Frances Trollope - Women at Camp Meeting
Religious Revivalism, violating every
principle of Christ, is often the result of un-religious competition
between preachers. The Change Agent device has always been to seduce
unstable young women by well-understood devices of manipulation. The
most powerful agent of change is a revivalist with the looks and
success the young girls (or strange men) want in their own lives.
Frances Trollope, Domestic Manners of
the Americans, written during her
travels in America during 1827-1831 gives many first-hand
observations of religious revivalism and the conditions necessary to
bring it about She is especially appalled how women control the
church and defend the preacher whose influence is described in Women
at Camp Meetings. Her observations agree with the historical
certainty that this out of mind
phenomenon is the product of men
trying to be king of the mountain for personal power and "seeing
Godliness as a means of financial gain." Among sincere evangelists,
it still moved under the need of some visual sign that my new
theology is superior to yours. While she did not witness Cane Ridge
she encountered some of the identical movements still operating. She
was in West Tennessee and on to Cincinnati in 1828. Writers of the
American Restoration Movement repeat many of the same events and were
embarassed in later life over their use of the "anxious seat" and the
need for some sign produced in the physical bodies of the "converts.
CINCINNATI, OHIO. Summer 1829.
Women at a Camp Meeting.
The exhortation nearly resembled that which I
had heard at "the Revival," but the result was very different;
for, instead of the
few hysterical
women who had distinguished themselves
on that occasion, above a hundred persons, nearly all females, came forward, uttering howlings and groans, so
terrible that I shall never cease to shudder when I recall them.
They appeared to drag each other forward, and
on the word being given, " let us pray," they all fell on their knees; but this posture
was soon changed for others that permitted greater scope for the
convulsive movements of their limbs; and they were soon all lying on the ground, an
indescribable confusion of heads and legs. They threw about their limbs with such
incessant and violent motion, that I was every instant expecting some
serious accident to occur. But how am I to describe the sounds that proceeded
from this strange mass of human beings? I know no words which can
convey an idea of it. Hysterical
sobbings, convulsive groans, shrieks and
screams
the most appalling, burst forth on all sides. I felt sick with horror. As if
their hoarse and overstrained voices failed to make noise enough,
they soon began to clap their hands violently. The scene described by Dante was before me:
Many of these wretched creatures were
beautiful young
females. The preachers moved about
among them, at once exciting and soothing their agonies. I heard the
muttered " Sister! dear sister!" I saw the insidious lips
approach the cheeks of the unhappy
girls; I heard the murmured confessions
of the poor victims, and I watched their tormentors,
breathing into their ears consolations that tinged the pale cheek
with red. Had I been a man, I am sure I
should have been guilty of some rash act of interference;
nor do I believe that such a scene could have
been acted in the presence of Englishmen without
instant
punishment being inflicted; not to mention the salutary
discipline of the tread-mill, which,
beyond all question, would, in England, have been applied to check so
turbulent and so vicious a scene. After the first wild burst that followed their
prostration, the meanings, in many instances, became loudly
articulate: and I then experienced a strange vibration between
tragic
and comic feeling. A very pretty girl, who was
kneeling in the attitude of Canova's Magdalene immediately before us,
amongst an immense quantity of jargon, broke out
thus: "Woe! woe to the backsliders! hear
it, hear it Jesus! when I was fifteen my mother died, and I
backslided, oh Jesus, I backslided! take me home to my mother,
Jesus! take me home to her, for I am weary! Oh
John Mitchel! John Mitchel!" and after sobbing piteously behind her
raised hands, she lifted her sweet face again, which was as pale as
death, and said, "Shall I sit on the sunny bank of salvation
with my mother? my own dear mother? oh Jesus, take me home, take me
home!" Who could refuse a tear to this earnest
wish for death in one so young and so lovely?
But I saw her, ere I left the
ground, with her hand fast locked, and her head supported by a
man who looked very much as Don Juan might, when
sent back to earth as too bad for the
regions below. One woman near us continued
to "call on the Lord," as it is termed, in the loudest possible tone,
and without a moment's interval, for the two hours that we kept
our dreadful station. She became frightfully hoarse, and her face so red as to
make me expect she would burst a blood-vessel. Among the rest of her rant, she said "I
will hold fast to Jesus, I never will let him go; if they take me to
hell, I will still hold him fast, fast, fast!" PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA. August 1830.
Sunday Observances in Philadelphia;
Unhealthy Alliances between Clergy and Female Parishoners.
We visited many churches and chapels in the
city, but none that would elsewhere be called handsome, either
internally or externally. I went one evening, not a Sunday, with a party
of ladies to see a Presbyterian minister
inducted. The ceremony was woefully long, and the charge to the
young man awfully impossible to obey, at least if he were a man, like
unto other men. It was matter of astonishment to
me to observe the deep attention, and the unwearied patience with
which some hundreds of
beautiful young girls who were
assembled there, (not to mention the old ladies,) listened to
the whole of this tedious ceremony; surely there is no country in the
world where religion makes so large a part of the amusement and
occupation of the
ladies. Spain, in its most catholic days,
could not exceed it: besides, in spite of the gloomy horrors of the
Inquisition, gaiety and amusement were not there offered as a
sacrifice by the young and
lovely. The religious severity of Philadelphian
manners is in nothing more conspicuous than in the number of
chains
thrown across the streets on a Sunday to prevent horses and carriages
from passing. Surely the Jews could not exceed
this country in their external
observances. What the gentlemen of
Philadelphia do with themselves on a Sunday, I will not pretend to
guess, but the prodigious majority of
females in the churches is very remarkable. Although a large proportion of the population
of this city are Quakers, the same extraordinary variety of faith
exists here, as everywhere else in the Union, and the priests have, in some
circles, the same unbounded
influence which has been mentioned
elsewhere. One history reached me, which gave a terrible
picture of the effect this power may produce; it
was related to me by my mantua maker; a young woman highly estimable
as a wife and mother, and on whose veracity I perfectly rely.
