5 oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ber matrons, young men, maidens, and little children, flocked to the 

 common center of attraction ; every difficulty was surmounted, every 

 risk ventured, to be present at the camp-meeting." 



The concourse became immense. At one of these assemblages the 

 attendance was computed at twenty thousand souls. And here were 

 united all the elements best suited to stir the emotional nature of man 

 and to derange his nervous system. The spectacle at night, as Dr. 

 Davidson depicts it, was one of the wildest grandeur. With great 

 beauty of description he says : " The glare of the camp-fires, falling on 

 a dense assemblage of heads simultaneously bowed in prayer, and re- 

 flected back from long ranges of tents upon every side ; hundreds of 

 candles and lamps suspended among the trees, together with numerous 

 torches flashing to and fro, throwing an uncertain light upon the trem- 

 ulous foliage ; the solemn chanting of hymns swelling and falling on 

 the night wind ; the impassioned exhortations, the earnest prayers, 

 the sobs, shrieks, or shouts, bursting from persons under intense agita- 

 tion of mind ; the sudden spasms which seized upon scores, and unex- 

 pectedly dashed them to the ground all conspired not only to invest 

 the scene with terrific interest, but to work up the feelings to the high- 

 est pitch of excitement." * To these circumstances, that tended so 

 powerfully to excite the nervous centers, we have to add others which 

 gave intensity to their effect. The meetings were protracted to a late 

 hour in the night, keeping the feelings long upon the stretch. A rev- 

 erent and general enthusiasm ascribed the bodily agitations to a mys- 

 terious, divine agency. The preaching was fervid and impassioned 

 in the extreme. Many of the preachers, unable to control their emo- 

 tions during the sermon, went around in "a singing ecstasy," shouting 

 and shaking hands with others, as much excited as themselves. In 

 this way everything was done to " heap fuel on the fire," and it was 

 at such meetings that thousands fell in convulsions to the ground. 



Some of the actors in these strange scenes have left records of the 

 state of their minds, which show that they were in a condition border- 

 ing on insanity, if not actually insane. One of them relates that, while 

 under conviction on account of his sins, he went about the woods for 

 two years, through rain and snow, " roaring, howling, praying, day 

 and night." And when light and hope broke in at last upon his mind, 

 which he describes as a "rushing, mighty wind, that descended from 

 heaven, and filled his whole being," he went shouting over the en- 

 campment all night and a great part of the next day. He continues : 

 " I now made the mountains, woods, and canebrakes ring louder with 

 my shouts and praises than I once did with my howling cries ; I never 

 fell on my knees in secret but the Lord poured out his power, so that 

 I shouted out aloud. Sometimes I shouted for two or three hours, and 

 even fainted under the hand of the Lord. I was ready to cry out at 

 the name of Jesus. The brightness of heaven rested continually upon 



* Dr. Davidson's " History of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky." 



