The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1863-10-17
From the New York Independent
LETTER FROM A CAMP-MEETING

4 K x
am here wide awake as the multitude
nous life about me, leaning against the cen
trail pillar of door as wide and welcoming,
though not as lofty, as that of barn. Sew
eral others are lounging in the straw around
me, after the Turkish and aboriginal fashion.
A white roof of now costly cotton rises to
the ridgepole. Benches and trnks line its
sides, and cloaks, umbrellas, and other I'M
pedinenta hang under the caves. A quar-
ter section paled off by high curtains is an
Ell Haram, the sacred place of sleeping
babes and their. nurses.
Such is the inside of one of these snowy
tabernacles. They vary in size from the
snug ten footer of private gentility to the
stately structure with spacious accommoda-
tons for a hundred guests. Some have
put off, in whole or in part, the trans;tory
cotton, and solicited into wood. These
still preserve the original type. One just
across the area, with its tasty front and
steep, high roof is one of the graceful tent,
barn, and gothic architecture-the fitting
antelope of "long-drawn aisle and fretted
vault"
To stranger, however, the chief charm
of a camp meeting, if it has to him any
charms at all, is not within but without
these walls of airy marble. To habitue it
is otherwise. A stranger admires the out
side of Fifth avenue. It's residents forget
that in its internal delights. Yet this spot
has much beauty that is outwaTdly. First
in its impressiveness is the great congrega
ton. You see it now crowding the vast
amphtheater and listening to the earnest
declaration of Gospel truth. The preacher is
a graceful doctor of divinity, and his 'bur-
den" is the goodness and severity of God.
The upturned faces, earnest and grave,
show how the place affects the hearers.
The same discourse, in a human house.
would fall on listless ears. Here they hear
as under the eye of God, ia whose temple
they are. The appeals close, the tide of
song rises, and flows, and ebbs, and the
congregation slowly scatter. In this pause
of public worship you can properly examine
the temple. Indeed you inspect it while
the service is going forward, as some do,
you but conform to the custom Of English
aud especially of continental csthedrals;
where irrevereHt sight-seers and garrulous
guides wander at will among the bowed
worshipers. But l have supposed you pre-
ferred the service to the spectacle. That
closed. this opens.
No such cathedral can man create. Mi
| Ian, In its broad area, unbroken by its va
riatons in roof or sides, and thick studded
/ with stately pillars, comes nearest to such
a creation; but she falls as far short as a
statue does of living man. This congre-
! cation of towering and tapering columns
'the murmuring pines and the hemlocks'
/ = for once stand indeed like Druids of old.
with voices sad and prophetic" for they
sympathize now with the solemn services to
! which they are consecra.ed. They are MOI,
like cathedral pillars. separated by equal
spaces, nor are they of one formal cut and
! hight, nor are they of heavy. hfeless stone,
nor shut down upon by cIose-6tting. dead
J level of roof, broken up by the immaginary
variations of oaken fresco. Here all is va
riety and life God not man. is the archi-
tect and builder, and his materials are i'm
bued with his nature. Trees straight as
pillars are POLITICALLY compacted in irregular
, distances: their green roof high above us
goes up and down, both in structure and
motion, like the green waves of the sea
while the white and blue that look down the
ever opening and closing lacuRG give it yet
more the likeness to the white capped crest:
and distant blue of the ocean. The waters
above this armament wherein we stand
are not unlike in color and character those
below. What beauty does this threefold
gift of irregularity of arrangement. dancing
> motion of foliage. and glimpses of the stead
fast blue above, confer upon this temple
Where's your cathedral that grants its wor-
shippers such a round-look of graceful col
umns, with such an up-look of waving roo
of living green, shot through with the blue
and gold Of the highest heavens?