Camp Meetings And Short Bible Verses

The Clerk Of The Court summoned me to begin jury duty soon.

That puts the pressure on.

It means I need to get on the stick editing William Short’s 1854 Diary because a break in my work’s tempo may torpedo the whole project and I’d never get back to it.

But it does not pay for me to rush.

I need to carefully examine each word, otherwise….

For instance, yesterday as I checked back over the transcript comparing it with the original autograph I realized I’d made a slight mistake in rendering Short’s miniscule and badly faded Spencerian script.

I missed seeing the letters stu.

So my transcript read: “So-and-so died late last night”.

That sounds dramatic.

But when I examined the autograph manuscript closer, I saw those three initial letters—stu—I realized that “So-and-so studied late last night”.

A slight difference in meaning.

Who’s to know?

I want the dramatic rendering. If I let it stand as is, who else is going to get a magnifying glass and track down those three missing letters?

But, you can’t write Christian unless you live Christian.

Our Lord is not too keen on dramatic effects.

I changed my transcript. Under duress, you understand.

As I compared the typescript which Ginny and I made with the original, I also inserted the text of Scripture references Short cites.

William Short worked as a teacher, a professor of language and mathematics. But his 1854 Diary also records 59 sermons he preached in that year. Not only did he preach himself, but at times he acted as an exhorter when other preachers preached—especially at camp meetings..

I’ve never attended a religious meeting where an exhorter served, but as I understand the practice, the exhorter acted sort of like a cheerleader for the preacher. The exhorter walked amid the crowd encouraging the sinners to repent and the saved to live godly lives.

And at times, William Short served as an exhorter in the ministry of the famous frontier preacher Peter Cartwright.

Years ago I read the legendary Peter Cartwright’s autobiography/diary. A physical giant, this preacher challenged the rough and tumble frontiersmen of his day.

As I recall, once when a drunken blacksmith heckled the preacher, Cartwright strode into the crowd, punched the blacksmith out, and finished preaching his sermon standing on the unconscious heckler’s chest.

Billy Graham hardly ever does that.

Yet, Cartwright drew the same comparative crowds in his day. His effective preaching gleaned over 12,000 recorded converts at the camp meetings.

An online copy of Peter Cartwright’s autobiography can be found at http://www.cblibrary.org/biography/cartwright.htm

William Short attended and exhorted or preached at many camp meetings.

Don’t worry, I’ll get back to citing Scripture references in a bit; but first, I want to talk about camp meetings.

Since the sparse population of the American frontier lived in small family groups spread over vast geographic areas, few church buildings existed. But periodically, word of mouth spread the news of a camp meeting being called.

These religious gatherings drew Christians of all sorts; Short’s Diary specifically mentions Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians all involved—the emphasis was on winning hearts to Christ, not on denominational issues.

People abandoned their farms and log cabins to trek to the announced meeting place. Thousands gathered to camp in tents, in huts, or to live in the open air as they listened to marathon preaching. The camp meetings also proved a social phenomena as folks who seldom saw their nearest neighbors met together to share not only faith but news, politics, recipes, and gossip.

But religious fervor was the main order of the day.

I’ve seen reports that in fits of ecstasy, worshipers wept, fainted, rolled on the ground, saw visions, or developed the “jerks”—a convulsion so violent that the women’s long hair would crack like a horsewhip. (Hence, according to some sources, comes the term Florida Cracker—of which I am one).

The camp meetings gave rise to a particular rhythm and cadence in preaching. In those days before microphones had been invented, to speak to crowds of thousands, the preacher would line his remarks; i.e. he would say a line. Then a man at the far limits of his voice would repeat that same line to the people behind him. Thus the message was relayed deeper and deeper into the crowd far away from the platform.

Preacher and repeaters fell into an antiphonal cadence of line after line. You can still hear this rhythm and cadence in Florida’s rural churches today.

Here is an old engraving showing a camp meeting scene from a date a few years earlier than Short’s diary:

These camp meetings went on for weeks with people coming and going as the Spirit moved them. But, here’s a strange thing, on the American frontier these loud and roudy camp meetings gave rise to social responsibility. Prison reform, slavery’s abolition, care for the insane, care for the handicapped—these humanitarian endeavors are rooted in the camp meetings.

OK. I’m back off that tangent.

What I did yesterday was to insert footnotes with the text of Scripture verses into places where Short cites the text references in his messages.

You can tell a lot about a man from the Bible passages he seems familiar with; and yesterday I discovered a lot about William Short, and about myself.

For instance one of my own favorite passages is I John 3; And this is a text from which William Short preached often:

I John 3:1— Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

Short also spoke on a text I’ve spoken on myself:

Galatians 6:8— For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.

Another favorite text of Short’s is:

John 12:26— If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.

But Short seemed to preach from the Prophet Amos more than any other Scripture:

Amos 5:6— Seek the LORD, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel. Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth, Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name:

He also favored:

Amos 4:12— Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. For, lo, he that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth unto man what is his thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, The LORD, The God of hosts, is his name.

He also expounded a text from the Prophet Nahum:

Nahum 1:7— The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him.

And from the Apostle James:

James 4:8— Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

Yes, William Short was a man who knew his Bible and his diary reveals that he was a happy person (He uses the word happy 44 times in his diary entries) who lived in daily, serious contemplation of religion.

And, I thought it interesting that for his last message of the year 1854, Short chose his text from the sad book of Laminations:

Lamentations 3:21— This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.

Yes indeed, I want to finish up this initial work and get the pages of Short’s diary to the printer so I can begin correcting proof pages before the Court Clerk sequesters me in some dungeon with a bunch of 12 strangers.

Maybe I need to take to heart another of Short’s texts:

Galatians 6:9— And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.