"New occasions teach new duties;
Time makes ancient good uncouth."
Seventy years and more ago, the country new, the population sparse, the settlements few and far between, the camp-meeting was of yearly and, as it was believed, of necessary occurrence. It was, especially with the early Methodists, a recognized instrumentality for preaching the Gospel for the conversion of souls.
A convenient spot—usually near a spring or brook—being selected, a rude pulpit was erected, rough seats provided, a log cabin or two for the aged and infirm hastily constructed, and there in the early autumn large congregations assembled for worship. For many miles around, and often from neighboring counties, the people came, on horseback, in wagons, and on foot. Each family furnished its own tent, the needed bed-clothing, cooking utensils, and abundant provisions for their temporary sojourn in the wilderness. It was no holiday occasion, no time for merry making. It was often at much sacrifice and discomfort that such meetings were held, and preachers and people alike were in terrible earnest. Rigid rules for their government were formulated and enforced, and a proper decorum required and observed. Woe betide the wretch who attempted to create disturbance, or depart from the strictest propriety of deportment. Not infrequently in the early camp-meetings of Kentucky and Tennessee there were stalwart men keeping guard over these religious gatherings, who had in their younger days hunted the savage foe from his fastness, faced Tecumseh at Tippecanoe and the Thames, possibly been comrades of "Old Hickory" through the Everglades and at New Orleans.
A sufficient time being set apart for meals and the needed hours of rest, the residue was in the main devoted to public or private worship. Family prayer-meetings were held in each tent at the early dawn; public preaching by the most gifted speakers during two hours or more of the forenoon. After a hasty midday meal the public services were resumed, to be followed at the appointed time by meetings for special prayer, class meetings, and love feasts, all conducted with the greatest possible solemnity; and the exercises, after supper had been served and the candles lighted, concluded for the day with an impassioned sermon from the main stand. During the last-mentioned service especially, the scene presented was truly of a weird and picturesque character. The flickering lights of the camp, the dark forest around, the melodious concert of a thousand voices mingling in sacred song, the awe-inspiring, never-to-be-forgotten hymn,
"Come, humble sinner, in whose breast
A thousand thoughts revolve,"
the fervid exclamations as convicted sinners gathered around the mourners' bench and the shouts of joy heard far beyond the limits of the camp as peace found lodging in sin-distracted souls, all impressed the memory and heart too deeply for even the flight of years wholly to dispel.
It need hardly be added that these scenes, of which but feeble description has been given, marked the hour of triumph of the truly gifted of the revival preachers of camp-meeting times. The echoes will never awake to the sound of such eloquence again. The orator and the occasion here met and embraced. In very truth, the joys of the redeemed, and the horrors of lost souls, were depicted in colors that only lips "touched with a live coal from the altar" could adequately describe. In the presence of such lurid imagery, even the inspired revelation of the apocalyptic vision seems but sober narrative of commonplace events.
With camp-meetings and their thrilling incidents of two generations ago in our Western country, the name of Peter Cartwright is inseparably associated. He was the born leader; par excellence, the unrivalled orator. Since the passing of Whitefield and Asbury a greater than he had not appeared. To those who have never attended an old-time camp-meeting the following quotation from Mr. Cartwright's autobiography may be of interest:
"The meeting was protracted for weeks and was kept up day and night. Thousands heard of the mighty work, and came on foot, on horseback, and in wagons. It was supposed that there were in attendance at different times from twelve to twenty-five thousand. Hundreds fell prostrate under the mighty power of God, as men slain in battle; and it was supposed that between one and two thousand souls were happily and powerfully converted to God during the meetings. It was not unusual for as many as seven preachers to be addressing the listening thousands at a time, from different stands. At times, more than a thousand persons broke out into loud shouting, all at once, and the shouts could be heard for miles around."
Strange as the following may sound to the present generation, it is one of the many experiences recorded by Cartwright: