The negro preacher, especially those lately called to preach, and the northern missionaries had, during the summer and fall, a flourishing time and a rich harvest. A favorite dissipation among the negroes was going to church services as often as possible, especially to camp-meetings where he or she could shout. It was another mark of freedom to change one's church, or to secede from the white churches. All through the summer of 1865 the revival meetings went on, conducted by new self-"called" colored preachers and the missionaries. The old plantation preachers, to their credit be it remembered, frowned upon this religious frenzy. The people living near the places of meetings complained of the disappearance of poultry and pigs, fruit and vegetables after the late sessions of the African congregations. The various missionaries filled the late slave's head with false notions of many things besides religion, and gathered thousands into their folds from the southern religious organizations. Baptizings were as popular as the opera among the whites to-day. That ceremony took place at the river or creek side. Thousands were sometimes assembled, and the air was electric with emotion. The negro was then as near Paradise as he ever came in his life. The Baptist ceremony of immersion was preferred, because, as one of them remarked, "It looks more like business." Shouting they went into the water and shouting they came out. One old negro woman was immersed in the river and came out screaming: "Freed from slavery! freed from sin! Bless God and General Grant!"[710] Suffering among the Negroes