The revivals of genuine religion which usually attended these gatherings were much needed in the backwoods. Most of the settlers were honest, law-abiding persons, who had sought to improve their means by emigrating to this western country; but many of the vicious off-scouring of the older settlements also went west to hide their crimes or to commit new ones. Rogues' Harbor was only an extreme type of many law-defying places. Murderers, thieves, gamblers, defaulters and their kind put life in peril, and threatened the moral and social order of the state. These camp meetings strengthened and encouraged good people, reformed many bad men and women, and thus became a saving leaven of righteousness.
And what a place for a camp meeting was the Kentucky forest. What nature poet can do justice to such sylvan loveliness as we find in the "Blue Grass Region?" The pen must be dipped in the juices of that Edenic vegetation and tinted with the blue of that arching sky to record such beauty. What stately trees! They seemed like pillars in God's own temple. The rich, warm limestone soil gave birth to trees in form and variety scarce equaled in the world. Here grew in friendly fellowship and rivalry the elm, ash, hickory, walnut, wild cherry, white, black and read oak, black and honey locust, and many others. Their lofty branches interlocking formed a verdant roof which did not entirely shut out the sun's rays but caused a light subdued and impressive as the light in a Saint Paul's Cathedral.
In such a forest was pitched the camp to which Jasper Very returned. Let me describe this old-fashioned camp ground. A large, rough shed was erected, capable of protecting five thousand persons from wind and rain. It was covered with clapboards and furnished with puncheon seats. At one end a large stand was built, from which sermons were preached. A few feet in front of this stand a plain altar rail was set, extending the full length of the preachers' stand. This altar was called the "mourners' bench." All around the altar a liberal supply of fresh straw was placed upon which the worshippers knelt. On three sides of the large shed camps or cabins of logs were built for the use of the attendants. In the rear of the preachers' stand was a large room which accommodated all the ministers who labored in the meeting. The effect at the camp at night was very striking. At intervals of several rods log fires were kept burning and the bright light they threw was contrasted with the deep darkness beyond.
It is astonishing to read how great an attraction these camps became to the hardy pioneers of the Kentucky wilderness. People gathered from all quarters in all kinds of vehicles, some traveling thirty or forty miles. Many came in covered wagons in which they slept at night. History records, that at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, a camp meeting was held attended by twenty thousand people.
It is ten o'clock Sunday morning at Oak Grove Camp Meeting, where our hero Jasper Very is laboring. Thousands are in the great wooden structure, filling every seat and standing many deep beyond the edges of the building. The preachers' stand contains twenty-five or thirty ministers gathered from many parts of the State. The crowd has even overflowed this stand, and all available room is occupied.
The Christians present have been prepared for this service by the cabin meetings held at six o'clock in the morning and a prayer and testimony meeting in the tabernacle at eight. And now the service begins. A stalwart son of the prophets arises and announces the hymn:
"Come, sinners, to the gospel feast,
Let every soul be Jesus' guest:
There need not one be left behind,
For God hath bidden all mankind."