Ix South Carolina. 233 



ing, however, was far from being mere sound and fury, 

 signifying nothing; when he thundered from the pul- 

 pit, there was the lightning-stroke of conviction among 

 the people; when he called aloud upon the wicked to 

 forsake their ways and spared not, there was the ac- 

 companying power of conversion. "In 1801," says 

 Dr. Lovick Pierce, " the Edisto Circuit was extended 

 as far as to Edgefield. With great difficulty James 

 Jenkins obtained leave to preach in my uncle's dwell- 

 ing-house, which was about a mile from my father's 

 residence. My brother (Reddick) and myself asked 

 permission to go to my uncle Weatherby's and Jiear 

 Mr. Jenkins. He preached with a tone and manner, 

 and power and spirit, that were perfectly new to us, 

 and everybody else that happened to be out on the 

 occasion — as the voice of an angel would have been. 

 Indeed, although I had heard something that was 

 called preaching a few times before, yet, without any 

 glorification of Methodism or Methodist preachers, 

 I have believed from that day to this that it was the 

 first pure sermon that ever fell on my ears. I re- 

 member well his text, Psalm cxliv. 15: ' Happy is that 

 people that is in such a case : yea, happy is that people 

 whose God is the Lord.' My brother and myself were 

 both deeply convicted. We set out for our home; it 

 was then the new road from Augusta to Charleston, 

 and we walked one after the other, as the Indians do 

 in their natural track. He did not speak to me, nor 

 did. I speak to him. He had been very anxious to 

 learn how to play cards, and I opposed it. He had a 

 deck in his pocket, but on reaching home, finding a 

 good large oak fire burning, he made a place in it as 

 if to roast a potato, and laying the cards in he care- 

 fully covered them up with the hot embers, and that 



