The sermons were preached
in the morning, at noon, and at twilight, when all the multitude were
summoned to the grand central stand in the square of the encampment by
sounding a tin trumpet or ox-horn. My childish imagination was fired at
the sight of this assemblage. My wonder was, whence come all these
people? as converging from the radius around came the crowding
multitude, without order and without confusion--the farmer and his
brusque wife side by side, leading their flock and friends: he with an
ample chair of home manufacture slung by his side for the wife's
comfort as she devoutly listened to the pious brother's comforting
sermon--the guests and the young of the family following in respectful
silence, and at a respectful distance, all tending to the great arbor
of bushes covering the place of worship. Over all the space of the
encampment the under-brush had been carefully removed; but the great
forest-trees (for these encampments were always in a forest) were left
to shade as well as they might the pulpit-stand and grounds. All around
was dense forest, wild and beautiful as nature made it.
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