rectly to the purer emotions of our nature, and through
the natural devotion of the heart lifted the mind to the contemplation
and inspired the soul with the love of God. Its doctrines, based upon
the purest morality, easily comprehensible, and promising salvation to
all who would believe, inspiring an enthusiasm for a pure life, were
natural, and naturally soon became wide-spread, and as the writer
believes, has done more in breaking away the shackles of ignorance and
debasing superstition from the mind, than any other system of worship
or doctrine of faith taught by man; and to this, in a great degree, is
due the freedom of thought, independence of feeling and action,
chivalrous bearing, and high honor of the Southern people. Inculcating
as it does the simple teachings of the gospel of Christ,--to live
virtuously--do no wrong--love thy neighbor as thyself, and unto all do
as you would be done by,--a teaching easy of comprehension, and which,
when sternly enforced by a pure and elevated public sentiment, becomes
the rule of conduct, and society is blessed with harmony and right.
This moral power is omnipotent for good, concentrating communities into
one without divisions or dissensions, to be wielded for good at once
and at all times. Nothing evil can result from such concentration of
opinions being directed by the vicious and wicked, so long as the moral
of this faith shall control the mind and heart.

Camp-meetings, an institution of this church, and which were first
commenced in Georgia, are a tradition there now. Here and there through
the country yet remains, in ruinous decay, the old stand or
extemporized pulpit from which the impassioned preacher addressed the
assembled multitude of anxious listeners; and around the square now
overgrown with brush-wood and forest-trees, prostrate and rotten, the
remains of the cabin tents may be seen, where once the hospitality of
the owners and worshippers was dispensed with a heartiness and
sincerity peculiar to the simple habits, and honest, kindly emotions of
a rude and primitive people.

How well do I remember the first of these meetings I ever witnessed! I
was a small lad, and rode behind my father on horseback to the ground.
It was sixty-five years ago. The concourse was large, consisting of the
people of all the country around--men, women, and children, white and
black. Around a square enclosing some six acres of ground, the tents
were arranged--arbors of green boughs c