USA > Indiana > Monroe County > The new purchase : or, seven and a half years in the Far West > Part 36
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"I say, Mister, you haint seen nara bonnit?"
"Bonnet !- no, ma'am ; have you lost your bonnet ?"
"Yes-I've jist had a powerful exercise over thare in the Court- house; and when I kim to, I couldn't see my bonnit no whare about-"
"Has there been meeting in the Court-house lately?"
"Oh! Lord bless you, most powerful time-and it's there I've jist got religion-"
"And lost your bonnet ?"
"Yes, sir,-but some said as it maybe mought a-gone on to camp with somebody's plunder : you didn't see or hear tell on it, did you?"
"No, I did not; but had you really no power over your bonnet, ma'am?"
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"Well! now !- who ever heern of a body in a exercise a thinkin on a bonnit! Come, mister, you'd better turn round and go to camp and git religion yourself, I allow-thar's whar all the town a'most and all the settlemints round is agoin-but I'll have' to whip up and look after my bonnit-good bye, mister !"
And so all Woodville and its vicinities were in the ferment of departure for a camp-meeting! Now as this was to be a big meeting of the biggest size, and all the crack preachers within a circle of three hundred miles were to be present, and also a celebrated African exhorter from Kentucky; and as much was said about "these heaven-directed, and heaven-blessed, and heaven- approved campings ;" and as I, by a constant refusal to attend heretofore, had become a suspected character, it being often said, -"yes,-Carlton's a honest sort of man, but why don't he go out to camp and git religion?"-I determined now to go.
. Why whole families should once or twice a year break up for two weeks ; desert domestic altars; shut up regular churches ; and take away children from school; why cook lots of food at extra trouble and with ill-bestowed expense; why rush to the woods and live in tents, with peril to health and very often ultimately with loss of life to feeble persons; why folks should do these and other things under a belief that the Christian God is a God of the woods and not of the towns, of the tents and not of the churches, of the same people in a large and disorderly crowd and not in one hundred separate and orderly congregations-why? why? I had in my simplicity repeatedly asked, and received for answer:
"Oh ! come and see! Only come to camp and git your cold heart warmed-come git religion-let it out with a shout-and you'll not axe them infidel sort of questions no more."
This was conclusive. And like the vicar of Wakefield, I re- solved not always to be wise, but for once to float with a tide neither to be stemmed nor directed. A friend, learned in these spiritual affairs, advised me not to go till Saturday night, or so as to be on the ground by daylight on Sunday. This I did, and was handsomely rewarded by seeing and hearing some very extraordi- nary conversions-as far as they went ; and also some wonderful scenes and outcries.
The camp was an old and favourite ground, eight miles from
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Woodville. It had been the theatre of many a spirit-stirring drama; and there, too, many a harvest of glory had been reaped in battling with "the devil and his legions." Yet wonderful! his satanic majesty never became shy of a spot where he was said always to have the worst of the fight! and now it was commonly said and believed that a prodigious great contest was to come off ; and hell-defying challenges had been given in some Woodville pulpits for Satan to come out and do his prettiest. Nay, by cer- tain prophets that seemed to have the gift of discerning spirits, it was "allowed the ole boy was now out at camp 2 in great force- that some powerful fights would be seen, but that the ole fellow would agin and agin git the worst of it."
The camp proper was a parallelogramic clearing, and was most of the day shaded by the superb forest trees, which admitted, here and there, a little mellow sunshine to gleam through the dense foliage upon their own dark forms quivering in a kind of living shadow over the earth. At night, the camp was illuminated by lines of fires kindled and duly sustained on the tops' of many altars and columns of stone and log-masonry-a truly noble and grand idea, peculiar to the West. Indeed, to the imaginative, there is very much to bewitch in the poetry and romance of a Western camp-meeting :- the wildness, the gloom, the grandeur of our forests-the gleaming sunlight by day, as if good spirits were " smiling on the sons of light in their victories over the children of darkness-the clear blue sky like a dome over the tents-that dome, at night, radiant with golden stars, like glories of heaven streaming through the apertures of the concave! And the moon ! -how like a spirit world, a residence of ransomed ones! The very tents, too !- formed like booths at the feast of tabernacles, and seeming to be full of joyous hearts-a community having all things common, dead to the world, just ready to enter heaven! And when the trumpet sounded for singing !- the enthusiastic performance of child-like tunes, poured from the hearts of two thousand raptured devotees, till the bosom of the wilderness trembles and rejoices while it rolls over its wooded hills and
2 Candour obliges me to say these "allowings" and predictions were true-the devil did seem to be out there in pretty great force. I cannot say so positively about his defeats.
