But, next to the very necessaries of life, religion was the most important subject to Americans of 1860. The Puritan spirit, while losing some of its hold in New England, had captured the people of the rest of the country. Except as to the Catholics and the Episcopalians, all Americans were born, or thought themselves born, utterly depraved and weighted down with the sin of Adam and Eve, their "first parents," from which burden the only way of escape was through prayer and agony of soul. Even this prospect was denied to many, for some influential religious teachers urged that God could not hear the supplications of sinners. These must await the call of Heaven, and if this failed, they were bound for the "lake of fire," whence there was no return. The intelligent and well-informed spoke with all seriousness of "getting religion," and in the vast country districts the most suitable season for this was the hot July and August days. Revivals among nearly all the leading denominations were held at this time in the churches or under widespread arbors made from the branches of trees. The preaching and the singing were not unlike that which brought the Germans of the eighth century to the Roman communion. The other worlds were just two: one the city of the golden gates and pearly streets, the other the bottomless pit of liquid fire into which Satan would surely plunge all who failed to make their peace with God in this life. The old Puritan lines formerly learned by every child-- "God's vengeance feeds the flame With piles of wood and brimstone flood, That none can quench the same"-- represented to most people of the decade just preceding the Civil War all they said. Both old men and young children dreamed of the awful retribution which awaited them in the other world. And there was a fiery zeal in the work of saving men's souls from the wrath to come which showed that it was no figurative faith which moved the preachers and their co-workers. A song sung by all ran in one of its favorite stanzas:-- "Must I be carried to the skies On flow'ry beds of ease, While others fought to win the prize And sailed through bloody seas?" Excitement naturally overcame many, and they rushed forward to the mourner's benches in front of the altar and cried out for mercy, or silently prayed for days and weeks till the light "broke upon them" and they went forth shouting for joy. These then became exhorters, and moved among their friends in the congregation, begging them to yield their "proud and haughty spirits" ere it should be too late. At times scores of penitents would be on their knees in the spaces about the altar, others would be "laboring" with the sinners not yet stricken, and still others thanking God in loud voices for their delivery from sin and Satan, whom all regarded as an active demon always seeking whom he might destroy.