The age-herald., 1898-09-25
CAMP MEETIN'S
 AND DICE GAMES

lO-ddtt CaInp ntellH u ldhe ilS PihSS' Everything old-fashioned falls into disuse. It must be remodeled and brought up with
 the times
 Few of the younger generation know anything of the real camp meeting. The
 white folks held them before the civil war
 and the negroes had their day after this conflict was over.
 In the old-time meetin' every gray-haired darkey was a preacher. The darkies for
 miles and miles around gathered. They came in OK wagons and every conceivable conveyance. They camped for weeks around a spring and a log church house. They sang those good old songs. "Amazin' grace, how sweet the sound," and all the others.
 The mourners were the most numerous.
 The woods sweled with wierd cries at all
 hours of the night. Some sinner would
 go in a trance and the eXhorters would
 dance about him yelling and calling upon
 the Lord to ease his soul.
 In a southern state lives one old darkey | who used to tell me stories in my child | hood He was a famous expounder of the | doctrine at these gatherings. l have seen
 him stand and in a voice changing to mel ody, and then to frantic yell as the spirit
 moved him, preach for hours, until he was exhausted and some one else would take his place.
 "De debbn is arter you" he would be- gin. De dibbel is sho gwine to git you you pooh sinner. If satan wuz to set up his mill here to grind his grist you would fall into de fire like corn from old masters sheller when he goes to feed his hosses.' One of his favorte tales to put the spirit into his congregation was to tell about an incident in the white folks house." "Old masters son was a fine man. but he had no iigion," was the way he begun it. 'He run his race and come to die without fessin of his sins. De white parson wuZ dah Dey all prayed and dey sung and dey | called on the Lawd. Marsah Johnny was | a fine singer and directly he rise right up. De Lawd give him strength. He sing-Too Late, Too Late, and good old mistuss cried as if her heart would brake. I see de old debbil he got me by de hare, Too Late, | too late wuz all marsah Johnny would say. Purity soon de light went out. De debbil done it. When dat light wuz lit agin young Marsah wuz done cold and old mis- tus wuz in faintin' fit. You pooh sinners better fess your sins befoh hits too late, too late"
 When the old darkey came to this point his great bass voice would resound through the woods to an uncanny melody as he
 sang, "To Late, Too Late."
 Then the congregation would flock about
 him. Some would be taken off with the
 "holy laugh" as it was known, and others
 would spend days at the mourner's bench
 My childish soul would be struck with ter
 TOT at the old darkeys words.
 ''Nebber mind, honey, you'se too good fer de debil. Dem curls is too purity"
 With this assurance from my "old uncle some of the younger negroes would take me to the big house all trembling and ready to cry for hours before I went to sleep. The camp meeting has now fallen into dsrepute. It is a general frolic. Under the shade of a tree you hear the preacher tell ing of the "debbil' very much as before
 But his hearers are likely to be more in- terested in a game of craps on the grass than in the sermon.
 "Come seben eleben,' is the music that sometimes greets the honest old exhorters ear while he is praying
 The policeman or the constable plays an
 important role in the camp meetins' of to-
 day. I remember an incident wtch occur
 red some time ago.
 An old darkey was preaching at a camp meeting. He heard that a crap game was
 in full swing no far otff He went over and interferred. bad negro up with
 rock and the parson hit the ground. The policeman was the next person and the iail had some dusky mourners within it's walls
 These annual gatherings over the state have grown almost unbearable as the fol- lowing clipping from the Union Springs Herald will explain:
 .The Herald almost exhausted it's force, two years ago, in writing about that negro campmeeting which has long been an an- nual affair at Chunnennuggee, four miles
 above here, on the Mobile and Girard rail-
 road. This paper has exerted itself to the
 utmost, trying to show to the citizens of
 the county the infamy that is carried on
 there, where congregate each year any
 where from 10000 to 25,00O negroes, who
 have less of religious intentions than any
 other sort. It is a grand frolc for them
 anything but religious gathering with
 the most of them. In justice to the very
 few, we might say, there are some who go
 pOSC ing should be held for.
 ..The lawessness, the vice, the criminal acts committed there each year seem to be enough to call forth the eternal condemna- ton of the Supreme Being, yet it is coun- tenanced by people who have the power to stop it, and it is strange to us why that power is not exercised, and exercised wig orously. The motly crew that assemblies +1,o la1, iY, all lxi md of fcipf ii1 shooting craps, shooting pistols, gambling in many ways, selling goods, buying goods, fighting, breaking the Sabbath in almost every conceivable way, and committing deeds that are too base to be named in the
 Herald. By such is that gathering marked. Hast year the meeting was not held, be- cause of the quarantine regulations and the danger of yellow fever getting spread throughout the state; but next Sunday 1t is | to be again. The railroads run excursions from west Georgia almost to the Florida