The preaching was going on under the same kinds of sheds, only they was bigger and held crowds of people.  The benches was made out of outside slabs of logs, with holes bored in the round side to drive sticks into for legs. They didn't have no backs.  The preachers had high platforms to stand on at one end of the sheds.  The women had on sun-bonnets; and some had linsey-woolsey frocks, some gingham ones, and a few of the young ones had on calico.  Some of the young men was barefooted, and some of the children didn't have on any clothes but just a tow-linen shirt.  Some of the old women was knitting, and some of the young folks was courting on the sly.

The first shed we come to the preacher was lining out a hymn.  He lined out two lines, everybody sung it, and it was kind of grand to hear it, there was so many of them and they done it in such a rousing way; then he lined out two more for them to sing—and so on.  The people woke up more and more, and sung louder and louder; and towards the end some begun to groan, and some begun to shout.  Then the preacher begun to preach, and begun in earnest, too; and went weaving first to one side of the platform and then the other, and then a-leaning down over the front of it, with his arms and his body going all the time, and shouting his words out with all his might; and every now and then he would hold up his Bible and spread it open, and kind of pass it around this way and that, shouting, "It's the brazen serpent in the wilderness!  Look upon it and live!"  And people would shout out, "Glory!—A-a-_men_!"  And so he went on, and the people groaning and crying and saying amen:

"Oh, come to the mourners' bench! come, black with sin! (_Amen_!) come, sick and sore! (_Amen_!) come, lame and halt and blind! (_Amen_!) come, pore and needy, sunk in shame! (_A-A-Men_!) come, all that's worn and soiled and suffering!—come with a broken spirit! come with a contrite heart! come in your rags and sin and dirt! the waters that cleanse is free, the door of heaven stands open—oh, enter in and be at rest!" (_A-A-Men_!  _Glory, Glory Hallelujah!_)

And so on.  You couldn't make out what the preacher said any more, on account of the shouting and crying.  Folks got up everywheres in the crowd, and worked their way just by main strength to the mourners' bench, with the tears running down their faces; and when all the mourners had got up there to the front benches in a crowd, they sung and shouted and flung themselves down on the straw, just crazy and wild.