She told me that her father was a
widower, and lived with his family of three daughters at
Philadelphia. A short time before she married, an
itinerant
preacher came to the city, who
contrived to obtain an intimate
footing in many respectable families.
Her father's was one of these, and his
influence and authority were great with all the sisters,
but particularly with the youngest. The young girl's feelings
for him seem to have been a curious mixture of spiritual awe and
earthly affection. When she received a hint from her sisters that she
ought not to give him too much encouragement till he spoke out,
she showed as much holy resentment as if
they had told her not to say her prayers too devoutly. At length the father remarked the sort of
covert passion that gleamed through the eyes of his godly visitor,
and he saw too, the pallid anxious
look which had settled on the young
brow of his daughter; either this, or some rumours he bad heard
abroad, or both together, led him to forbid this man his house.
The three girls were present when he did so,
and all uttered a deprecating "Oh father!" but the old man added
stoutly, " If you show yourself here again, reverend
sir, I will not only teach you the way out of my house,
but out of the city also." The preacher withdrew, and was never heard of
in Philadelphia afterwards; but when a few months had passed,
strange
whispers began to creep through the
circle which had received and honoured him, and, in due course of
time, no less than seven
unfortunate girls produced
living proofs of the wisdom of my informant's worthy father. In
defence of this dreadful story I can only make the often repeated
quotation, "I tell the tale as 'twas told to me;" but, in all
sincerity I must add, that I have no doubt of its truth. NEW YORK CITY. Spring 1831. Sunday Amusements for Gentlemen; Effect of Religion on
Females. On the opposite side of the
North River, about three miles higher up, is a place called Hoboken.
A gentleman who possessed a handsome mansion and grounds there, also
possessed the right of ferry, and to render this productive, he has
restricted his pleasure-grounds to a few beautiful acres, laying out
the remainder simply and tastefully as a public walk. It is hardly
possible to imagine one of greater attraction; a broad belt of light
underwood and flowering shrubs, studded at intervals with lofty
forest trees, runs for two miles along a cliff which overhangs the
matchless Hudson; sometimes it feathers the rocks down to its very
margin, and at others leaves a pebbly shore, just rude enough to
break the gentle waves, and make a music which mimics softly the loud
chorus of the ocean. Through this beautiful little wood a broad
well-gravelled terrace is led by every point which can exhibit the
scenery to advantage; narrower and wider paths diverge at intervals,
some into the deeper shadow of the woods, and some shelving gradually
to the pretty coves below. The price of entrance to this little Eden, is the six
cents you pay at the ferry. We went there on a bright Sunday
afternoon, expressly to see the humours of the place. Many thousand
persons were scattered through the grounds; of these we ascertained,
by repeatedly counting, that nineteen-twentieths were
men.
The ladies were at
church.
Often as the subject has pressed upon my mind, I think I never so
strongly felt the conviction that the Sabbath day, the holy day, the
day on which alone the great majority of the Christian world can
spend their hours as they please, is ill passed, (if passed entirely)
within brick walls, listening to an earth-born preacher,
charm he
never so wisely. "Oh! how can they renounce the
boundless store How is it that the men of America, who
are reckoned good husbands and good fathers, while they themselves
enjoy sufficient freedom of spirit to permit their walking forth into
the temple of the living God, can leave those they love best on
earth, bound in the iron
chains of a most tyrannical fanaticism?
How can they breathe the balmy air, and not
think of the tainted atmosphere so heavily
weighing upon breasts stil dearer than
their own? How can they gaze upon the
blossoms of the spring, and not remember the fairer cheeks of their
young
daughters, waxing pale, as they sit for long sultry hours,
immured with hundreds of fellow victims, listening to the roaring vanities of a preacher, canonized by a college of old women? They cannot think it needful to salvation, or
they would not withdraw themselves. Wherefore is it? Do they
fear
these self-elected, self-ordained
priests, and offer up their wives and daughters to propitiate them? Or do
they deem their hebdomadal freedom more complete, because their wives and
daughters are shut up four or five times in the day at
church or chapel? Is it true, that at Hoboken, as every where
else, there are reposoires, which as you
pass them, blast the sense for a moment, by reeking forth the fumes of
whiskey and tobacco, and it may be that these cannot be entered with
a wife or daughter. The proprietor of the grounds, however, has
contrived with great taste to render these abominations not
unpleasing to the eye; there is one in particular, which has quite the air of a
Grecian temple, and did they drink wine instead of whiskey, it might
be inscribed to Bacchus.
Of charms, which Nature to her vottries yields!
The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,
The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields,
All that the genial ray of morning gilds,
And all that echoes to the song of even,
All that the mountain's sheltering bosom yields,
And all the dread magnificence of heaven;
Oh ! how can they renounce, and hope to be forgiven !"