Page:The Yankee and the Teuton in Wisconsin.djvu/57

 ritualistic, their ordinances less regularly and habitually enforced. But there was an emotionalism which in a measure compensated for defects of training, for looseness of habit and negligence in the practice of religion. In a word, the camp meeting type of Christianity prevailed widely along the frontier, and that type entered Wisconsin Territory with the numerous Methodist and Baptist settlers from New York and New England. As early as August, 1838, such a camp meeting was held under Methodist leadership in the woods near Racine; it was attended by hundreds of pioneer families drawn from the sparsely settled neighborhoods for many miles around. Its appointments were of the typical frontier kind, though one would expect less boisterousness in the manifestations of emotion among those people than seems to have accompanied similar gatherings in the Southwest.

The stated religious services in early Wisconsin, as in every frontier region, were apt to be less frequent than in older communities. Ministers were too few in number and neighborhoods too impecunious to justify each locality in supporting a minister. The circuit riding custom prevailed generally among all denominations. One preacher traveled, on foot, six hundred miles, making the round in six weeks. Each group of churches also had its conferences, which were occasions for planning missionary effort, for unitedly attacking special religious or social abuses, and for promoting constructive community effort. The ablest speakers addressed such gatherings; the membership of the churches concerned and others attended, in addition to the delegates; and important religious, social, or moral results sometimes flowed from them.

Another peculiar Yankee institution allied at once to the school and the church, was the lyceum or local coöperative organization for bringing lecturers to the community.