A religious allegory colored nearly all his songs, a pathetic, childlike trust in the supernatural spoke through them, and biblical references, echoes of the 'meetin',' shreds of the minister's teaching, were strewn indiscriminately through all of them. 'The rolling of Jordan's waters, the sound of the last trumpet, the vision of Jacob's ladder, the building of the ark, Daniel in the lion's den, Ezekiel's wheel in the middle of a wheel, Elijah's chariot of fire, the breaking up of the Universe, the lurid pictures of the Apocalypse--all asked for swelling proclamation.' Analogies between the chosen people and their own in bondage were inevitable--and 'Hallelujahs' seemed as appropriate in secular songs as in spiritual ones. Often biblical words were garbled into mere nonsense. Thus 'Jews crucified him' became 'Jews, screws, defidum,' etc. The personality of the Prince of Darkness assumed a degree of reality which reminds us of the characters of mediæval miracle plays. One of the songs personifies him thus: 'O Satan comes, like a busy ole man, Hal-ly, O hal-ly, O hal-lelu! He gets you down at de foot o' de hill, Hal-ly, O hal-ly, O hal-lelu!' The so-called spirituals ('sper'chels) hold perhaps the largest place in the negro's sacred repertory. These plantation songs--'spontaneous outbursts of intense religious fervor'--had their origin chiefly in the camp-meetings, the revivals, and other religious exercises. 'They breathe a childlike faith in a personal Father and glow with the hope that the children of bondage will ultimately pass out of the wilderness into the land of freedom.' To them belong such gems as 'You May Bury Me in the Eas',' the plaintive 'Nobody Knows de Trouble I see,' the tender 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,' and many others as rare. At meetings the spirituals were often accompanied by a most extraordinary form of religious ceremony, namely the so-called 'shouts,' which flourished particularly in South Carolina and south of it during antebellum days.[73] The spirituals sung in this connection were consequently called 'shout songs' or 'running spirituals.' The shouts were veritable religious orgies, or bacchanalia, and no doubt represent a relic of an African custom. Julien Tiersot refers to them as 'dishevelled dances.'[74] A vivid description of a shout is given by a writer in 'The Nation' of May 30, 1867: