as
mentioned to me not long since. A fashionable young woman in the
western part of this State became an enthusiastic believer in the
doctrine. On the day which had been designated as the closing one of
time she packed all her fine dresses and toilet valuables in a large
trunk, with long straps attached to it, and, seating herself upon it,
buckled the straps over her shoulders, patiently awaiting the crisis,--
shrewdly calculating that, as she must herself go upwards, her goods and
chattels would of necessity follow.

Three or four years ago, on my way eastward, I spent an hour or two at a
camp-ground of the Second Advent in East Kingston. The spot was well
chosen. A tall growth of pine and hemlock threw its melancholy shadow
over the multitude, who were arranged upon rough seats of boards and
logs. Several hundred--perhaps a thousand people--were present, and
more were rapidly coming. Drawn about in a circle, forming a background
of snowy whiteness to the dark masses of men and foliage, were the white
tents, and back of them the provision-stalls and cook-shops. When I
reached the ground, a hymn, the words of which I could not distinguish,
was pealing through the dim aisles of the forest. I could readily
perceive that it had its effect upon the multitude before me, kindling
to higher intensity their already excited enthusiasm. The preachers
were placed in a rude pulpit of rough boards, carpeted only by the dead
forest-leaves and flowers, and tasselled, not with silk and velvet, but
with the green boughs of the sombre hemlocks around it. One of them
followed the music in an earnest exhortation on the duty of preparing
for the great event. Occasionally he was really eloquent, and his
description of the last day had the ghastly distinctness of Anelli's
painting of the End of the World.

Suspended from the front of the rude pulpit were two broad sheets of
canvas, upon one of which was the figure of a man, the head of gold, the
breast and arms of silver, the belly of brass, the legs of iron, and
feet of clay,--the dream of Nebuchadnezzar. On the other were depicted
the wonders of the Apocalyptic vision,--the beasts, the dragons, the
scarlet woman seen by the seer of Patmos, Oriental types, figures, and
mystic symbols, translated into staring Yankee realities, and exhibited
like the beasts of a travelling menagerie. One horrible image, with its
hideous heads and scaly caudal extremity, reminded me of the tremend