regular religious revival. No chronicles like these would be complete without its mention, since no rural life on the border exists without it. Much to the regret of doting parents who failed to get all their dear ones "saved "— especially the boys—before the sap began to run in the sugar maples, the revival season was sometimes cut short by the advent of an early spring. The meetings were then brought to a halt, notwithstanding the fervent prayers of the righteous, who in vain besought the Lord of the harvest to delay the necessary seed-time, so that the work of saving souls might not be interrupted by the sports and labors of the sugar camp, which called young people together for collecting fagots, rolling logs, and gathering and boiling down the sap.
Many were the matches made at these rural gatherings, as the lads and lasses sat together on frosty nights and replenished the open fires under the silent stars.
To depict one revival season is to give a general outline of all. The itinerant preacher was generally a young man and a bachelor. In his annual returns to the scenes of his emotional endeavors to save the unconverted, he would find that many had backslidden; and the first week was usually spent in getting those who had not "held out faithful "up to the mourners' bench for re-conversion.
Agnostics, of whom John Ranger was an example, were many, who took a humorous or good-naturedly critical view of the situation. But the preacher's efforts to arouse the emotional nature, especially of the women, began to bear fruit generally after the first week's praying, singing, and exhorting; and the excitement, once begun, went on without interruption as long as temporal affairs permitted. The rankest infidel in the district kept open house, in his turn, for the preacher and exhorter; and once, when the schoolhouse was partly destroyed by fire, John Ranger permitted the meetings to be held in his house till the damage was. repaired by the tax-payers of the district.
