"Exactly; but I know, too, that unless we look sharp, we shall feel flat when we get to the dining-hall and find everything swept off."
We took the hint. I lifted the skirt of my alpaca dress gently, between my thumb and forefinger, just enough to give an idea of the ankle without revealing it, and went out of the tent, imbued with the spirit of the place, but humiliated with worldly craving.
Sisters, if the denizens of this Sea Cliff are only half as earnest in their souls" salvation as they are in replenishing poor, frail human nature, there will be a glorious harvest of regeneration this holy season. The way they poured out of the tents, the houses, the long stoops, and through the bushes was fluttering and noisy as the flight of ten thousand chickens from a barn-yard. Still the crowd did not break all at once from the spiritual to the temporal wants of human nature.
They kept on praying and singing in breaks and s.n.a.t.c.hes clear up to the dining-hall, when the old earthly Evil One got uppermost, and each man seizing a knife and fork, went at the first dish he saw, and held on to it with one hand, while he did double express duty with the other.
Sisters, this crowd of sinners sanctified, and to be sanctified, was made up of about the hungriest mortals that I ever set eyes upon. The way those safety-seeking souls took care of their bodies was regenerating, I can tell you. For my part, after seeing every dish swept away from before me, with Christian fort.i.tude becoming to the place, my carnal nature rose uppermost, and, seizing upon a plate of summer squash, I held on to it valiantly, while E. E. s.n.a.t.c.hed a potatoe with its jacket on, from a flying dish, and Dempster wrestled with one of the saints for a plate of bread, as Jacob wrestled with the angels; only this saint was six feet high, wore a hood-brimmed straw hat, and carried off the plate of bread in his hands, after all.
I greatly fear Cousin Dempster didn"t meet this test of a meek and lowly spirit with the fort.i.tude of a martyr. In fact, I"m afraid he said something beside "Amen" between his grinding teeth, when that plate disappeared.
As for E. E. and myself, we got a spoon between us, and dined on the squash, generously giving up the potato to Dempster, with an admonition which did not seem to suit him much better than that stone-cold vegetable.
Well, when we had vegetated the inner man to this extent, and watched the swarm of hungry eaters devouring the food like a cloud of ravenous locusts, Cousin Dempster laid down his potato-peel on the table with mournful sadness, and said, plaintively:
"This is all we are likely to get; let us go."
"Wait," says I, "some one is going to return thanks."
"What, for two spoonfuls of squash and one hollow-hearted potato for three of us? Never!" says Dempster.
Really, sisters, the spirit will have a tough job before it brings the proud nature of Cousin Dempster into a state of perfect sanctification.
E. E. and I gave him a beautiful example, and looked as humbly grateful as two hungry female women could, over a double spoonful of watery squash; I fear he did not appreciate it though, for when a deep Amen rolled down the hall, after the thanks were given, he meanly growled out--well, a very peculiar word, that made my heart jump into my mouth.
In any other place, I should write out boldly that Cousin Dempster--but in that out-door sanctuary--no, the secret of what he said shall go with me to my grave.
Lx.x.xIII.
LIONS AND LAMBS.
Sisters:--The tabernacle under that tin roof will hold, well packed, six hundred anxious souls--each with a weak, human body attached. The seats are all cushioned with the softest pine, and have luxurious board backs.
A stage rises grandly for the ministers of many churches who harmonize and fraternize like lions and lambs, each shepherding his own flock and drawing converts into his fold, wherever he can find a straggling sinner on his knees. The dining-room all at once emptied itself into the tabernacle; the ministers mounted the stage, and out in front came a man whose first words woke you up like the blast of a war trumpet.
A stout, smart, almost grand-looking man, who looked over the crowd as if he owned every man and woman in it, and meant to regenerate them in flocks, or turn them over to what-you-may-call-him at once. His dark face, broad forehead, and silver-gray hair looked strong, if not handsome. His light eyes gleamed out from behind a pair of gold spectacles, and when he got in earnest his heavy brows drew together and left deep lines between them which made him look stronger yet.
"Who is that?" I whispered to Cousin D.
"Inskip," says he, "the greatest gun amongst them."
"Dear me!" says I.
There was no time to say more, for that great gun was pouring a hot storm of eloquence into the crowd, and stirring it up as a north-easter lashes the hemlocks on our mountains. Sisters, the scene was wonderfully impressive. I felt the old revival spirit in all my bones. When he stopped a minute for the crowd to say Amen, the word rattled out like a discharge of guns on a training day.
