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CHAPTER XXII The Worshippers THE CAMP-MEETING is one leading feature in the American development of religion, peculiarly suited to the wide extent of country, and to the primitive habits which generally accompany a sparse population. Undoubtedly its general effects have been salutary. Its evils have been only those incident to any large gatherings, in which the whole population of a country are brought promiscuously together . As in many other large assemblies of worship, there are those who go for all sorts of reasons; some from curiosity, some from love of excitement, some to turn a penny in a small way of trade, some to scoff, and a few to pray. And, so long as the heavenly way remains straight and narrow, so long the sincere and humble worshippers will ever be the minority in all assemblies. We can give no better idea of the difference of motive which impelled the various worshippers, than by taking our readers from scene to scene, on the morning when different attendants of the meeting were making preparations to start. Between the grounds of Mr. John Gordon and the plantation of Canema stood a log cabin, which was the trading establishment of Abijah Skinflint. The establishment was a nuisance in the eyes of the neighboring planters, from the general apprehension entertained that Abijah drove a brisk underhand trade with the negroes, and that the various articles which he disposed for sale were many of them surreptitiously conveyed to him in nightly instalments from off their own plantations. But of this nothing could be proved. Abijah was a shrewd fellow, long, dry, lean, leathery, with a sharp nose, sharp, little gray eyes, a sharp chin, and fingers as long as bird's-claws. His skin was so dry that one would have expected that his cheeks would crackle whenever he smiled, or spoke; and he rolled in them a never-failing quid of tobacco. Abijah was one of those over-shrewd Yankees, who leave their country for their country's good, and who exhibit, wherever they 231 232 DRED settle, such a caricature of the thrifty virtue of their native land as to justify the aversion which the native-born Southerner entertains for the Yankee. Abijah drank his own whiskey,—prudently, however ,—or, as he said, "never so as not to know what he was about." He had taken a wife from the daughters of the land; who also drank whiskey, but less prudently than her husband, so that sometimes she did not know what she was about. Sons and daughters were born unto this promising couple, white-headed, forward, dirty, and ill-mannered. But, amid all domestic and social trials, Abijah maintained a constant and steady devotion to the main chance—the acquisition of money. For money he would do anything ; for money he would have sold his wife, his children, even his own soul, if he had happened to have one. But that article, had it ever existed, was now so small and dry, that one might have fancied it to rattle in his lean frame like a shrivelled pea in a last year's peascod . Abijah was going to the camp-meeting for two reasons. One, of course, was to make money; and the other was to know whether his favorite preacher, Elder Stringfellow, handled the doctrine of election according to his views; for Abijah had a turn for theology, and could number off the five points of Calvinism1 on his five long fingers, with unfailing accuracy. It is stated in the Scriptures that the devils believe and tremble. The principal difference between their belief and Abijah's was, that he believed and did not tremble. Truths awful enough to have shaken the earth, and veiled the sun, he could finger over with as much unconcern as a practised anatomist the dry bones of a skeleton. "You, Sam!" said Abijah to his only negro helot,2 "you mind, you steady that ar bar'l, so that it don't roll out, and pour a pailful of water in at the bung. It won't do to give it to 'em too strong. Miss Skinflint, you make haste! If you don't, I shan't wait for you; 'cause, whatever the rest may do, it's important I should be on the ground early. Many a dollar lost for not being in time, in this world. Hurry, woman!" "I am ready, but Polly an't!" said Mrs. Skinflint. "She's busy a plastering...

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