Excerpt from Supplement No. 1 to Edition B of the Macdonald Genealogy: Containing Records of the Descendants of Jesse Peter, One of the Pioneer Settlers Near Mackville, Washington County, Kentucky

When the elaborate diary Of Bishop Asbury shall have been published and well edited, and when the various other church records of the missionary days of Methodism in America shall have been brought within reach of the general reader, it may be possible for us to know more about the part our ancestors bore in the early labors of the church.

That their whole time was given up to religious work, we have always under stood; but amongst so large a number of earnest, modest toilers, it is not strange that we Should fail to have better means of tracing them. As the influence of the new light began to spread, these brothers were chosen to lead the vanguard of the mission ranks. On, on they pushed, up the James River into the mountain fast nesses of the Alleghanies, and over into what was then the limit of civilization, where, weighed down by years, they rested just a little while and then, one after the other, many tho'usand miles from home, strangers in a strange land, they ended their long and useful lives: William earlier, but Richard and his wife each in their hundredth year. God bless the memory of such noble examples of Chris tian sacrifice! And, as Mr. Strickland says, we may dwell here a moment to remark, that local preachers have been of eminent service to the Methodist Church, both in Europe and America. They proved valuable assistants to Wesley, and went everywhere, sharing his labors and reproaches in preaching to the desti tute in town and country. Itinerant as was the economy of Methodism, and exten sively as did the regular preachers travel from place to place, yet they could not visit all places, and many a section of the country was prepared, through the labors of local preachers, for the visits of Wesley and his itinerant helpers, as in the case of the labors of Nelson at Bristol and other places. But more especially have their services been valuable in this widely-extended country, particularly in early times. When the history of the church Shall have been written up, it will be found that in many of our large cities and towns, and populous neighborhoods where Methodism flourishes, and is first for numbers and influence among the sister churches of those places, the seed was sown first by the hand Of the local clergy, who labored in the vineyard of their Master without the hope of fee or reward, except what they looked for in heaven. Unaided and alone, in the midst of sacrifice, toil, hardships, aye, and not unfrequently of bitter persecution such as would dampen the zeal and slacken the energies of most of us who have eu tered into their labors, have they gone up to the high places of sin with the handful of corn, whose spreading and multiplying products now shake like Lebanon. All honor to those noble men who braved the toils and hardships incident to the planting of Methodism in this country Their testimony is in heaven and their record on high and when they who served, and they who reaped, shall cometogether at the angel Shout of harvest home, may we all rejoice together! As we write, a host come thronging on our memory. It may be said of many of them, as was said of an earthly warrior.

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