More persons go for a frolic than to obtain any spiritual benefit. In illustration of this, I will tell you a story which a very beautiful young married lady told to me with much glee, for the thing happened to herself, and she was the principal actor in the scene.
"I had an aunt, the wife of a very wealthy yeoman, who lived in one of the back townships of C---, on the St. Lawrence. She was a very pious and hospitable woman, and none knew it better than the travelling ministers, who were always well fed and well lodged at her house, particularly when they assembled to hold a camp-meeting, which took place once in several years in that neighbourhood.
"I was a girl of fifteen, and was staying with my aunt for the benefit of the country-air, when one of these great gatherings took place. Having heard a great deal about their strange doings at these meetings, I begged very hard to be allowed to make one of the spectators. My aunt, who knew what a merry, light-hearted creature I was, demurred for some time before she granted my request.
"'If the child does not get religion,' she said, 'she will turn it all into fun, and it will do her more harm than good.'
"Aunt was right enough in her conjunctures; but still she entertained a latent hope, that the zeal of the preachers, the excitement of the scene, and the powerful influence produced by the example of the pious, might have a beneficial effect on my young mind, and lead to my conversion. Aunt had herself been reclaimed from a state of careless indifference by attending one of these meetings, and at last it was determined that I was to go.
"First came the ministers, and then the grand feed my aunt had prepared for them, before they opened the campaign. Never shall I forget how those holy men devoured the good things set before them. I stood gazing upon them in utter astonishment, wondering when their meal would come to an end. They none wore whiskers, and their broad fat faces literally shone with high feeding. When I laughed at their being such excellent knife and fork men, aunt gravely reproved my levity, by saying, 'that the labourer was worthy of his hire; and that it would be a great sin to muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn; that field preaching was a very exhausting thing, and that these pious men required a great deal of nourishment to keep up their strength for the performance of good work.'
"After they were gone, I dressed and accompanied my aunt to the scene of action.
"It was a lovely spot, about a mile from the house. The land rose in a gentle slope from the river, and was surrounded on three sides by lofty woods. The front gave us a fine view of the St. Lawrence, rushing along in its strength, the distant murmur of the waves mingling with the sigh of the summer breeze, that swept the dense foliage of the forest trees. The place had been cleared many years before, and was quite free from stumps and fallen timber, the ground carpeted with soft moss and verdant fresh looking turf.
"The area allotted for the meeting was fenced around with the long thin trunks of sapling trees, that were tied together with strips of bass-wood. In the centre of the enclosure was the platform for the preachers, constructed of rough slabs, and directly behind this rural pulpit was a large tent connected with it by a flight of board steps. Here the preachers retired, after delivering their lectures, to rest and refresh themselves. Fronting the platform was a sort of amphitheatre of booths, constructed of branches of trees, and containing benches of boards supported at either end by a round log laid lengthwise at the sides of the tent. Behind these rough benches persons had placed mattrasses, which they had brought with them in their waggons, that such as came from a distance might not want for a bed during their stay--some of these meetings lasting over a week.
"The space without the enclosure was occupied by a double line of carts, waggons, light carriages, and ox sleds, while the animals undivested of their harness were browsing peacefully among the trees. The inner space was crowded with persons of all classes, but the poorer certainly predominated. Well dressed, respectable people, however, were not wanting; and though I came there to see and to be seen, to laugh and to make others laugh, I must confess that I was greatly struck with the imposing and picturesque scene before me, particularly when a number of voices joined in singing the hymn with which the service commenced."