The Shout Heard ‘Round the World: Similarities and Differences Between American and English Camp Meetings

TL;DRAbstract

In July of 1820, George Jarrat witnessed what seemed to him to be a mighty battle—in his own words, “a field of action.” It was the Loughborough, England, camp meeting, and Jarrat described the scene for the Primitive Methodist Magazine. There were several short sermons, and then the crowd divided into “praying companies” in which those seeking salvation could find encouragement and perhaps even liberty from their spiritual misery. When it was time for the praying service to end and the congregation to come to order for more preaching, neither human voice nor trumpet could interrupt the work of the praying companies. The sounds and sights of the camp meeting resembled a military operation. Seekers approached the preaching stands as though they were engaging an enemy and returned, wounded, to the praying companies for healing and salvation. Jarrat wrote: When sinners, who were listening to the word, felt the arrows of the Almighty stick fast within them, they repaired to the multitude w

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