“‘The preachers were twelve or fifteen. Mr. Miller gave the only regular course of lectures—the others speaking occasionally. Many of the people, without doubt, assembled from motives of curiosity merely; but the great body of them, from their solemn looks and close attention to the subject, were evidently actuated by higher and more important motives. Each tent was under the supervision of a tent-master, who was responsible for the good order within the same, where religious exercises were kept up at the intermissions between the public exercises and meals, and where lights were kept burning through the night....
“‘Some fault was found, or dissatisfaction felt, with that part of the regulations which precluded all controversy, i. e., which prevented people of opposite theological sentiments from occupying the time or distracting the attention of the audience, which would otherwise have introduced confusion and defeated the object of the meeting. Nothing could be more reasonable than this regulation, and no peace-loving person would make any objection.... The meeting broke up with harmony and good feeling.’
“A few years later, a distinguished American writer and poet, J. G. Whittier, who was present at this meeting, made the following reference to it:—
“‘Three or four years ago, on my way eastward, I spent an hour or two at a camp-ground of the Second Advent in East Kingston. The spot was well chosen. A tall growth of pine and hemlock threw its melancholy shadow over the multitude, who were arranged upon rough seats of boards and logs. Several hundred—perhaps a thousand—people were present, and more were rapidly coming. Drawn about in a circle, forming a background of snowy whiteness to the dark masses of men and foliage, were the white tents, and back of them the provision stalls and cook shops. When I reached the ground, a hymn, the words of which I could not distinguish, was pealing through the dim aisles of the forest. I know nothing of music, having neither ear nor taste for it; but I could readily see that it had its effect upon the multitude before me, kindling to higher intensity their already excited enthusiasm. The preachers were placed in a rude pulpit of rough boards, carpeted only by the dead forest leaves and flowers, and tasselled, not with silk and velvet, but with the green boughs of the somber hemlocks around it. One of them followed the music in an earnest exhortation on the duty of preparing for the great event. Occasionally he was really eloquent, and his description of the last day had all the terrible distinctness of Anelli’s painting of the “End of the World.”
“‘Suspended from the front of the rude pulpit were two broad sheets of canvas, upon one of which was the figure of a man—the head of gold, the breast and arms of silver, the belly of brass, the legs of iron, and feet of clay—the dream of Nebuchadnezzar! On the other were depicted the wonders of the Apocalyptic vision—the beasts—the dragon—the scarlet woman seen by the seer of Patmos—oriental types and figures and mystic symbols translated into staring Yankee realities, and exhibited like the beasts of a traveling menagerie. One horrible image, with its hideous heads and scaly caudal extremity, reminded me of the tremendous line of Milton, who, in speaking of the same evil dragon, describes him as
“‘Swinging the scaly horrors of his folded tail.’
“‘To an imaginative mind the scene was full of novel interest. The white circle of tents—the dim wood arches—the upturned, earnest faces—the loud voices of the speakers, burdened with the awful symbolic language of the Bible—the smoke from the fires rising like incense from forest altars—carrying one back to the days of primitive worship, when
“‘The groves were God’s first temples, ere men learned
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,
And stretch the roof above it.’