he expressed his willingness to relinquish his superannuated relation and accept the charge.  The bishop took him at his word and appointed him to the district, which he served faithfully.  His adventures in traveling from place to place to fill his appointments are intensely interesting, and I would gladly reproduce them here did the limits of this chapter permit.

It required no small amount of courage to perform the various duties of a backwoods preacher, and in this quality our preacher was not deficient.  He was frequently called upon to exercise it in his camp meetings.  These assemblies never failed to gather large crowds from all parts of the surrounding country, and among others came numerous rowdies, whose delight it was to annoy the preachers and worshipers in every conceivable way.  Cartwright put up with the annoyance as long as he could, and then determined to put a stop to it.  He believed in fighting the devil with fire, and put down many a disturbance.  The following is the way he went about it: