E. The Camp Meeting Phenomena
2. Camp Meeting Excesses
Furthermore, these emotional outbursts invoked anger from many in the surrounding communities. Cartwright recounted a story from an 1804 camp meeting, in which he was forced to talk two brothers out of horsewhipping him;
the brothers blamed Cartwright for giving their sisters the jerks.162
Camp meetings were criticized for a variety of other reasons, as well.
Some critics insisted that camp meetings had become more social than theological affairs. Part of the attraction of camp meetings was their
entertainment or social value. The western country was, at times, an isolating and lonely place for residents. It was not uncommon for their to be a significant geographic distant between the closest residence. As a result, part of the
attraction of the camp meetings was the opportunity for social interaction and entertainment that they provided. In many cases, the affairs took on the form of a religious holiday, providing a place for persons to share in a community event.
The consequence of the social nature of these meetings was that there were behavioral lapses that occurred. Women in the community would use the camp meetings as times to show off their newest dresses. For many young people, the camp meetings became large courting grounds. An Alabama girl wrote that she had acquired “many boy friends” and informed her friend that she and the girls had enjoyed themselves “more than ever before.”
The criticisms levied against the meetings were not entirely unfounded.
Camp meetings were much more organized and meticulously planned than many critics realized. However, camp meetings were carefully designed to optimize the emotional reaction from participants and, thus, maximize the number of converts.
Even the layout of the campsite was designed with the intention of optimizing the emotional reaction of the attendees. Camp meetings were normally organized in a circular pattern, an open horseshoe pattern, or an oblong pattern. Tents occupied much of the campground, with wagons,
livestock, and provisions for cooking kept behind them. And, of course, the focal point of each camp group was the pulpit. Pulpits were enclosed spaces, elevated several feat from the ground and, depending on the campground layout, was located at either the end or the center of the campground. There were also two sections of seats made of planks of wood that were used as seating for the event.
In most cases, women sat on one side of the divide, while men sat on the other.
Slaves were normally relegated to the back of the event, where a black preacher led them in service.163
In most cases, directly in front of the pulpit was an area known as the mourner’s bench or anxious seat. This area was designed to optimize the number of converts and quantity of religious enthusiasm during each service. The
mourner’s bench was an area about twenty to twenty-five inches high and
several feet long. The notion was that sinners in need of redemption should come forward and sit in those particular seats. This are was noted for emotional
outbreaks and, in many cases, a time for the preachers or other devout lay people to enter into deep spiritual conversations with supplicants. It is unclear when the first mourner’s bench was introduced. The historian Timothy L. Smith located its first use to a congregation in New York in 1808. He wrote,
Long promotion of camp meetings had stamped Wesleyanism with a fervor which city churches expressed in yearly seasons of special religious interest called "protracted meetings." Here sinners were bidden each night to the
"anxious seat," or mourner's bench, devised about 1808 in a crowded New York City chapel to enable saints to deal with seekers more conveniently.164 Other accounts link the development of the mourner’s bench to a frontier
innovation. For instance, some sources claim a Methodist pastor named John Easter called for supplicants to gather around a bench in the front of the chapel as early as 1798. However, what is clear is that the mourner’s bench became a staple of camp meeting revivalism by the first decade of the nineteenth century.
The great revivalist Charles Finney (1792-1875) developed many of his methods through innovating techniques learned from the western revivals. During his revivals he developed the practice of roping off the first few rows of seats.
Referring to this area as “anxious seats,” he urged those in need to repentance to move to this area.
The layout of the entire affair was also organized in a careful and efficient manner. For instance, the various breaks and transitions between services were announced with the blowing of a trumpet. In most cases the camp meeting opened on a Thursday with an evening meeting. Generally, there was no sermon on the first night. Instead, there was a mixture of congregational songs and
164 Timothy L., Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Abingdon Press, 1957), 46.
ministerial exchanges. Sometime between ten and midnight, the crowd returned to their tents, with some penitents staying behind so they might continue to pray while others surrounded them with songs and words. The services resumed around five in the morning with family prayer, followed by a group assembly featuring a morning prayer. The morning prayer normally concluded between six-thirty and seven, ending in time for breakfast. A morning service commenced following breakfast. This service was followed by a time of testimonials,
normally given by recent converts. At around eleven the primary sermon was given; it was, normally, the only non-extemporaneous, or prepared, sermon of the day. The eleven in the morning service was followed by a closing song and then lunch. And, finally, there was an evening service full of singing and minister exchanges.165
However, despite being carefully planned, camp meetings were designed with far more emphasis on optimizing the emotional response from the
maximum number of participants than any notion of controlling the crowd.
While many preachers showed aptitude over keeping the crowds in control, ultimately the number of clergy was not sufficient to monitor the vast
populations in attendance.
And, moreover, they became the special providence of some of the most radical preachers of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The most famous example of this was Lorenzo Dow (1777-1834). Dow, who was nicknamed “Crazy Dow”
by some of his contemporaries, was notorious for his eccentricities. He wore ragged clothes and a long beard, and made claims to have some spiritually
fueled mystical and psychic abilities. Most importantly, Dow was a skilled
preacher who knew how to work his audience into a frenzied state. Jacob Young, who traveled with Dow on several occasions, recollected one particularly
colorful sermon in which he went into a lengthy description of the instrument of the “devil.” He described it as a “…short chain of five links, with a hook at one end, a crook at the other, and a swivel in the middle.”166 Dow proceeded to use the illustration to denounce Universalism, Calvinism, atheism, and to advocate the supremacy of the Bible.