To any Minister of the Gospel, or to an other Person authorized to solemnize the Bands of matrimony in the North Mustun Janitors:

This is to license and quermit

you to join together holy matumong, Mich's Elizabeth Cowen and Mr Samuel Hounds both of the County pettamilton and for 30 doinge this shall be your authority.

frequent. Whiskey was very cheap, and in those days of constant wearing toil in the wilderness, it was often a refreshing and needful stimulant. It frequently took the place of medicine and was supposed to lessen the severity of the dreaded "ague."'

But the life of the pioneer was not all work and frolic. He had a decided reverential and serious religious tone to his character. He believed in living earnestly and righteously. There was, as a rule, not much of the sanctimonious about him, but his religion was near to him and he was tenacious of its rights. Those under his control he required to observe the duties imposed by his religious convictions and maintain the moral standing of his home. The pioneer life was a rural one and church going and Sunday observance were imperative duties. He and his family went regularly in the wagon or horseback to the rude log church, in a clearing in the woods or possibly near a settlement of which he was a part. He with many others hitched his horses to the trees that surrounded the church, and if the day was wet, the harness and saddles were brought inside. The church had a big fireplace with a broad hearth and it roared cheerfully on the cold wintry days. The minister was provided with an old chair and table which contrasted dimly with the rough benches used by the humble audience on Sunday, and by the school children on week days, for the schoolhouse and church were the same. The sermon was of the stern, lurid, dogmatic nature suited to their solitary lives. A morning and afternoon service with Sunday school intervening consumed most of the day. Prayer meetings were held "when the sun was an hour

high, or at early candle light," and in the winter when the roads were bad and the nights dark, some lighted themselves to prayer meeting, through the woods, by torches made of long strips of hickory bark which they held aloft and brightened occasionally by knocking the burnt end against a tree.

The camp meeting marked the crisis of the religious excitement especially in Methodist communities, and was a familiar feature of pioneer life all over this country and varied only in intensity. It was a ceremony that brought the people together, fired by a spirit of strong earnestness and reduced many a turbulent faction to quiet contemplation.

But the camp meeting in Ohio was as it was elsewhere as picturesque as it was earnest. Great preparations were made in anticipation of it. Great quantities of food were provided by whole communities, for most of them camped in tents or improvised huts while the meeting lasted, sometimes for a week or more. It was a season of hospitality and rejoicing as well as of religious revival and the people threw their whole souls into its celebration.

The scene presented to one approaching the camp consisted of a great number of horses tied to the rail fences and trees; the wagons partly dismantled among the tents and huts; the hustle of the crowd in all phases of loading and unloading camp utensils, and the preparing of meals. In the midst of the congregation sitting on log benches, the voice of the preacher could be heard as he exhorted them to religious awakening. As the agitation grew stronger and the passions and the emotions arose, those who sat on the mourners' bench

became uncontrollable. The loud voice of the preacher was drowned amidst the shouting, screaming, clapping of hands, leaping, jerking, falling and swooning of those who had "got religion." High above the hubbub arose the sweet voiced melodies of old familiar hymns that stirred the sternest hearts and filled the more tender ones with ecstasy. Then dinner was served, to which every stranger and wayfarer was welcome. Indeed there was no stranger, for such distinction was blotted out in the fervency of religious fellowship. At the opening of the afternoon service another orator arose. Amidst the profound silence, an earnest and pathetic prayer was poured forth broken only by the low murmuring "Amens" of the responsive listeners. Then midst singing and exhortation the excitement again arose and again died away.

At night large fires were kindled. The busy campers, the swaying of the excited crowd, the gyrations of the preacher on his high platform, all gleamed and glared in the fitful light. The white tents peered like ghosts from out of the dusky woods whose tall trunks were like a lofty colonnade in the romantic gloom. It was, altogether, with the accompanying screams and shouts, a gruesome scene, worthy the Druids of old.

In the year 1800, and for several years following, an intense and widespread religious excitement prevailed in Ohio, principally in the southern and eastern portions. This feeling was publicly manifested in the camp meetings and in the astonishing and powerful revivals of that time. Both historically and psychologically this movement forms the basis for an interesting study of the social conditions of the pioneer community. The