The Ohio Camp-Meeting by Uriah Smith

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Aug 30, 1877

The Ohio Camp-Meeting.

By Uriah Smith

We can hardly say that this meeting commenced on the day appointed, August 10, 1877. Elder H. A. St. John, the president of the Conference, was detained by an unusual interest in Van Wert, Ohio, where some sixty have embraced the truth, and the arrangements were consequently very far behind on the opening day. It was found just possible to hold a meeting without a tent, in the open air, on the evening of that day.

The attendance of brethren and sisters is quite small. The location of the camp-meeting so far south, the failure of crops and the hard times, are assigned as the probable causes. There are but eighteen church and family tents erected.

But the attendance from without is unexpectedly large. On Sunday, there was a heavy thunder shower in the morning, lasting till after nine o'clock A. M. Yet in the afternoon there were, it is estimated, some two hundred teams on the ground, and about five thousand people. We have never been in a place where there seemed to be less prejudice, and where such a spirit of inquiry was manifested. A very excellent class of people, apparently, are in constant attendance, and the questions they have to propose after almost every discourse, show the interest they feel in the subjects presented. Large congregations are present both day and evening. We have now reached the fifth day of the meeting; the social seasons are growing in interest, and we anticipate that the meeting will be very successful in the end. U. S.