Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1886-06-01
An O1dsT1me Kentucky Revival.


From McMasters History of the People of the Unit
ed States
On sudden this community, which the
preachers had often called Satan's stronghold,
underwent moral awakening such as this
world had never beheld
Two young men began the great work in +he
summer of 1899. They were brothers, preach
ers, and on their way across the pine bar
rens to Ohio, but turned aside to be present
at sacramental solemnity on Red river
The people were accustomed to gather at such
times on Friday, and by praying singing,
and hearing sermons. prepare themselves for
the reception of the sacrament on Sunday.
At the Red river meeting the brothers were
asked to preach, and one did so with aston
ishing fervor. AS he spoke, the people were
deeply moved, tears ran streaming down
their faces, and one, a woman far in the
rear of the house, broke through order and
began to shout. For two hours after the reg
ular preachers had gone the crowd fingered
and were 10th to depart. While they tar
ried, one of the brothers was irresistibIy i'm
PEELED to speak. He rose and told them that
he felt called to preach; that he could not bt
| client The words which then, fell from
his lips reused the people before him etc
pungent sense of sin. P" Again and again
Gn0 WOHlaH bnOuG0u, anu "OulO nOG De silent
He started to go to her. The crowd begged
him to turn back. Something within him
urged him on, and he went through the
house shouting and exhorting and prais.
ing God. In moment the floor, to use hi.
own words, Hwas covered with the slain y
Their cries for mercy were terrible to hear.
Some found forgiveness, but many went
away spiritually wounded" and suffering
nnutterable agonylofssoul. Nothing could allay
the excitement. Every settlement along the
eileen river and the Cumberland was full of
religious fervor. Men fitted their wagons
with beds and provisions and travelled SO
miles to camp upon the ground and hear him
preach. The idea was new; hundreds adopt
| ed it, and eamp-meeting began. There was
| now no longer any excuse to stay away from
| preaching Neither distance, nor lack of
houses, no scarcity of food, nor daily occu-
| pations prevailed. Led by curiosity, by
excitement, by religious ZEAL families Of
| every ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Methodists
Presbyterians, eopalians-hurried to the
camp-ground. Crops were left half gathered
| every kind of work was left undone; cabins
were deserted; in large settlements there
did not remain one soul. The first regular
general camp meeting was held at the Casper
River church, in July, 1900; but the rage
| spread, and dozen encampments followed
| in quick succe sslon. Camp meeting was
always in the forest near some little church
| which served as the preachers lodge. Al
one end of the clearing was a rude stage, and
| before it the stumps snd trunks of hewr
| trees, on which the listeners SAT. About
| the clearing were the tents and wagons
ranged in rows like streets.
| The praying, the preaching, the exhorting
would sometimes last for seven days, and be
prolonged every day until darkness had be
gun to give way to light. Nor were the
ministers the only exhorters. Men and wo-
| men, nay even children took part. At Cane
Ridge little girl of seven sat upon the
shoulder of a man and preached to the null
titude till she sank exhausted on her bearers
head. At Indian Creek lad of twelve
mounted a stump and exhorted till he grew
weak, whereupon two men upheld him and
he continued till speech was impossible. A
score of sinners fell prostrate before him.
At no time was the ''falling exercise SO
prevalent as at night. Nothing was then want
ing that could strike terror into minds weak,
timid and harassed. The red glare of the
camp-fres reflected from hundreds of tents
and wagons: the dense blackness of the
Pickering shadows; the darkness of the sur
rounding forest, made still more terrible by
the groans and screams of the Spiritually
wounded, who had fled to it for comfort;
the entreaty of the preachers; the sobs and
shrieks of the downcast still walking through
the dark valley of the Shadow of Death; the
shouts and songs of praise from the happy
ones who had crossed the Delectable Noun
tains, had gone on through the fogs of the
enchanted ground and entered the land OF
Beulah, were too much for those over whose
minds and bodies lively imaginations held
full sway. The heart swelled, the nerves
gave way, the hands and feet grew cold and
motionless and speechless they fell headlong
to the ground. In moment crowds gath
cred about them to pray and shout. Some
lay still as death. Some passed through
frightful twitchings of face and limb. At
Cabin Creek SO many fell that, lest the null
titude should tread on them, they were car
ried to the meeting house and laid in lows on
the floor. AT Cane Ridge the number was
three thousand.
The recollection of that famous meeting is
still preserved in Kentucky, where not many
years since old men could be found whose
mothers had carried them to the camp ground
as infants and had left them at the roots OF
trees and behind logs while the preaching
and exhorting continued. Cane Ridge meet
ing house stood on a well-shaded, well-wa
tered spot seven miles from the town of Par
is. There great space had been cleared {
preachers stand put up and a huge tent
stretched to shelter the crowd from the sur
and rain. But it did not cover the twentieth
| part of the people who came. Every road
| that led to the ground is described to have
presented for several days an almost unbro
ken line of wagons, horses and men. One
| who saw the meeting when it had just begun
| wrote home to Philadelphia that wagons COW
cred an area as large as that between Market
street and Chestnut, Second and Third. An
other who counted them declared they mum
be1ed eleven hundred and forty-fve. Seven
hundred and fifty lead tokens, stamped with
the letters A or B, were given by the Bap-
| lists to communicates, and there We're still
| inward of four hundred who received none.
| Old soldiers who were present, and claimed
to know something of the art of estimating
the numbers of great masses of men, put
down those encamped at the Cane Ridge
meeting as twenty thousand souls. The ex-
oitement surpassed anything that had been
| known. Men who came to scott remained to