hundred and fifty dollars, and with careful usage will last ten years. The average annual expense will therefore be to each occupant only thirty cents. A supply of straw, or of other suitable material for flooring and bedding, may require five dollars more, or ten cents a piece. The current expenses of the meeting, including lights, the hire of a few sheriffs or constables, the interest of the money expended in the purchase and care of the grounds, the digging of wells, the erection of a "preachers' stand," with ample seats for an audience, and other items of a similar character, will never upon an average exceed five hundred dollars a year. These are usually defrayed by public collections, and estimating the number annually attending at only five thousand, the additional cost to each is also ten cents. It will therefore be seen that, aside from the traveling fare, the necessary expenditure during a session of ordinary length is, according to the foregoing estimates, just fifty cents for every person present! Yet so far within bounds are the calculations which form the basis of this reckoning, that in many cases one half the average sum we have stated, or even one fourth, would amply suffice for every contingency. And the whole outlay required in the prosecution of an enterprise so rich in opportunities for efficient and successful Christian labor, as well as for healthful recreation, will bear no comparison with the necessary cost of an ordinary pleasure-trip, for an equal time and distance, to the usual places of popular resort. Yet very few object to an annual excursion, after the protracted toils that have exhausted the physical or the mental energies. When such a plan is arranged, the expense is seldom allowed to interfere with its execution. There are hundreds of professing Christians who will readily spend twenty-five dollars at a watering-place, or at the White Mountains, or at some other center of fashionable concourse, and think nothing of the pecuniary sacrifice. But the plea of economy" is very conveniently raised when the camp-meeting, with its generous proffer of enviable facilities for mental and physical invigoration and of incomparable spiritual refreshment, invites the same Christians, at only a nominal cost, to share the sacred burden of its toils and the perennial glory of its triumphs. But this narrow and niggardly spirit, so of fensively conspicuous whenever the cause of Christ is the

claimant of only a trifling favor, will have its reward, though incurable by the withering rebukes it richly merits.

There are also half a dozen other objections which are sometimes alleged to the discredit of the enterprise in question. Yet if our positions touching the general utility of the campmeeting be correct, any further refutation is unnecessary. That an occasional perversion of the original design occurs we admit. That violations of good order sometimes give offensive variety to the proceedings is undeniable. That, under the pressure of unwonted excitement or exhilaration, many foolish things may be said or done, is quite possible. That a week of tent-life has, by careless exposure, proved to now and then an individual a sadly memorable experience, is equally a matter of fact. And that, in particular instances, an entire meeting may, for one or for a dozen reasons, have seemed rather a failure than a success, we readily confess the probability. Yet these facts prove no necessary defect in the institution itself, and are therefore entitled to no further consideration.

There is, however, one glaring and growing abuse that merits a thorough exposure. In a single respect the utility of the camp-meeting is liable to serious detriment. Its later management often tends, we think, to popularize its proceedings, at the expense of their former solemnity and power. Certain features have, in some localities, been introduced, but slightly indicative of that rigorous separation from the engrossing objects of life, whose necessity and advantage we have demonstrated. Many accessories of modern convenience and luxury have found recognition which, it is feared, only conspire to divert attention and to defeat the real objects of the gathering. Various trades and professions have, for several years, invited patronage within the consecrated area of at least one celebrated encampment. To our certain knowledge, book agents, newsboys, dentists, doctors, daguerrean artists, barbers, and, if we rightly remember, boot-blacks, have plied their several crafts within a stone's throw of the preachers' stand. We have even heard a venerable minister publicly announce the fact that a man was present at the meeting who desired "to pull teeth." We have heard in a prayer-meeting, upon a Sabbath morning, a painfully silly and flippant harangue from a pretended convert, prefaced by the declaration that the speaker was a vender

of shoe-blacking. We think that at least twelve hundred people were present and heard this impertinent speech of the tricky and gabbling huckster. How many boxes of blacking his profession of piety enabled him to sell we are not prepared to state, but there is not a shadow of doubt that the rascal had expressly contrived the impudent trick for the occasion. We have also seen a man bustling about from tent so tent, thrusting into the faces of the occupants a printed notice promising speedy and gratuitous relief from the headache. Of course this was only a sharp device to advertise his nostrum, and to drive a brisk trade with the saints and the sinners whose aching noddles should invite the experiment.

