Sharp County record., 1879-09-04
Camp. p.McetingS, Old and New.

MS l. the callp-lnttllllG >tdNou' Dul
the modern camp-meeting isn't at all
like the old-faShioned camp-meeting of
80 years ago. That was real camp
ground. The present style gives no
camp; it's a town or village of summer
cottages. Then, we brought our tents,
teams, wives, families; slept on the
ground, cooked out of doors, lived in
clean straw and hung the tea-kettle on a
green croSs-stick to boil. Now, we live
in regular "hard finish - dwelling,
with piano in the parlor, a range in
the kitchen, and sometimes mortgage
over the whole house and lot. Three
classes of people attended the old camp
meeting-the fervent and devout, the
worldly and careless who came out of
curiosity, and outside of all these and to
prey on all the gamblers, horse jockeys
and scalawagS generally. The old
camp-meeting was noisy, fervent, enthu-
siastic. The present is quiet, refined,
cultivated. The old one had more vim
and lustiness, the present more elegance.
There has been similar change in the
preaching. | asked a minister the other
day if it was not so.
Certainly said he. "Do they have
the power now? No. Then whole
rows of people would be prostrated with
it,
"To what do you attribute the
changer"
"Lack of positive belief in Gospel
truths. The preaching then was pos
tive and personal. 1t asserted God as
a living power in our midst. 1t dealt
with heaven and hell as material real
tiles. 1t took the sinner and suspended
him over the bottomless pit until he
cried for mercy
"And now?n
"Now half our ministers are on the
fence. They don't preach. They argue,
Analyze much of their preaching closely
and you find they are really airing their
own doubts about their own creed. The
old time revivalist had no doubts as to
the nature of hell. He couldn't tell
where it was. He never bothered him
self to speculate where it was. But he
could tell you what it was. 1t was fiery
pit full of flame, sulphur, devils and
eternal misery. Millions on millions were
hOpelessly booked for it and millions
more were likely to be-"
"Does this change of belief emanate
from the people or the ministers?"
"Perhaps both. The minister is part
of the people and is Influenced by the
views Of the people. The old-fashioned
belief in a personal God, vicious, per-
sonal devil and flaming hell, and Vi
calious atonement is now, more or less,
sandwiched, modified and weakened by
mental solutions, so to speak, of Oar
winism, Materialism, Spiritualism, Uni
versalism, Observation-Disclosures
merciful-Providenceism, and general
Don't-care- -and-hope-it 'll-cOme-out-all-
rightism.h
''Then the actual faith of the Protest
ant Church of to-day is not that of, say,
80 years ago?"
"No. 1t is not. The people know or
think they know too much to hold to the
uncompromising faith of old. The av-
erage religion of 1879 is general twist,
squirm and wriggle in the endeavor to
make modern ideas fit the frames of old
belief. Our religion, so to speak, is al
ways turning and dying its old dress in
modern colors, and can't see that the
out-and-out outsider, unbeliever and
skeptic, whose vision in this respect is
clearer than ours, sees the inconsistency
of the whole thing; and sees, too, that
the modern designs in the texture are
so thin that the old ones show through
them"
"Then the preaching of to-day has
not the power of the old style?"
"No. Preachers with half beliefs,
halting beliefs, compromising and tenn
porizing beliefs, and semi-religious and
philosophical beliefs are shorn of their
power to move the masses. It's the
difference betwixt a mans shouting
FIRE.! at night with all his might and
main, and one hesitatingly saying May
be there's fire somewhere.
"But Moody and Sankey have great
success as revivalists."
"Apparently, Lift the real converts
out of six months standing after their
wave of excitement has passed and you
find small residuum. Moody believes
thoroughly in his own preaching That
is one reason of his success. But even
his method is tinctured with the tempo
rizing spirit Of the times. He deals
largely with the love and sympathy of
the atonement. He threatens little.
Even his are not old-fashioned revivals.
The wrestling, groaning and misery of
sinners under cOnYiction, the power
and all the wild and stormy scenes of
revival of fifty years ago are lacking.
Moody's is as much a show and concert
as revival. But the conversion scenes
are comparatively quiet and orderly.
With such audiences under the preach
inc of Whitfield or a Peter Cartwright
it would have required dozen ushers
to carry out the entranced. .'-NeV York