Where Tam o’Shanter
——Stood like ane bewitch’d,
And thought his very een enrich’d.”
Late in the evening a man detached himself from the crowd, walking rapidly backward and forward, and crying aloud. His vociferations were of this kind: “I have been a great sinner, and was on the way to be damned; but am converted now, thank God—glory, glory!” He turned round on his heel occasionally, giving a loud whoop. A gentleman with whom I am well acquainted, told me that he had a conversation with a female who had just recovered from the debility of the day. She could give no other account of her sensations than that she felt so good, that she could press her very enemy to her bosom.
At half past two A.M. I got into a tent, stretched myself on the ground, and was soon lulled asleep by the music. About five I was awakened by the unceasing melody. At seven, preaching was resumed; and a lawyer residing in the neighbourhood gave a sermon of a legal character.
At nine the meeting adjourned to breakfast. A multitude of small fires being previously struck up, an extensive cooking process commenced, and the smell of bacon tainted the air. I took this opportunity of reconnoitring the evacuated field. The little inclosure, so often mentioned, is by the religious called Altar, and some scoffers are wicked enough to call it Pen, from its similarity to the structures in which hogs are confined. Its area was covered over with straw, in some parts more wetted than the litter of a stable. If it could be ascertained that all this moisture was from the tears of the penitent, the fact would be a surprising one. Waving all inquiry into this phenomenon, {237} however, the incident now recorded may be held forth as a very suitable counterpart to a wonderful story recorded by the Methodistic oracle Lorenzo Dow, of a heavy shower drenching a neighbourhood, while a small speck including a camp meeting was passed over and left entirely dry. In Lorenzo’s case, the rain fell all round the camp, but in that noticed by me, the moisture was in the very centre.
You can form no adequate idea of a camp meeting from any description which can be given of it. Any one who would have a complete view of enthusiasm can only obtain it by visiting such a meeting and seeing it himself. I should be sorry to abuse the Methodist sect by the illiberal application of such terms as fanaticism, superstition, or illusion. I have known many of them who are valuable members of society, and several who have rendered important services to their country, but have not seen any one prostrated, or even visibly affected, at the camp meeting or elsewhere, whom I knew to be men of strong minds or of much intelligence. Females seem to be more susceptible of the impressions than men are. A quality perhaps that is to be imputed to the greater sensibility of their feelings.
The awakenings in Kentucky that were some years ago hailed by the religious magazines of your country as the workings of the Divine Spirit, {238} must have been those that occurred at camp meetings of Methodists. These assemblages are now said to be on the decline in Kentucky; and when meetings were held on a grand scale there, many disorders were committed by immoral persons, tending to the great scandal of religion, and occasioning the precautionary measures already noticed in this detail.