-
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through its dark valleys the echo of the pæan witih the peal of deep thunder and the roar of rushing whirlwinds!
Under the direction of wise and talented men, a campmeeting may possibly be a means of a little permanent good; but, with the best management, it is a doubtful means of much moral and spiritual good-nay, it cannot long be used in a cautious and sober way. In religion, as in all other affairs, where the main depen- dence is on expedients to reach the moral man through the fancy and imagination, what begins in poetry must soon end in prose. Nay, if a religious meeting be protracted beyond one or two days, novelties must be introduced ; and such are invariably exciting and entertaining, but never spiritual and instructive ; if not introduced, the meeting becomes, in the opinion of the majority, stale. Heat, and flame, and smoke, constitute, with most, "a good meeting." Nay again, and yea also, the final result of man-contrived means and measures is at war with true courtesy, uncensorious feelings, the cheerful discharge of daily secular duties, and the culture of the intellect. The whole is selfish in tendency and promotive of presumptuous confidence, and a contemptible self-righteousness. Adequate reasons enough may be assigned for the popularity of camp-meetings, and none of them essentially religious or even praise-worthy ; although many essentially worthy and religious persons both advocate and attend such places; for instance, the love of variety and novelty-the desire of excitements-roman- tic feelings-tedium of common every-day life-love of good fel- lowship-and even a willingness to obtain a cheap religious char- acter-and, also, a secret hope that we please God and merit heaven for so extraordinary and long-continued devotion. Add, our innate love of pageantry, inclining us not only to behold scenes but to make and be a part of scenes ; for even in this sense-"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players."
A camp-meeting might, indeed, be reformed; and so might the theatre-but the one event is no more probable than the other: and as a reformed theatre would be little visited, so we apprehend would be a reformed camp-meeting. The respective abuses of both are essential to their existence. But this is digressing.
The tents were in a measure permanent fixtures, the uprights and cross pieces remaining from season to season; but now all were
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garnished with fresh and green branches and coverings. These tents formed the sides of the parallelogram, intervals being left in suitable places for alleys and scaffolds; while in the woods were other more soldierly-looking tents of linen or canvass, and pitched in true war style; although not a few tents were mere squares of sheets, coverlets and table-cloths. Also for tents were up propped some twenty or thirty carts and wagons, and fur- nished with a chair or two, and some sort of sleeping apparatus. In the rear of the regular tents, and, indeed, of many others, were places and fixtures for kindling a fire and boiling water for coffee, tea, chocolate, &c. &c .- a few culinary operations being yet needed beyond the mountains of food brought from home ready for demolition.
Indeed, a camp-meeting out there is the most mammoth picnic- possible ; and it is one's own fault, saint or sinner, if he gets not enough to eat, and that the best the land affords. It would be impossible even for churlish persons to be stingy in the open air ; the ample sky above and the boundless woods around; the wings of gay birds flashing in sunshine, and the squirrels racing up gigantic trunks and barking and squeaking amid the grand branches ; and what then must be the effect of all on the proverb- ially open-hearted native born Westerns? Ay! the native Corn- Cracker, Hoosier, Buckeye. and all men and women "born in a cane-brake and rocked in a sugar trough,"-all born to follow a trail and cock an old fashioned lock-rifle,-all such are open- hearted, fearless, generous, chivalric, even in spite of much filth and scum and base leaven from foreign places. And hence, al- though no 'decided friend to camp-meetings, spiritually and mor- ally and theologically considered, we do say that at a Western camp-meeting as at a barbecue, the very heart and soul of hos- pitality and kindness is wide open and poured freely forth. We can, maybe, equal it in here ; but we never try.3
Proceed we now to things spiritual. And first, we give notice that attention will be paid only to grand matters and that very many episodial things are omitted, such as incidental exhortations
3 If folks like the "New Purchase," we shall write "The Old Purchase" -in which work things in here will receive justice. .
