Simple Truth in the Open Air
|
T |
he chief vehicle behind this outpouring of
religious faith was the religious revival. Highly emotional meetings were held
by preachers in all sections of the country, which sought to awaken Americans
to their need for religious rebirth. So widespread were the revivals that the
early 19th century acquired the name the "Second Great Awakening."
The Second Great Awakening had its symbolic
beginnings in a small frontier community in central Kentucky. Between August 6
and 12, 1801, thousands of people--perhaps 25,000--gathered at Cane Ridge to
pray. At the time, the state's largest
city, only had 1,795 residents.
There was not one minister at Cane Ridge; there
were more than a dozen. They came from many denominations: Presbyterian,
Baptist, Methodist. There was at least one African American minister. The
people who attended the meeting came from all social classes. Perhaps
two-thirds were women. A minister left a vivid first-person description of the
scene:
Sinners [were] dropping down on
every hand, shrieking, groaning, crying for mercy...agonizing, fainting,
falling down in distress.
In the course of six months, 100,000 frontier
Kentuckians joined together in search of religious salvation. One observer
estimated in 1811 that three to four million Americans attended camp meetings
annually.