A Connecticut boy--The minister's family--A gloomy childhood--Ma'arm Kilbourn's school--The loss of his curls--The dull boy--A bad voice for an orator--His first religious impressions--Aunt Esther--The Sunday catechism--Sent to boarding school--Love of nature--Enters his sister's school--The hopeless case--An inveterate joker and an indifferent scholar--Removal to Boston--Gets through the Latin school--The sea-going project--Dr. Beecher's ruse--Life at Mount Pleasant--Conquers mathematics--Embraces religion at a revival--Resolves to become a minister--Removal to Cincinnati--Course at the Lane Seminary--How he learned to preach--Marries--His first charge--Life at Lawrenceburg--Removal to Indianapolis--Life in the West--His popularity--His theory of preaching and its success--Conversion of his brother--Mr. Beecher accepts a call to Plymouth Church in Brooklyn--Political record--Literary labors--Pastoral work--A large audience--Government of Plymouth Church--Description of the edifice--The congregation--The services--Mr. Beecher as a preacher--Sympathy between the pastor and his hearers--His ideas of religion--How he prepares his sermons--His prayers unstudied--The social receptions--The Friday evening meeting--A characteristic scene--Labors during the war--Visit to Europe--An unpopular sermon in a good cause--Personal characteristics. CHAPTER XXXII. PETER CARTWRIGHT. Birth--Removal to Kentucky--"Rogue's harbor"--Condition of the country and the people--Frontier life--Early life of a preacher--Becomes a Christian--His account of his conversion--Is made an exhorter in the Methodist Church--Removal to Lewiston County--Begins preaching--Qualifications of a backwoods preacher--His energy--The jerks--How Peter frightened a bully--A brimstone angel--Enters the ministry--Appointed to the Marietta Circuit--A good school--Hard times--Marries--Quiet heroism--How the old-time people married--His devotion to the Methodist Church--Troubles with other denominations--How he argued with a Universalist--How he met a wrathful dame--Encounter with a Baptist preacher--Adventure with Father Teel--Taming a shrew--Removal to Illinois--His reasons for taking that step--Death of his daughter--Arrival at his new home--Life on the frontier--A large district--The Methodist circuit riders of sixty years ago--Perils of frontier traveling--Success of Cartwright's ministry--How he was superannuated--His courage--How he cleared a camp of rowdies--Encounter on a ferry-boat--Frightens a bully--Advocates temperance--A practical joke--Is elected to the Legislature--His opinion of politics--How he raised the devil--"Another sinner down"--Missionaries from the East--Indignation of the backwoods preacher--The proposed mission to New England--Cartwright declines it--He visits Boston--His reception--How he preached for Father Taylor--Summing up--Sixty-seven years of a preacher's life. IX. AUTHORS. CHAPTER XXXIII. HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.