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and prayers from authorized, as well as unauthorized folks, male and female, whose spirits often suddenly stirred, and not to be controlled like those of old-fashioned prophets, forced our friends to speak out, like quaker ladies and gentlemen in reformed meet- ings, and even when they have nothing to say; and also will be omitted all irregular outcries, groans, shouts, and bodily exercises, subordinate, indeed, to grand chorusses and contests, but other- wise beginning without adequate cause and ending in nothing.
The camp was furnished with several stands for preaching, exhorting, jumping and jerking ; but still one place was the pulpit above all others. This was a large scaffold secured between two noble sugar trees, and railed in to prevent from falling over in a swoon, or springing over in an ecstasy ; its cover the dense foliage of the trees whose trunks formed the graceful and massive col- umns. Here was said to be also the altar-but I could not see its horns or any sacrifice; and the pen, which I did see-a place full of clean straw, where were put into fold stray sheep willing to return. It was at this pulpit, with its altar and pen, the regular preaching was done; around here the congregation assembled; hence orders were issued; here, happened the hardest fights and were gained the greatest victories, being the spot where it was understood Satan fought in person; and here could be seen ges- tures the most frantic, and heard noises the most unimaginable, and often the most appalling. It was the place, in short, where most crowded either with praiseworthy intentions of getting some religion, or with unholy purposes of being amused; we of course designing neither one nor the other, but only to see philo- sophically and make up an opinion. At every grand outcry a simultaneous rush would, however, take place from all parts of the camp, proper and improper, towards the pulpit, altar, and pen; till the crowding, by increasing the suffocation and the fainting, would increase the tumult and the uproar; but this in the estima- tion of many devotees only rendered the meeting more lively and interesting.
By considering what was done at this central station one may approximate the amount of spiritual labour done in a day, and then a week in the whole camp:
I. About day-break on Sabbath a horn blasted us up for
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public prayer and exhortation-the exercises continuing nearly two hours.
2. Before breakfast, another blast for family and private prayer; and then every tent became, in camp language, "a bethel of struggling Jacobs and prevailing Israels ;" every tree "an altar;" and every grove "a secret closet ;" till the air all became re- ligious words and phrases, and vocal with "Amens."
3. After a proper interval came a horn for the forenoon service ; then was delivered the sermon, and that followed by an appendix of some half dozen exhortations let off right and left, and even behind the pulpit, that all might have a portion in due season.
4. We had private and secret prayer again before dinner ;- some clambering into thick trees to be hid, but forgetting in their simplicity, that they were heard and betrayed. But religious de- votion 4 excuses all errors and mistakes.
5. The afternoon sermon with its bob-tail string of exhortations.
6. Private and family prayer about tea time.
7. But lastly, we had what was termed "a precious season" in the third regular service at the principia of the camp. This season began not long after tea and was kept up long after I left the ground; which was about midnight. And now sermon after ser- mon and exhortation after exhortation followed like shallow, foaming, roaring waters ; till the speakers were exhausted and the assembly became an uneasy and billowy mass, now hushing to a sobbing quiescence, and now rousing by the groans of sinners and the triumphant cries of folks that had "jist got religion ;" and then, again subsiding to a buzzy state occasioned by the whimpering and whining voices of persons giving spiritual advice and com- fort! How like a volcanic crater after the evomition of its lava in a fit of burning cholic, and striving to re-settle its angry and tumultuating stomach !
It is time, however, to speak of the three grand services and their concomitants, and to introduce several master spirits of the camp.
Our first character, is the Reverend Elder Sprightly. This
4 A man may make a fool of himself in worship in a Christian land, and be deemed a saint; when he does so in Pagan worship, we call him a sinner. Six of one and so forth.
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gentleman was of good natural parts; and in a better school of intellectual discipline and more fortunate circumstances, he must have become a worthy minister of some more tasteful, literary, and evangelical sect. As it was, he had only become, what he never got beyond-"a very smart man;" and his aim had become one-to enlarge his own people. And in this work, so great was his success, that, to use his own modest boastfulness in his ser- mon today,-"although folks said when he came to the Purchase that a single corn-crib would hold his people, yet, bless the Lord, they had kept spreading and spreading till all the corn-cribs in Egypt wern't big enough to hold them!"
He was very happy at repartee, as Robert Dale Owen well knows; and not "slow" (inexpert) in the arts of "taking off"- and-"giving them their own." This trait we shall illustrate by an instance.
