ion the
camp-meeting was evolved as the typical religious festival. To the great
camp-meetings the frontiersmen flocked from far and near, on foot, on
horseback, and in wagons. Every morning at daylight the multitude was
summoned to prayer by sound of trumpet. No preacher or exhorter was
suffered to speak unless he had the power of stirring the souls of his
hearers. The preaching, the praying, and the singing went on without
intermission, and under the tremendous emotional stress whole
communities became fervent professors of religion. Many of the scenes at
these camp-meetings were very distasteful to men whose religion was not
emotional and who shrank from the fury of excitement into which the
great masses were thrown, for under the strain many individuals
literally became like men possessed, whether of good or of evil spirits,
falling into ecstasies of joy or agony, dancing, shouting, jumping,
fainting, while there were widespread and curious manifestations of a
hysterical character, both among the believers and among the scoffers;
but though this might seem distasteful to an observer of education and
self-restraint, it thrilled the heart of the rude and simple
backwoodsman and reached him as he could not possibly have been reached
in any other manner. Often the preachers of the different denominations
worked in hearty unison; but often they were sundered by bitter jealousy
and distrust. The fiery zeal of the Methodists made them the leaders;
and in their war on the forces of evil they at times showed a tendency
to include all non-methodists--whether Baptists, Lutherans, Catholics,
or infidels--in a common damnation. Of course, as always in such a
movement, many even of the earnest leaders at times confounded the
essential and the non-essential, and railed as bitterly against dancing
as against drunkenness and lewdness, or anathematized the wearing of
jewelry as fiercely as the commission of crime. [Footnote: Autobiography
of Peter Cartwright, the Backwoods Preacher.] More than one hearty,
rugged old preacher, who did stalwart service for decency and morality,
hated Calvinism as heartily as Catholicism, and yet yielded to no
Puritan in his austere condemnation of amusement and luxury.

Good Accomplished.
Trials of the Frontier Preachers.

Often men backslid, and to a period of intense emotional religion
succeeded one of utter unbelief and of reversion to the worst practices
which had been given up. Nevertheless,