CAMP-MEETING. A series of religions meetings held in the open air, usually in the woods, and participated in by families or groups of persons from a distance, who live in tents or in simply built houses during the sessions and devote the greater part of the time to listening to preaching, which is always direct and fervent and is usually aecompanied by a 'revival.' The first held in the United States was in 1709, at a settlement on lied River. in Kentucky, and was the outcome of the preaching of Rev. John 231*Gee. a Methodist, his brother, a Presbyterian, and Rev. Mr. Hoge, also a Presbyterian, at a coin ;minion service. Their exhortations affected their audience so strongly that crowds came from the surrounding country to hear confessions and 'testimonies,' and the meeting, transferred from the small meeting-house to the adjoining forest, was protracted for several days, and was followed by others in different places. The number of persons attending ore camp-meeting in Ken tueky was estimated at 20,000. At first Presby terians and Baptists united with the Methodists in holding these meetings. hut they soon came to be confined to the last-named denomination, which in all its brandies has been most enthu siastic in supporting them and in introducing them into all parts of the country, though even within the denomination they have DOA with opposithin. In many States eimp-mectings have
lost some of the characteristics of early days, the of meeting being fixed, and the life less simple. Not unfrequently secular instruction is a feature, schools of langriages, music, art, etc., and heel on various topics, tilling the time not occupied by religious services. Among the many popular camp - meeting grounds of the :Methodist Episcopal Church are Bound Lake, N. \ Ocean .1., Vineyard, Ohio, Bartley, Neb.. and Pacific (hove:, :Monterey, Cal.
Lorenzo Dow 01.v.) introduced •amp-meetings into England in 1807, but the Wesleyan Confer ence refused (as it still does) to sanetion them, and 0o this attitude was partly due the io-ganiza tion of the PrimithT Methodist denomination in Consult: Essay on Methodism (Yew Nork, 1849) ; Porter, Revivals of Religion (1877) : S. C. Swallow, romp-ifcciinys (1878).