The erection of family tents is likewise becoming an established practice. At the encampment to which we refer there were, during the meeting of 1858, over two hundred of these structures. Their styles of convenience and of finish were varied, and sometimes highly attractive. They were commonly divided, by a partition, into a front and a rear apartment; the former being designed for a sitting, or reception room, and the latter for a dormitory. A carpeted floor frequently supplanted the plebeian covering of straw; faultless couches with snowy counterpanes took the place of hard and uninviting pallets; comfortable chairs relieved the trunks, bags, and bundles of their inappropriate burdens; spring sofas laughed at the rough benches of the more primitive establishments; convenient chests of drawers snugly inclosed the requisite changes of apparel; ample mirrors challenged unlimited self-admiration; while tasteful draperies and other ornamental appliances invested with new beauties these fairy habitations of the mimic city. Indeed, we hardly know if aught was lacking that could minister to the personal ease and comfort of the tenants. Whatever the heart could reasonably wish was supplied, and thus the lodging-place of a single week in the forest often smiled with a tasteful elegance that ambitiously rivaled many a more pretentious and permanent structure.

Now, so far as the question of mere convenience is regarded we have nothing to say. Upon this ground very few, we imagine, would object to the utmost amplitude of gratification. Yet these innovations impart to the encampment a businesslike and worldly aspect, quite inconsistent with the solemn

The very

quietude of an impressive and spiritual occasion. atmosphere is secularized. The sacred spell is broken. The attention of the multitude is distracted, and whatever effort is employed to concentrate it upon the overshadowing object of the convocation is measurably baffled. The public services are, for the same reason, largely neglected. The family tents are almost invariably occupied during worship by idle talkers and loungers, to whom an easy seat and an hour of gossip are more attractive than the sacred ministrations of religion. By careful investigation, more than five hundred persons have thus, at the same time, been found in small companies distributed throughout the encampment. And this aggregate is largely swollen by an army of promenaders whom, in coolest contempt of the solemnities in progress, we have, every day in the week, seen traversing the grounds in all directions.

It is very true that such proceedings are strictly forbidden by the rules of the meeting, as they are certainly a glaring outrage upon the obvious proprieties of the occasion. Yet how shall these rules be enforced? The family tents are private property, and to all intents and purposes under the exclusive control of their respective owners. So long as these ill-timed and impertinent social gatherings are tolerated or invited by the proprietors and their families they will continue to recur, and a constant passing and repassing through every part of the encampment will be the inevitable result. Prohibitory regulations are wholly inoperative, though a hundred policemen should attempt their enforcement. This the managers thoroughly understand, and hence the reckless impunity with which a hallowed and effective religious institution is degraded to the vulgar level of a mammoth picnic.

Granted, also, that to the trades and the traffic already mentioned restrictive rules similarly apply, and that during the hours of worship every form of secular employment is sternly prohibited. Suppose the scraping of the razor and the click of the tonsorial shears to be hushed; that aching molars no longer acknowledge the unfascinating persuasion of the forceps; that the vender of gazettes, the polisher of boots, and the assuager of headaches, temporarily suspend their philan thropic labors. What of it? Can the mischief already occasioned be corrected by the locking of a chest, or the dropping

of a curtain? The pernicious influence of these anomalous proceedings was permanently inaugurated the moment that a lax and time-serving policy permitted their shameless intrusion, and any other remedy than a rigorous expulsion of the detestable nuisance will prove the merest child's play. It is letting the dragon into the house, and then attempting to keep him. quiet. The presence of the evil cause will affect the temper of the best meeting and preoccupy the minds of the worshipers. Every one will painfully realize that the traditional sanctity of the place has been invaded and desecrated by impertinent traffickers; that its spiritual atmosphere has been tainted by the corrupt breath of sordid and selfish enterprise; that the glorious prestige of past achievement is dispelled by the ignominy of present failure.

Such management is certainly a burning disgrace to its abettors, and would in half a decade cover with permanent contempt the institution it so pitifully caricatures. But we are slow to believe the camp-meeting destined to so wretched an end. Its past character, as portrayed in the inspiring history of its triumphs, is too sacred for a blot so unseemly. And we are unwilling to admit any general or extensive prevalence of the evil we have exposed. We believe it to be confined to a very few localities, and, to insure its speedy extinction, it needs the same rigor of treatment as the pleuro-pneumonia, or any other contagious and fatal malady. Every secular enterprise should be as peremptorily banished from a place solemnly consecrated to the worship of God as the "buyers and sellers" were driven from the Jewish temple. No representative of any trade or pursuit (if we except the medical profession) should be allowed within hailing distance. The trafficker, of any description, who shows his head upon the ground for the purpose of selling or hawking his wares, should be promptly arrested, and punished with the utmost severity of the law. Whatever supplies are required for the tents, as of straw, fuel, provisions, and the like, should be furnished by contract, at the lowest living profit, and always under the supervision of a competent executive committee. The erection of family tents, except for the sole purpose of more extended sleeping accommodations, should be sternly prohibited. No one should be permitted, during divine service, to pass from one part of the encamp