Saturday 9th (August)
Early in the morning,
Mrs Jordan started for camp-meeting, Julia and I cleaned up the house and then washed
and ironed a few things. John came home at noon, and waited to see his vest which
seemed to please him very much. We dressed ourselves for the evening but not so . . .
I went over to the Hotel where I met . . . who came home . . . with me . . . Sat up a while with
John. Received two letters which made me feel very sad. I cried.
Camp meetings have been important events for Methodists
since they first appeared on the American frontier in the late 1700s. They
first arose when worshipers from afar gathered around churches to hear popular
preachers. Horse-drawn transportation was too slow to allow them to return home
on the same day, so the people camped on the church grounds. The Methodist
church holds quarterly meetings to conduct church’s business and to “stoke the
fires of revival.” These began as outdoor meetings, but the business part has
gradually separated into the indoor “conference” leaving the camp meeting as
entirely a religious experience (Messenger 6). There is a feeling that campers
are returning to biblical times when God was physically present, such as the
wandering of the Hebrews in the desert following their exodus from Egypt
(Messenger 37).
There are some
challenges. Camp life reduces the day-to-day demands of housework and work life
to allow more leisure time for religious activities. Unfortunately participants
have . . . “only to step into the woods to enjoy a shot of whiskey, a hearty
brawl, and the pleasures of the opposite sex” (Messenger 32). The organizers
meet these challenges by instituting standardization, organization, and rigid
schedules. Camp Meeting Manuals are published. An example is Camp Meeting Manual, a Practical Book for the Camp Ground,
by the Rev. B. W. Gorham, which will be published in 1854. This manual will
provide guidance for site selection, location of water sources, construction of
speaker platforms and tents, rules of order, and the presence of a “civil
officer” to enforce these rules. (Gorham)
A major objective of the camp meetings is to “call God’s
people away from their worldly business and cares for several successive days,
thereby securing time for the mind to disentangle itself from worldly care, and
rise to an undistracted contemplation of spiritual realities (Gorham 17).”
Serena seems to have made a new vest for John Jordan.
It is not surprising that Serena would receive bad news in
the letters. It is summertime, cholera and fevers are constant threats, and
consumption is taking its toll on young people.
Daily Cincinnati Gazette, August 16,
1851
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