The Daily Dispatch

The National Camp-Meeting.
At this camp-meeting on Thursday meetings were held in all parts of the ground. One, led by Mrs. Inskip, of Baltimore, for the special interest of ministers' wives. In the tabernacle tent some two hundred ministers were collected in experience and prayer-meeting, led by Rev. Alfred Cookman, of Wilmington, Del. A general meeting, under the charge of Bishop Simpson, was attended by many of the leading men and women of the country, and was of unusual power. A meeting in congress tent, led by Rev. John Cookman, had special reference to the young people. The class leaders gathered in another tent, while a large number of children assembled around Mrs. James and Mrs. Whittenmayer in another tent. The crowd is as large as ever.

The National Camp-Meeting—Closing Scenes of the Meeting—The Sermons and Prayer-Meetings—The Methodist Episcopal Church North and South.
Round Lake, July 16.—The National Methodist Camp-Meeting closed this morning, and the encampment is rapidly breaking up. A great number left yesterday, the trains, of sixteen passenger cars each, being crowded to their utmost capacity. The regular exercises terminated at 8 A. M. with a procession composed of all the preachers and church-members, who marched around the circle singing camp-meeting hymns and bidding each other farewell. The last sermon was preached last night by the Rev. G. L. Taylor, of New York, the subject being 'Sanctification of the Church.' Prayer-meetings were kept up until a late hour of the night, and early this morning a class-meeting, at which new converts narrated their brief Christian experience and were counselled by the preachers, was held in the altar. The delay incident to the removal of the many families and their baggage will detain many until Monday, and irregular services will be held from time to time until all are gone, but these will possess no particular interest except to the few participants in them. It is estimated that over 100,000 visitors and 400 preachers have been on the ground since the commencement of the meeting, and on Sunday last there were over 30,000 present at one time. The meeting throughout was characterized by perfect good order and the total abstinence of those excrescences which usually attend such gatherings. It is a noteworthy fact that there were but two intoxicated persons seen on the grounds during the ten days, and these arrived in that condition on the train. No noisy idlers disturbed the exercises, and, to the surprise of all, the attendance of the demimonde, who generally flock out from adjacent cities to a camp-meeting, was unnoticeable, except perhaps, in one or two instances, to the police.

The religious exercises have been widely different from those of similar occasions hitherto. The object of the meeting seems to have been the perfecting of the Church in holiness rather than the conversion of sinners, and this no doubt accounts for the comparatively small number of converts. No record was kept of those professing forgiveness of sin, but it is estimated that they will not exceed one hundred. Nearly all the sermons were upon the subject of holiness, and exhortations to sinners were exceptions to the general rule. Sanctification was discussed and enjoined from the stand by all the leading preachers present, and the prayer-meetings were in almost every instance conducted with the same object in view. The purpose of the annual national camp-meeting is to stir up the Church to its Christian work, and send out the preachers and members who assemble there into all sections of the country with renewed zeal for enlarging and perfecting the Church. The thorough theological education of ministers, and the total abstinence from the use of tobacco, which is characterized as debasing in its effects and unbecoming a devout Christian, were enjoined upon all no less than perfect sanctification, and a great many pledged themselves to abandon chewing and smoking altogether.

The subject of reuniting the northern and southern wings of the Methodist Episcopal Church was occasionally discussed among the clergy, but without any definite result. An attempt was made some time ago to effect a reunion, and Bishops Simpson and Janes visited St. Louis to consult with the southern bishops on the subject. The reception of the two bishops and the friendly tone of the conversation encouraged the hope that now, since slavery, on which the Church split, had been abolished, the Church would soon be reunited; but the official reply of the southern bishops, communicated after the termination of the conference, was so bitterly sectional that it not only destroyed all prospect of a reunion, but mortified the two northern bishops who initiated the undertaking. Since that time there has been no attempt at bringing the two wings together, and it is not probable that another effort will be made very soon.

It has not yet been decided where the next national camp-meeting will be held, and no final decision will be made until next fall. Each section of the country is inviting the National Committee to locate next year's meeting in their respective localities, and some of them offer extraordinary inducements in the way of accommodations. A new camp-meeting association in New Jersey has just purchased a tract of 130 acres on Shark river, near its mouth, and proposes to make an additional purchase, so as to obtain 500 acres, with a long sea beach. The grounds are to be handsomely laid out, and it is reported that some of the members of the National Committee are in favor of accepting their invitation to hold the national camp-meeting there next year. The Round Lake Association will hold its camp-meeting in September, and will have for its object, as is usual with such assemblages, the conversion of sinners.