"Oh, that won't do!" said father Bonnie. "I don't want any more children round my place than I've got now!"
"But, I tell you," said the trader, "it's a likely boy. Why, the keeping of him won't cost you anything, and before you think of it you'll have a thousand-dollar hand grown on your own place."
"Well," said father Bonnie, "I'll think of it!"
In the evening the scene on the camp-ground was still more picturesque and impressive. Those who conduct camp-meetings are generally men who, without much reasoning upon the subject, fall into a sort of tact, in influencing masses of mind, and pressing into the service all the great life forces and influences of nature. A kind of rude poetry pervades their minds, colors their dialect, and influences their arrangements. The solemn and harmonious grandeur of night, with all its mysterious power of exalting the passions and intensifying the emotions, has ever been appreciated, and used by them with even poetic skill. The day had been a glorious one in June; the sky of that firm, clear blue, the atmosphere of that crystalline clearness, which often gives to the American landscape such a sharply-defined outline, and to the human system such an intense consciousness of life. The evening sun went down in a broad sea of light, and even after it had sunk below the purple horizon, flashed back a flood of tremulous rose-colored radiance, which, taken up by a thousand filmy clouds, made the whole sky above like a glowing tent of the most ethereal brightness. The shadows of the forest aisles were pierced by the rose-colored rays; and, as they gradually faded, star after star twinkled out, and a broad moon, ample and round, rose in the purple zone of the sky. When she had risen above the horizon but a short space, her light was so resplendent and so profuse, that it was decided to conduct the evening service by that alone; and when, at the sound of the hymn, the assembly poured in and arranged themselves before the preaching-stand, it is probable that the rudest heart present was somewhat impressed with the silent magnificence by which God was speaking to them through his works. As the hymn closed, father Bonnie, advancing to the front of the stage, lifted his hands, and pointing to the purple sky, and in a deep and not unmelodious voice, repeated the words of the Psalmist:—
"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handy-work; day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge."
"Oh, ye sinners!" he exclaimed, "look up at the moon, there, walking in her brightness, and think over your oaths, and your cursings, and your drinkings! Think over your backbitings, and your cheatings! think over your quarrellings and your fightings! How do they look to you now, with that blessed moon shining down upon you? Don't you see the beauty of our Lord God upon her? Don't you see how the saints walk in white with the Lord, like her? I dare say some of you, now, have had a pious mother, or a pious wife, or a pious sister, that's gone to glory; and there they are walking with the Lord!—walking with the Lord, through the sky, and looking down on you, sinners, just as that moon looks down! And what does she see you doing, your wife, or your mother, or sister, that's in glory? Does she see all your swearings, and your drinkings, and your fightings, and your hankerings after money, and your horse-racings, and your cock-fightings? Oh, sinners, but you are a bad set! I tell you the Lord is looking now down on you, out of that moon! He is looking down in mercy! But, I tell you, he'll look down quite another way, one of these days! Oh, there'll be a time of wrath, by and by, if you don't repent! Oh, what a time there was at Sinai, years ago, when the voice of the trumpet waxed louder and louder, and the mountain was all of a smoke, and there were thunderings and lightnings, and the Lord descended on Sinai! That's nothing to what you'll see, by and by! No more moon looking down on you! No more stars, but the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat! Ah! did you ever see a fire in the woods? I have; and I've seen the fire on the prairies, and it rolled like a tempest, and men and horses and everything, had to run before it. I have seen it roaring and crackling through the woods, and great trees shrivelled in a minute like tinder! I have seen it flash over trees seventy-five and a hundred feet high, and in a minute they'd be standing pillars of fire, and the heavens were all a blaze, and the crackling and roaring was like the sea in a storm. There's a judgment-day for you! Oh, sinner, what will become of you in that day? Never cry, Lord, Lord! Too late—too late, man! You wouldn't take mercy when it was offered, and now you shall have wrath! No place to hide! The heavens and earth are passing away, and there shall be no more sea! There's no place for you now in God's universe."
By this time there were tumultuous responses from the audience of groans, cries, clapping of hands, and mingled shouts of glory and amen!
The electric shout of the multitude acted on the preacher again, as he went on, with a yet fiercer energy. "Now is your time, sinners! Now is your time! Come unto the altar, and God's people will pray for you! Now is the day of grace! Come up! Come up, you that have got pious fathers and mothers in glory! Come up, father! come up mother! come up, brother! Come, young man! we want you to come! Ah, there's a hardened sinner, off there! I see his lofty looks! Come up, come up! Come up, you rich sinners! You'll be poor enough in the day of the Lord, I can tell you! Come up, you young women! You daughters of Jerusalem, with your tinkling ornaments! Come, saints of the Lord, and labor with me in prayer. Strike up a hymn, brethren, strike up the hymn!" And a thousand voices commenced the hymn,—