owever
finished, is from the brain, and is an art; it may convince the mind
and captivate the imagination, but never touches the heart or stirs the
soul. To awaken feelings in others, we must feel ourselves. Eloquence
is the volume of flame, oratory the shaft of polished ice; the one
fires to madness, the other delights and instructs.

Religion is the pathos of the heart, and must be awakened from the
heart's emotions. The imagination is the great attribute of the mind,
gathering and creating thought and inspiring feeling. Hence, the
peculiar system of the Methodists in their worship is the most
efficient in proselyting, and especially with a rude, imaginative
people.

The camp-meeting was an admirable device for this purpose, and its
abandonment by the sect is as foolish as would be that of a knight who
would throw away his sword as he was rushing to battle. Fashion is
omnipotent in religion, as in other things, and with the more general
diffusion of education, camp-meetings have come to be considered as
vulgar and unfashionable. To be vulgar, is to be common; to be common,
is to be natural. The masses, and especially in democratic communities,
must always be vulgar or common--must always be, in the main,
illiterate and rude; and it is for the conversion and salvation of
these multitudes the preacher should struggle, and in his efforts his
most efficient means should be used.

The camp-meeting, at night, when all the fire-stands are ablaze, and
the multitude are assembled and singing, is beyond description
picturesque: when, too, some eloquent and enthusiastic preacher is
stimulating to intense excitement the multitude around him with the
fervor of his words, and the wild, passionate manifestations of his
manner, to see the crowd swaying to and fro, to hear the groans and
sobs of the half-frenzied multitude, and, not unfrequently, the
maddened shriek of hysterical fear, all coming up from the
half-illuminated spot, is thrillingly exciting. And when the sermon is
finished, to hear all this heated mass break forth into song, the wild
melody of which floats, in the stillness of night, upon the breeze to
the listening ear a mile away, in cadences mournfully sweet, make the
camp-meeting among the most exciting of human exhibitions. In such a
school were trained those great masters of pulpit oratory, Pierce,
Wynans, Capers, and Bascomb. Whitfield was the great exemplar of these;
but none, perhaps, so imitated his style a