The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-09-09 00:00:00

AN AMERICAN CAMP MEETING.

The Special Correspondent of The Times, writing
from Philadelphia, gives the following interesting
account of a camp meeting at Pitman-grove, which he
had visited :

"Readers who know anytLing of America must be familiar
with one of the most curious and characteristic outgrowths
of its varied religious life—the camp meeting; but those
Who know of it only from books may still require to be told
what the modern form of camp meeting is like. . . . When
I went the day before yesterday to Pitman•grove, which my
American friends had recommended to me as a typical
Methodist camp-meeting, and one of the largest and most
important in the country, I was surprised to find, not a camp,
but a little town. What would the old Puritan say if he
could see at a camp-meeting two-storied houses, bedr, rock-
ing-chairs, and the other luxuries of modern civilization?

"The fact is that with the growth of civilisation camp
meetings have lost their old character of spiritual neces-
saries, and have become, as it were, spiritual luxuries.
Pitmaugrove, to begin with, is only about forty minutes
by rail from Philadelphia. Scarcely one of those who go to
it could not more easily go to a church. Some spend part
of the summer there, if not the whole stammer. It is, in
fact, a 'religious resort,' on a smaller scale, like ()man-
grove, which I described in a recent letter. The little
town is also built in a fine grove of oaks, pines, and chestnuts.
It is shaped exactly like a wheel, with the pavilion or '
as it is usually called, for its hub 'or axle, and 12 avenues
branching off as spokes. The avenues are naturally narrow,
there being no horse-cars or other vehicles larger than per-
ambulators, which, by the way, are common enough to call
for space, and the houses are most cf them placed
side by side, so closely together that the inmates could
almost shake hands, or, at least, umbrellas, from their re-
spective windows. This proximity leads to a most
characteristically American way of living; everybody brings
his or her reckirgchair out on to the little raised platform in
front of the house, and as they are thus all within easy talk-
ing distance,not only of their neighboure,but also of whoever
passes up and down the avenues, the little town is turned
into a large hotel. Indeed, it is scarcely, if at all bigger than
some of the temporary Centennial hotels. This is the only
point, however, in which it resembles hotel life. In other
respects it prevents a most favourable contrast. It has none
of the hotel showiness, stiffness, or extravagance. The people
all anew each other, or, at least something of each other;
address each other as 'brother,' arid sister,' and are in
various other ways •constantly neiug reminded .that they
have met for a common religious purpose; hence they are
without most the oranary motives for display,
and carry simplicity to its extremes,: point. I saw one lady
going about with her hair in curl-papers, and an old gentle-
man, whose groanlngs marked him out as a prominent. mem-
ber of the congregation, attended Divine service in slippers
and a coloured dressing gown. A few of the ladles, especially
the young ladies, were handsomely dressed, though I saw
nothing that could be called a toilette; but the majority were
clad almost as simply, though by no means as expensively, as
Qaakeresses, wearing little or nothing in the shape of ores
-
went or finery. The townsfolk, if I may so call them, consist
of all classes, from w,ll-tado merchants to mere labourers.
But I should fancy that members of what in England we call
the lower middle class chiefly predominate. The houses vary
with the social position of the occupants, some few are the
merest huts, costing perhaps, Li or £5 fo build and with only
one large room, out of which others are extemporized by the
simple expedient of hanging clothes from wall to wall on a
line. Other houses have cost from £lOO to £l5O, and though
built and furnished in the simplest style, look extremely
comfortable and neat, not to say elegant. Many of the
occupants own both houses and laud; others are tenants of
the company or association by which Pitman-grove, like
Ocean-grove, was originally formed. This association con-
stitutes the local government, and by virtue of a special
charter, frames laws of its own for ita little community. The
sale of intoxicating liquors is rigidly prohibited not only within
the encampment itself, which covers about 800 acres, fenced
in, but within a distance of three miles. The prohibition as
to the three miles holds good, I believe, only during religious
worship, but still, as religions worship goes on almost with-
out cessation during the ten days of the camp meeting the
prohibition applies, I conclude, to these ten days. At no
time can intoxicating liquor or tobacco be sold within the en-
campment ; smoking is even prohibited within the circle'—
that is, the open space surrounding the pavilion or 'altar'
in which Divine service is held. A singular circumstance
connected with this code is that it is carried out
or has this year at least been carried out, without the
• slightest assistance from the police. There would, perhaps,
be nothing strange in this if the visitors to Pitman-grove all
came from religious motives, but many—perhaps a majority'
—of the visitors for the day come out of curiosity ; not a few
come to laugh at the strange noises and contortions made by
Metnodists undergoing the process of conversion. Cheap
excursion trains are run from the neighbouring towns,
while the country people drive in from miles round, only
too glad to get a chance of varying the monotony of their
lives by a visit to the camp. Most of them are young people,
and their behaviour on the way home sometimes gives rise
to scandal, the odium of whice falls upon the camp itself.
It is said that nearly 10,000 people altogether were at Pitman-
grove last Sunday, and as they were all drawn more or less
towards the central point of attraction—the ,'altar '—they
constituted what in a large city would be considered a
formidable crowd. Some had come late, last 'to see the
fun,' after a holyday which must have been strangely unlike
most American holidays, it a little whisky-driplfing had not
formed one of its diversions. Yet there was not one police-