Mr. Sprightly was, by accident, once present where a Camp- bellite Baptist, that had recently taken out a right for administer- ing six doses of lobelia, red pepper and steam, to men's bodies, and a plunge into cold water for the good of their souls, was holding forth against all Doctors, secular and sacred, and very fiercely against Sprightly's brotherhood. Doctor Lobelia's text was found somewhere in Pope Campbell's New Testament; as it suited the following discourse introduced with the usual inspired preface :-
DOCTOR LOBELIA'S SERMON.
"Well, I never rub'd my back agin a collige, nor git no sheep- skin, and allow the Apostuls didn't nithur. Did anybody ever hear of Peter and Poll a-goin to them new-fangled places and gitten skins to preach by? No, sirs, I allow not ; no sirs, we don't pretend to loguk-this here new testament's sheepskin enough for me. And don't Prisbeteruns and tother baby sprinklurs have reskorse to loguk and skins to show how them what's 'emerz'd go down into the water and come up agin? And as to Sprightly's preachurs, don't they dress like big-bugs, and go ridin about the Purchis on hunder-dollar hossis, a-spunginin on poor priest-riden folks and and a-eaten fried chicken fixins so powerful fast that chickens has got skerse in these diggins; and them what ain't fried makes tracks and hides when they sees them a-comin?
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"But, dear Bruthrun, we don't want store cloth and yaller but- tins, and fat hosses and chickin fixins, and the like doins-no, sirs ! we only wants your souls-we only wants beleevur's baptism- we wants prim-prim-yes, Apostul's Christianity, the christianity of Christ and them times, when Christians was Christians, and tuk up thare cross and went down into the water, and was buried in the gineine sort of baptism by emerzhin. That's all we wants; and I hope all's convinced that's the true way-and so let all come right out from among them and git beleevur's baptism; and so now if any brother wants to say a word I'm done, and I'll make way for him to preach."
Anticipating this common invitation, our friend Sprightly, in- dignant at this unprovoked attack of Doctor Lobelia, had, in order to disguise himself, exchanged his clerical garb for a friend's blue coatee bedizzened with metal buttons ; anl also had erected a very tasteful and sharp coxcomb on his head, out of hair usually re- posing sleek and quiet in the most saint-like decorum; and then, at the bid from the pulpit-stump, out stepped Mr. Sprightly from the opposite spice-wood grove, and advanced with a step so, smirky and dandyish as to create universal amazement and whis- pered demands-"Why ! who's that ?! " And some of his very people, who were present, as they told me, did not know their preacher till his clear, sharp voice, came upon the hearing, when they showed, by the sudden lifting of hands and eyebrows, how near they were to exclaiming-"Well! I never !! "
Stepping on to the consecrated stump, our friend, without either preliminary hymn or prayer, commenced thus :-
"My friends, I only intend to say a few words in answer to the pious brother that's just sat down, and shall not detain you but a few minutes. The pious brother took a good deal of time to tell what we soon found out ourselves-that he never went to college, and don't understand logic. He boasts too of having no sheep- skin to preach by ; but I allow any sensible buck-sheep would have died powerful sorry, if he'd ever thought his hide would come to be handled by some preachers. The skin of the knowingest old buck couldn't do some folks any good -- some things salt won't save.
"I rather allow Johnny Calvin's boys and "'tother baby sprink- '
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lers,' ain't likely to have they idees physicked out of them by steam logic, and doses of No. 6. They can't be steamed up so high as to want cooling by a cold water plunge. But I want to say a word about Sprightly's preachers, because I have some slight acquaintance with that there gentleman, and don't choose to have them all run down for nothing.
"The pious brother brings several grave charges; first they ride good horses. Now don't every man, woman, and child in the Purchase know that Sprightly and his preachers have hardly any home, and that they live on horseback? The money most folks spend in land, these men spend for a good horse; and don't they need a good horse to stand mud and swim floods? And is it any sin for a horse to be kept fat that does so much work? The book says 'a merciful man is merciful to his beast,' and that we mustn't 'muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn.' Step round that fence corner, and take a peep, dear friends, at a horse hung on the stake; what's he like? A wooden frame with a dry hide stretch'd over it. What's he live on? Ah! that's the pint? Well, what's them buzzards after ?- look at them sailing up there. Now who owns that live carrion ?- the pious brother that's preached to us just now. And I want to know if it wouldn't be better for him to give that dumb brute something to cover his bones, before he talks against 'hunder dollur hossis' and the like?
"The next charge is, wearing good clothes. Friends, don't all folks when they come to meeting put on their best clothes? and wouldn't it be wrong if preachers came in old torn coats and dirty shirts ? It wouldn't do no how. Well, Sprightly and his preachers preach near about every day; and oughtn't they always to look decent! Take then a peep of the pious brother that makes this charge; his coat is out at elbow, and has only three or four but- tons left, and his arm, where he wipes his nose and mouth, is shiney as a looking glass-his trousers are crawling up to show he's got no stockings on; and his face has got a crop of beard two weeks old and couldn't be cleaned by 'baby sprinklin ;' yes, look at them there matters, and say if Sprightly's preachers ain't more like the apostles in decency than the pious brother is.
"A word now about chicken-fixins and doins. And I say it would be a charity to give the pious brother sich a feed now
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and then, for he looks half-starved, and savage as a meat-axe ; and I advise that old hen out thare clucking up her brood not to come this way just now, if she don't want all to disappear. But I say that Sprightly's preachers are so much beliked in the Purchase, that folks are always glad to see them, and make a pint of giving them the best out of love; and that's more than can be said for some folks here.
"The pious brother says, he only wants our souls-then what makes him peddle about Thomsonian physic? Why don't he and Campbell make steam and No. 6 as free as preaching? I read of a quack doctor once, who used to give his advice free gratis for nothing to any one what would buy a box of his pills-but as I see the pious brother is crawling round the fence to his anatomi- cal horse and physical saddle bags, I have nothing more to say, and so, dear friends, I bid you all good-bye."
Such was Rev. Elder Sprightly, who preached to us on Sabbath morning at the Camp. Hence, it is not remarkable that in com- mon with many worthy persons, he should think his talents properly employed in using up "Johnny Calvin and his boys;" especially as no subject is better for popularity at a camp-meeting. He gave us, accordingly, first, that affecting story of Calvin and Servetus, in which the latter figured to-day like a Christian Con- fessor and martyr, and the former as a diabolical persecuter; many moving incidents being introduced not found in history, and many ingenious inferences and suppositions tending to blacken the Reformer's character. Judging from the frequency of the deep groans, loud amens, and noisy hallelujahs of the congrega- tion during the narrative, had Calvin suddenly thrust in among us his hatchet face and goat's beard, he would have been hissed and pelted, nay possibly, been lynched and soused in the Branch ; while the excellent Servetus would have been toted on our shoulders, and feasted in the tents on fried ham, cold chicken fixins and horse sorrel pies !
Here is a specimen of Mr. S.'s mode of exciting triumphant ex- clamation, amens, groans, &c., against Calvin and his followers :-
"Dear sisters, don't you love the tender little
darling babes that hang on your parental bosoms? (amen!)- Yes ! I know you do-(amen ! amen !)-Yes I know, I know it-
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(Amen, amen! hallelujah!) Now don't it make your parental hearts throb with anguish to think those dear infantile darlings might some day be out burning brush and fall into the flames and be burned to death ! (deep groans.)-Yes, it does, it does! But oh ! sisters, oh ! mothers! how can you think your babes mightn't get religion and die and be burned for ever and ever? (the Lord forbid-amen-groans.) But, oho! only think-only think oh! would you ever a had them darling infantile sucklings born, if you had a known they were to be burned in a brush heap! (No, no !- groans-shrieks) What ! what ! what! if you had foreknown they must have gone to hell !- (hoho! hoho !- amen !) And does any body think He 5 is such a tryrant as to make spotless, innocent babies just to damn them? (No! in a voice of thunder.)-No! sisters ! no! no! mothers! No! no! no! sinners no !!- he ain't such a tyrant! let John Calvin burn, torture and roast, but He never foreordained babies, as Calvin says, to damnation ! (dam- nation-echoed by hundreds.)-Hallelujah ! 'tis a free salvation ! Glory ! a free salvation !- (Here Mr. S. battered the rail of the pulpit with his fists, and kicked the bottom with his feet-many screamed-some cried amen !- others groaned and hissed-and more than a dozen females of two opposite colours arose and clapped their hands as if engaged in starching, &c. &c.) No ho! 'tis a free, a free, a free salvation !- away with Calvin! 'tis for all; all! ALL. Yes! shout it out! clap on! rejoice ! rejoice! oho- oho ! sinners, sinners, sinners, oh-ho-oho!" &c. &c.
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