"One young woman, after lying foaming and writhing upon the ground, like a creature possessed, sprang up several feet into the air, exclaiming, 'I have got it! I have got it! I have got it!' To which others responded--'Keep it! keep it! keep it!' I asked a bystander what she meant. He replied, 'she has got religion. It is the Spirit that is speaking in her.' I felt too much shocked to laugh out, yet could scarcely retain my gravity. "Passing by one of the tents, I saw a very fat woman lying upon a bench on her face, uttering the most dismal groans, while two well-fed, sleek-looking ministers, in rusty black coats and very dirty-looking white chokers, were drumming upon her fat back with their fists, exclaiming--'Here's glory! here's glory, my friends! Satan is departing out of this woman. Hallelujah!' This spectacle was too shocking to provoke a smile. "There was a young lady dressed in a very nice silk gown. Silk was a very scarce and expensive article in those days. The poor girl got dreadfully excited, and was about to fling herself down upon the wet grass, to show the depth of her humility and contrition, when she suddenly remembered the precious silk dress, and taking a shawl of less value from her shoulders, carefully spread it over the wet ground. "Ah, my dear friend," continued the old lady, "one had a deal to learn at that camp-meeting. A number of those people knew no more what they were about than persons in a dream. They worked themselves up to a pitch of frenzy, because they saw others carried away by the same spirit; and they seemed to try which could make the most noise, and throw themselves into the most unnatural positions. Few of them carried the religious zeal they manifested in such a strange way at that meeting, into their own homes. Before the party broke up it was forgotten, and they were laughing and chatting about their worldly affairs. The young lads were sparking the girls, and the girls laughing and flirting with them. I remarked to an old farmer, who was reckoned a very pious man, 'that such conduct, in persons who had just been in a state of despair about their sins, was very inconsistent, to say the least of it;' and he replied, with a sanctimonious smile--'It is only the Lord's lambs, playing with each other.'" These camp-meetings seldom take place near large towns, where the people have the benefit of a resident minister, but they still occur on the borders of civilization, and present the same disorderly mixture of fanaticism and vanity. More persons go for a frolic than to obtain any spiritual benefit. In illustration of this, I will tell you a story which a very beautiful young married lady told to me with much glee, for the thing happened to herself, and she was the principal actor in the scene.