Under the conditions of a vast wooded wilderness and a scanty population the camp-meeting was evolved as the typical religious festival.

To the great camp-meetings the frontiersmen flocked from far and near, on foot, on horseback, and in wagons.

Every morning at daylight the multitude was summoned to prayer by sound of trumpet.

No preacher or exhorter was suffered to speak unless he had the power of stirring the souls of his hearers.

The preaching, the praying, and the singing went on without intermission, and under the tremendous emotional stress whole communities became fervent professors of religion.