"I had an aunt, the wife of a very wealthy yeoman, who lived in one of the back townships of C---, on the St. Lawrence. She was a very pious and hospitable woman, and none knew it better than the travelling ministers, who were always well fed and well lodged at her house, particularly when they assembled to hold a camp-meeting, which took place once in several years in that neighbourhood. "I was a girl of fifteen, and was staying with my aunt for the benefit of the country-air, when one of these great gatherings took place. Having heard a great deal about their strange doings at these meetings, I begged very hard to be allowed to make one of the spectators. My aunt, who knew what a merry, light-hearted creature I was, demurred for some time before she granted my request. "'If the child does not _get religion_,' she said, 'she will turn it all into fun, and it will do her more harm than good.' "Aunt was right enough in her conjunctures; but still she entertained a latent hope, that the zeal of the preachers, the excitement of the scene, and the powerful influence produced by the example of the pious, might have a beneficial effect on my young mind, and lead to my conversion. Aunt had herself been reclaimed from a state of careless indifference by attending one of these meetings, and at last it was determined that I was to go. "First came the ministers, and then the grand feed my aunt had prepared for them, before they opened the campaign. Never shall I forget how those holy men devoured the good things set before them. I stood gazing upon them in utter astonishment, wondering when their meal would come to an end. They none wore whiskers, and their broad fat faces literally shone with high feeding. When I laughed at their being such excellent knife and fork men, aunt gravely reproved my levity, by saying, 'that the labourer was worthy of his hire; and that it would be a great sin to muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn; that field preaching was a very exhausting thing, and that these pious men required a great deal of nourishment to keep up their strength for the performance of good work.' "After they were gone, I dressed and accompanied my aunt to the scene of action. "It was a lovely spot, about a mile from the house. The land rose in a gentle slope from the river, and was surrounded on three sides by lofty woods. The front gave us a fine view of the St. Lawrence, rushing along in its strength, the distant murmur of the waves mingling with the sigh of the summer breeze, that swept the dense foliage of the forest trees. The place had been cleared many years before, and was quite free from stumps and fallen timber, the ground carpeted with soft moss and verdant fresh looking turf.