Annals of our ancestors; one hundred and fifty years of history in the ...

CHILDHOOD OF B. U. WATKINS 33
not fail to mention that our neighbor, "Uncle Jimmie" Mc-
Cash, had also a mind that reached out to know. He saw that
our father, though so hampered, was trying in earnest to
mount to greater heights of knowledge, and we heard in later
years of many words of encouragement received by him
from "Uncle Jimmie," and we know that they heartened him
greatly.
Leaving our father still a young student striving for an
education, I must tell something of the religious excitement
which was stirring the wilderness, for it came to have a great
influence on his future life. Early in the nineteenth century
a great religious awakening occurred, known as the Cane
Ridge revival. It began among the Presbyterians in a small
log church in Kentucky, while they were having a camp meeting.
This meeting was attended with uncommon demonstrations,
such as swooning, jerking, smgmg, and dancmg. Those
who swooned would he for hours in an apparently breathless
state and quite unconscious. On recovering they would declare
that the Lord had spoken peace to their souls. Those
who had "jerks" would sway back and forth with such rapidity
that their features were scarcely recognizable. Those who
sang did not move their lips, but sang within their chests in
what was described as a most heavenly manner, producing a
deep and solemn influence.
At such a camp meeting as Cane Ridge there would be between
twenty and thirty thousand people who had come from
far and near. They would remain in attendance till provisions
were exhausted in the quantity demanded to maintain
such a host. After this great revival there appeared a Presbyterian
minister, eminent as a scholar as well as a preacher
and teacher, Barton W. Stone. After witnessing the fruits
of the Cane Ridge revival he was led to believe, although he
could not explain the demonstrations he had witnessed, that
the outcome of these remarkable meetings had helped to
break up the apathy into which the country had fallen re-
ligiously. He began to study the Bible as for himself alone
and came to the rational conclusion that it was the word of
God and "an all-sufiicient rule of faith and practice." This