The record-union., 1892-09-03
CAMP MEETING SCENES.
How the Meetings Are Conducted
Back in Pennsylvania.
The People Make a Business OF 1t
While It Lasts-The Unknown
Soldiers Grave.

thoroughly good and wholesale manner
IS the management of camp-meetlngs.
The prevailing fashion is to move out,
bag and baggage, but all are not so un-
fortunate as to own cottages there and
feel it duty. About fifteen minutes ride
on the Northern Central flyer brings
one to Emig's Grove, where the camp
meetings are held yearly by the United
Brethren. The grove is beautiful spot,
owned and kept in applepie order by
the stockholders. Everything is ar
ranged with an eye to bodily and spirit
ual comfort of the guests. There is
clearinghouse; also postoflce, DOCK
store and every detail, not even omlttlug
the banana-stand, where lemonade is dls-
pensed in quantities massive and pink.
Some enthusiasts move out everything
except the stationary washstands ana
piano, while others enjoy more gypsy
like existence, and there is vieing as TO
who shall have the nattiest abode. Even
parrots are dotted about IN cottage Wln-
dows, but only those versed III biblical
lore can gain admittance. None others
need apply.
Looking down the rows of ofcottageS they
offer very pretty appearance with their
various-hued and snowy white curtains,
looped back and displaying vases OF
bright flowers, each decorated IN accord
ance with the inmates own idea OF the
beautiful. Among the scores OF earnest
workers are dozens who openly and nom
estly confess that they go there for rest
and recreation, and the religious eXer-
cises are of secondary importance; then
there are few, not so open and not so
honest. Excursion trains are run on
Sunday and on one day over 5000 people
and 500 vehicles passed the gates. Many
of these promenade in the shade on the
fringe of Sanctity only.
The Tabernacle is huge building with
no sides, and with seats arranged TO ac-
commodate many thousand people.
While listening to a sermon, drowned in
the hum and whirr Of insects and the
murmur of voices which are circulating
on the border, you can apprehend the
situation at glance. There are all sorts
of goings on exposed 10 view. Some OF
the industrious sisters have sleeves
Teefed high and at a wash tub are sur
rounded with foamy suds like Venus in
her surf dip. Some are indulging in quiet
talks, children patter about, there is hirt-
ing, there are knots of earnest brothers,
and all this is the crust, the center OF
which is the sermon in progress. The
cooks head clerk from the boarding
house fits about in a striped yellow base
ball cap that is really quite secular
While the good sisters are boiling their
huckleberry pies, and otherwise prepar-
ing to take snap Judgment IN the most
pampered palate, you catch disjointed
fragments OF sociability, peppered in with
words of the Gospel:
Have you got my dishrag down
there-?" son the golden shore" "Pl
use off of your wood-pile-" ito save
Sinners "Shall / wear my Rus
sian blouse-?' Ito meet over there
"My Philadelphia mash is here" LET
us praise Him. ''Great grief Amt
he long -winded-!" "Why do you wait,
ginner-?'' with puff all around the
tail Of your basque, there is time
''into the land where there is no night"
Then followed the grand old song,
poured forth with zeSt, and each syllable
accented with a jump toward it like a
bass at young catfish:
Stan-DUP. stan-DUP for Jesus,
Ye soldiers of the Cross.
The summer girl, the dear, delightful,
much wspaper-cheStnutted summer
girl, was there, as was also her admirer
in patent feathers and his little brothers
wide straw hat. She made her ward
robe. 10, many times per day. each time
becoming more and more bewitching and
brain-turning from her russet shoes to
her sweet, fluffy bangs. And when the
trains arrive, and there are many, what
chase at a Nancy Hanks gait and dis
play of dainty hosiery to get there first.
The passengers, all in a hurry, presum-
=
from the car steps and into the white
gates with such scrambling. as reminds
one of unloading obstreperouS beeYes
down cattle-chute. AT the portal you
pass over your little nickel and get
ticket, and at another gate YOU pass in
your checks and then you are right in it,
so there is no need of any one going un-
reclaimed for lack of gospel teachings-i-f
Observation-Disclosures
At dust the lights are lit through the
~. ~ n
bevy of hretties. AndD these tirehies
They are so beautiful, kindling the fields
and hedges and waysides with their
merry, brilliant little selves, until it seems
that they must start field into sheet of
seething flame. One must see them
sporting, darting, tagging about in myri-
ads To appreciate the line in Locksley
Hall, that
Glitters like swarm of hrehies, tangled in
silver braid.
They have disappeared now, their little
lights are quenched. and at even the
fields look dull and sullen, shorn of their
glory. Whether they have flown with
the swallows, hibernated with the bear,
curled up with the codling moth or
turned cityward with the summer girl, it
is my misfortune not to know.
While sitting on an inch board that was
stretched between two locust trees, try
ing to center my mind on a 1lowery hiGh
school essay sermon, a gentleman. who
was whiting and humming and other
wise amusing himself, remarked in Ian
guage that was startling and common;
"Pll bet you don't know what you're sit
ting on
Why, a board, says I.
Yes; but lpS got history" says he;
wherefOrth / began TO get agitated. and
questions flew like hailstOnes.
well, it is what was left of a coffin I
made once Tor dead soldier"
40 faef
that he turned deathly pale.
i don't know much about it myself,
but I'll wind Colonel Staley up and in
troduce you, and he'll tell you all Won
want to know and more. lie is a veteran
and takes great interest in it,
So the Colonel was brought forth and
proved to be the ideal badly scarfrled
vet with gray hair and most pleasing
manner. We were ushered into his
Office, where it is his duty to collect the
ulthy ducats for cottage rent The in
terror was finished in natural pine. with
gum-oozlng knots ana sweet-smellinp
ratterS. The furniture was simplicity If
sell, consisting mainly OF the Colonel
ourselves, table, an ice-cream freezer
and pair OF No. II carpet slippers. pre-
sumably our hosts. After a ten-nninnte
walk through perfect forest OF Chestnut
trees, with carpet OF yielding moss and
canoples OF trailing vines speckled with
ripe black berries, we arrived at the clear
little spring where the soldier was found
murdered few days before the battle of
Gettysburg. His body had been thrown
upon some barberry bushes, the weight
bending the bushes to the ground A
bludgeon near by, aud the gaping wound
on his head. told the dreadful tale. This
oisclaims the theory advanced by some
that he was a deSerter and had crawIed
there TO die. His body having lain sew