and the towns below, particularly on Sunday, in the times of divine
service. When one woman is affected, five or six others generally
sympathize with her; and the congregation is thrown into the utmost
confusion. Several old men suppose, unphilosophically and uncharitably,
perhaps, that the will is partly concerned, and that ridicule and
threats would have a tendency to prevent the evil.” How this is now we
did not learn. We saw one singularly masculine woman, however, in a
house on this very plain, who did not look as if she was ever troubled
with hysterics, or sympathized with those that were; or, perchance,
life itself was to her a hysteric fit,—a Nauset woman, of a hardness
and coarseness such as no man ever possesses or suggests. It was enough
to see the vertebrae and sinews of her neck, and her set jaws of iron,
which would have bitten a board-nail in two in their ordinary
action,—braced against the world, talking like a man-of-war’s-man in
petticoats, or as if shouting to you through a breaker; who looked as
if it made her head ache to live; hard enough for any enormity. I
looked upon her as one who had committed infanticide; who never had a
brother, unless it were some wee thing that died in infancy,—for what
need of him?—and whose father must have died before she was born. This
woman told us that the camp-meetings were not held the previous summer
for fear of introducing the cholera, and that they would have been held
earlier this summer, but the rye was so backward that straw would not
have been ready for them; for they lie in straw. There are sometimes
one hundred and fifty ministers (!) and five thousand hearers
assembled. The ground, which is called Millennium Grove, is owned by a
company in Boston, and is the most suitable, or rather unsuitable, for
this purpose of any that I saw on the Cape. It is fenced, and the
frames of the tents are at all times to be seen interspersed among the
oaks. They have an oven and a pump, and keep all their kitchen utensils
and tent coverings and furniture in a permanent building on the spot.
They select a time for their meetings when the moon is full. A man is
appointed to clear out the pump a week beforehand, while the ministers
are clearing their throats; but, probably, the latter do not always
deliver as pure a stream as the former. I saw the heaps of clam-shells
left under the tables, where they had feasted in previous summers, and
supposed, of course, that that was the work of the unconverted, or the
backsliders and scoffers. It looked as if a camp-meeting must be a
singular combination of a prayer-meeting and a picnic.
[Illustration: Millennium Grove camp-meeting grounds]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account