without them, from the anthropoid apes to the Jockey Club. As to the
grosser and ruder shapes taken by the diversions of the pioneers, we
will let Mr. Herndon speak--their contemporary annalist and ardent
panegyrist: "These men could shave a horse's mane and tail, paint,
disfigure, and offer it for sale to the owner. They could hoop up in a
hogshead a drunken man, they themselves being drunk, put in and nail
fast the head, and roll the man down hill a hundred feet or more. They
could run down a lean and hungry wild pig, catch it, heat a ten-plate
stove furnace hot, and putting in the pig, could cook it, they dancing
the while a merry jig." Wild oats of this kind seem hardly compatible
with a harvest of civilization, but it is contended that such of these
roysterers as survived their stormy beginnings became decent and
serious citizens. Indeed, Mr. Herndon insists than even in their hot
youth they showed the promise of goodness and piety. "They attended
church, heard the sermon, wept and prayed, shouted, got up and fought
an hour, and then went back to prayer, just as the spirit moved them."
The camp-meeting may be said, with no irreverent intention, to have
been their principal means of intellectual excitement. The circuit
preachers were for a long time the only circulating medium of thought
and emotion that kept the isolated settlements from utter spiritual
stagnation. They were men of great physical and moral endurance,
absolutely devoted to their work, which they pursued in the face of
every hardship and discouragement. Their circuits were frequently so
great in extent that they were forced to be constantly on the route;
what reading they did was done in the saddle. They received perhaps
fifty dollars from the missionary fund and half as much more from
their congregations, paid for the most part in necessaries of life.
Their oratory was suited to their longitude, and was principally
addressed to the emotions of their hearers. It was often very
effective, producing shouts and groans and genuflections among the