o
probably took us for what we were--decent country people. We heard much
fine chanting by the choir, and an admirable sermon, preached by a
venerable prebend, on "Tares and Wheat." The congregation was numerous
and attentive. After service we returned to our inn, and at two o'clock
dined. During dinner our conversation ran almost entirely on the sermon,
which we all agreed was one of the best sermons we had ever heard, and
most singularly adapted to country people like ourselves, being on "Wheat
and Tares." When dinner was over my wife and daughter repaired to the
neighbouring church, and I went in quest of the camp-meeting, having a
mighty desire to know what kind of a thing Methodism at Chester was.

I found about two thousand people gathered together in a field near the
railroad station; a waggon stood under some green elms at one end of the
field, in which were ten or a dozen men with the look of Methodist
preachers; one of these was holding forth to the multitude when I
arrived, but he presently sat down, I having, as I suppose, only come in
time to hear the fag-end of his sermon. Another succeeded him, who,
after speaking for about half an hour, was succeeded by another. All the
discourses were vulgar and fanatical, and in some instances
unintelligible at least to my ears. There was plenty of vociferation,
but not one single burst of eloquence. Some of the assembly appeared to
take considerable interest in what was said, and every now and then
showed they did by devout hums and groans; but the generality evidently
took little or none, staring about listlessly, or talking to one another.
Sometimes, when anything particularly low escaped from the mouth of the
speaker, I heard exclamations of "how low! well, I think I could preach
better than that," and the like. At length a man of about fifty,
pock-broken and somewhat bald, began to speak: unlike the others who
screamed, shouted, and seemed in earnest, he spoke in a dry, waggish
style, which had all the coarseness and nothing of the cleverness of that
of old Rowland Hill, whom I once heard. After a great many jokes, some
of them very poor, and others exceedingly thread-bare, on the folly of
those who sell themselves to the Devil for a little temporary enjoyment,
he introduced the subject of drunkenness, or rather drinking fermented
liquors, which he seemed to consider the same thing; and many a sorry
joke on the folly of drinking them did he crack, which