INCIDENTS AND CHARACTERS IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF METHODISM

By

The Reverend John Elmore DuBois

Edited by Elizabeth A. DuBois
(c) 1998  DuBois Publishing Co, Simsbury, Connecticut. All rights
reserved.

Eleven

Protracted Meetings that End Too Soon;
Necessary Fried Chicken 

Camp meetings prevailed for a considerable time, but as the country grew
older and population increased, they were superceded by protracted
meetings.  These reigned almost supreme by until the war, since which
time camp meetings have again revived, but not to the exclusion of the
former.

	The protracted meetings, however, are not so peculiarly the property of
Methodism, for they are held by all Protestant denominations, and are
esteemed a great means of religious growth and development.  There is
but little difference in the way in which they are conducted now, and in
the earlier days of Methodism; but they are not hailed with that
interest and enthusiasm that they used to be.  Then, the coming meeting
awoke to ecstacy whole communities. 

	The work of the farm was pushed forward with double diligence by the
men, that they might spend a week, or two weeks, as the case might by,
in attendance upon the meeting, without jeopardizing similar interests. 
The beef was driven up, the pig fattened, corn gathered for the
preachers' horses, and the roost of the old blue hen and her chickens
definitely marked; for a protracted meeting among the Methodists,
without fried chicken for the preachers, would have been considered
unorthodox in the highest degree.

[To Be Continued]

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