By and by his discourse grew warmer and more startling. He just pitched headforemost into the cause, and stirred up that great congregation like a tornado. The Amens grew noisy, and were let off from lip to lip like fire-crackers on a Fourth of July. Then some one sang out "Hallelujah!"
and another "Glory, Glory, Glory!" till the whole congregation broke into a young earthquake. Some started up, some rocked on their seats, and half a dozen fell to the ground, trembling, praying, and shouting "Hallelujah."
There was a mixture of all sorts of people in the crowd, which made it yeast over like a baking of bread when the rising is lively. When one got a-going the rest set in. Half the crowd were crying and the other half clapping hands.
Then Mr. Inskip rested a little, and a real handsome young gentleman stood up and sung beautifully. When he got through, the crowd joined in, every man, woman, and child singing on his own hook, which was noisy, and might have been harmonious if half of them had settled on the same tune, which they did, but cut across each other and sung out "Glory,"
when they forgot everything else, which made the music a little uneven.
Of course when a crowd like that gets a-going in a full blast of eloquence, stirring up consciences, and dancing and thrilling along the nerves, there is sure to be a whirlwind of magnetism heaving souls against each other till they cry out with the shock.
I looked around; the crowd was all in commotion; every face burned with excitement of some kind, for under that man"s voice human nature was stirred, aroused, lashed into a fury of wild enthusiasm. Female women grew pale, and trembled on the hard seats; men wilted down into childish softness; children cried and shouted.
Before the stage was an open s.p.a.ce, left free for sinners under conviction to come up and beseech the thrice-regenerated ministers to exhort and pray for them. Into this s.p.a.ce those mostly stricken in the crowd, came like sheep looking for a shelter, some sobbing, some praying, some half sullen, as if the man"s eloquent pleading for souls had forced, rather than persuaded them into that "Pen of the Penitents."
But with each new convert, Brother Inskip broke forth in a new place, and the crowd shouted "Glory!" "Amen!" "Hallelujah!" till you could not hear yourself think.
The enthusiasm was catching. I felt it blaze and tremble over me from the crown of my head to the sole of my foot, and when a young minister joined in, and poured the notes of a beautiful hymn on the tumult, my heart fairly swelled with the glory of it.
I looked around for my cousins.
There was Dempster, with the eyes fairly dancing in his head, clapping his hands like an overgrown boy, though he did drop them when he met my look, and turned his head away, half ashamed of his own feelings.
I looked around for E. E., who sat with her mouth half open, while sobs came through her trembling lips.
"Oh, cousin, cousin, what shall I do? Have I really been regenerated, or has the Lord sent me here this day to be made a new creature?"
I did not answer her; there was no chance for free thought or cool reason in a crowd like that. In fact, I began to feel like a vile sinner, myself, and as if being unregenerated was the duty of every female woman every time a camp-meeting offered a good opportunity.
Seeing E. E. crying there as if her heart were breaking up, and both men and women wild with joy or grief all around me, I just caved in, pulled out my handkerchief, and sobbed with them, though what on earth we were all crying about I couldn"t have told to save my life.
The truth was, the more some women cried the more others shouted; and when the meeting was over, everybody told everybody else what a refreshing time they had experienced under Brother Inskip"s preaching, which was true as the Gospel, if tears refresh the soul as rain does the earth.
Lx.x.xIV.
EXPERIENCES.
After the preaching was done, the crowd broke up into sections and had a half-dozen prayer-meetings and spontaneous love-feasts, where men and women, and sometimes little children, got up and told all the strangers within hearing how wicked they had been--with tears, and sobs, and groans, that made one"s heart ache. Still one and all of them seemed to enjoy their own depravity and put themselves down as such horrible sinners, that any amount of praying could not have dug them out of the degradation into which they dived headforemost and seemed to revel in, for a thousand years at least.
Everybody told his experience.
Among the rest, a young man from the Hub, slim as a beanpole and fiery as a race-horse, prayed and shouted, and sung, and blazed away at the crowd, like all possessed. His straight, black hair was parted down the middle of his forehead, and his mustache rose and fell like fury as the words of warning came like red-hot shot through his lips.
"Who is that?" says I to Cousin Dempster, who was listening with all his heart.
"That," says he, "is Corbett, the young fellow who shot Wilkes Booth through the crevices of the old barn in which he had taken shelter."
I shuddered all over, and I"m afraid the spirit of prayer had a shock.
That young man was about the last person I should have expected to see praying, storming, and exhorting at a camp-meeting. He told us all how he had become so sanctified by the Lord, that small-pox could not touch him, though he went into the midst of it and nursed people down with the deadly disease, right straight through.
In fact, he seemed to think sanctification a certain preventative against small-pox, only I suppose you must be sure to get the genuine thing, just as he had got it.