two hours, I came to a cabin by the wayside.
There being no gate, I sprang over the fence, entered the open door, and
was received with a hearty welcome. It was an humble dwelling, the abode
of poverty. The few articles of furniture were neat and pleasantly
arranged. In the corner stood two beds, one hung with curtains, and both
with coverlets of snowy white, contrasting with the dingy log walls,
rude furniture, and rough boarded floor of this, the only room in the
dwelling. Around a cheerful fire was seated an interesting family
group. In one corner, on the hearth, sat the mother, smoking a pipe.
Next to her was a little girl, in a small chair, holding a young kitten.
In the opposite corner sat a venerable old man, of herculean stature,
robed in a hunting shirt, and with a countenance as majestic and
impressive as that of a Roman senator. In the centre of the group was a
young maiden, modest and retiring, not beautiful, except in that moral
beauty virtue gives. She was reading to them from a little book. She was
the only one of the family who could read, and she could do so but
imperfectly. In that small volume was the whole secret of the neatness
and happiness found in this lonely cot. That little book was the New
Testament."

The institution of camp-meetings, introduced with so much success by the
Methodists, those noble pioneers of Christianity, seem to have been the
necessary result of the attempt to preach to the sparsely settled
population of a new country. The following is said to be the origin of
those camp-meetings which have done incalculable good, socially,
intellectually, and religiously.

In the year 1799, two men by the name of McGee, one a Presbyterian, the
other a Methodist, set out on a missionary tour together, to visit the
log-houses in the wilderness. A meeting was appointed at a little
settlement upon one of the tributaries of the Ohio. The pioneers
flocked to the place from many miles around. There was no church there,
and the meeting was necessarily held in the open air. Many brought their
food with them and camped out. Thus the meeting, with exhortation and
prayer, was continued in the night. Immense bonfires blazed illuminating
the sublimities of the forest, and the assembled congregation, cut off
from all the ordinary privileges of civilized life, listened devoutly to
the story of a Savior's love.

This meeting was so successful in its results that another was appointed
at a small settleme