Camp-meetings were usually planned and managed by Methodist
circuit-riders or Baptist itinerant preachers, who hesitated not
to carry their work into the remotest and most dangerous parts of
the back country. When the news went abroad that such a meeting
was to take place, people flocked to the scene from far and near,
in wagons, on horseback, and on foot. Pious men and women came
for the sake of religious fellowship and inspiration; others not
so pious came from motives of curiosity, or even to share in the
rough sport for which the scoffers always found opportunity. The
meeting lasted days, and even weeks; and preaching, praying,
singing, "testifying," and "exhorting" went on almost without
intermission. "The preachers became frantic in their
exhortations; men, women, and children, falling as if in
catalepsy, were laid out in rows. Shouts, incoherent singing,
sometimes barking as of an unreasoning beast, rent the air.
Convulsive leaps and dancing were common; so, too, 'jerking,'
stakes being driven into the ground to jerk by, the subjects of
the fit grasping them as they writhed and grimaced in their
contortions.
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