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We have a deep and growing conviction that it would be fraught with many and great blessings, if the Christian world were to make renewed inquiry in regard to these manifestations of divine grace. For some years past they have either been passing away entirely, or have been largely withheld. Some churches and communities have continued to be blessed from time to time, but these have been exceptions, and their power, in most cases, has not been what it formerly was. To which of two conclusions shall we come? That the churches and society have really outgrown their necessity, and have cast them off as an old garment, no longer needed, or that the declension of vital piety has so found its way into the churches that God does not deign to visit them with his reviving grace and power?

It is important to have before us the various opinions and feelings now existing in regard to revivals. Many who have hitherto been considered as competent judges in such things, claim that there is now a lamentable degree of worldliness and spiritual dearth in most of the churches in this land. Such, too, is the recent public complaint, against their own church, of many ministers and laymen in the large and important Wesleyan denomination in England. The sentiment has passed beyond a mere conviction with some, even within the Puseyite branch of the Church of England, and God is there apparently reviving his work despite all creeds and forms against it, and justification by faith alone, within certain limits, is again in the ascendant. This complaint is not the language of mere croakers. It comes from those who gratefully acknowledge many encouraging features and prospects in Zion, who believe that on the whole, taking a considerable number of successive years into account, a reliable and cheering progress is making towards the millennium. But this they hold is much the result of the revivals of religion now occasionally occurring, and of those so generally and frequently experienced in years long past. They think that to retain the advantages and the holiness now possessed, and make them efficient for continual progress, revivals of religion are as necessary, in the present state of the church, as the falling rain, and dew, and the shining sun to the growth and life of vegetation. They perceive that multitudes of the impenitent, among whom are many of the children of professed Christians, are growing up to manhood, and hastening on to the grave and eternity without having witnessed the great revolutionary power of a revival of religion. They know that the number of men in

middle life and old age, who trust to the deeds of the law for justification, is increasing in almost every community where revivals have not recently been enjoyed. They believe that if these things continue, crowds of human beings in this Christian land and from Christian families, will sink down to the region of the lost, and many of their own posterity, they fear, must be of the number. And this low estimate of the present state of religion is shared by many who have no sympathy with modern revivals.

On the other hand, there are abroad many objections and queries in regard to these same revivals on which so many are depending as a means of salvation to the world. Not a few regard them as seasons of mere animal excitement, when there is a great ado and outward show in religion, but little or no increase of piety, and greater evil than good results.

Many an impenitent person has said that he wished to be converted, but not in a time of religious excitement. It would be well worth while for these and other persons to inquire whether, in times of declension and coldness in the church, they are not the very last to give serious and effectual attention to the salvation of their own souls or that of others.

Objections, doubts, skepticism, prejudices, are not confined to the impenitent. Professed Christians there are in protestant churches, and some perhaps in almost every denomination, who disbelieve in what are called revivals. Some would not be counted as their opposers who yet lack confidence in their nature and results; others make no secret of their opposition, and sometimes proclaim them fanatical excitements, ebullitions of animal feeling, enthusiasm and wildfire, instead of manifestations of the power of the Holy Spirit to convince men of sin and turn them to God. Ministers of our religion there are who turn a sidewise, doubting glance, and talk suspiciously of any general religious awakening accompanied with special means for the salvation of souls. But such are ignorant whereof they speak; they catch hold of some incidental though unnecessary evils of revivals, or evils existing sometimes in connection with them, and make these their exponents and the criteria of judgment.

But between these two classes of decided friends and oppos ers of Revivals stands another, a far larger portion of the Protestant Church, who are alike well nigh indifferent to their nature, their history and their necessity. If revivals of religion are of God, it might almost be better, were those who might justly be expected to be their friends, and yet are so lukewarm toward them, to become declared and decided enemies. Then

they who believe and hope so much from them would know on whom to rely for strength, and where to find their forces; they would be relieved from the adverse influence of those who are supposed by the world to judge correctly of these religious manifestations, and yet are known to regard them with so light

esteem.

There are some that, in theory, are the friends of revivals, and that mean to be their friends in practice, who, nevertheless, are so much afraid of an excess of religious excitement as often to prevent or quench the first kindling and glow of any special religious awakening which if judiciously fanned and fed, would rise and spread to a glorious issue. With some ministers, is it not sadly true, that if there are appearances of a revival among their own people or in a neighboring parish, their fears of fanaticism are so strong, that they begin at once to preach and guard against animal feeling and excesses, and thus in their attempts to prevent the evil rather than to nourish and develop the good, effectually put an extinguisher upon all proper awakened aspirations and feelings on the subject. And though they be honest men, and Christians, yet either revivals are evil or they, on this point, are emphatically "blind guides."

We do not advocate fanaticism and mere animal feeling, but we ask, is there not such a thing as being so fearful of religious excesses, that dread of these shall be an effectual preventive of all legitimate religious awakening? There are those who seem to suppose that souls can be converted in great numbers, or individually, without any mental excitement whatever; whereas, must not conviction of sin of itself be excitement of mind to a greater or less degree, and is not this absolutely essential to conversion to God?

There are some who really intend to be the friends of revivals, who, when you come to test their views by an actual case of practice, are found to be much opposed to some or all those methods and means which have always, in some degree, attended these seasons of religious interest. And their prejudices against means and instrumentalities are proved to be stronger, it would seem, than their love for the religious awakening itself. It is a fact in connection with these men, to be accounted for in some way, that they never have much to do with revivals, except to talk about them until the depth of their feeling concerning means and measures is all swept away, and their cry is, "only let God work, by whomever and however He will."

But perhaps the most chilling and really the most injurious influence which revivals encounter, we sometimes find much in

this form: "Revivals are not the highest type of religion; they are real; they should not be wholly condemned, and yet it is better to do without them. And he who is laboring for that higher and more satisfactory state is really the nearer right."

This voice of objection is so magisterial and apparently discriminating, it savors so much of experience and goodness, that its force is very sweeping with the unwary. The source whence it issues is no doubt sincere and of good intention, but the reflective inquirer feels inclined to put two simple questions. First, are our churches now in the higher and better state? And secondly, if not, how are we to get into that very inviting condition without being revived so much as certainly to have revivals?

All these varied impressions and sentiments in regard to revivals of religion plainly indicate the importance that Christians, if possible, should come to some more common and really correct opinions on the subject. If these manifestations are evil, then are some now ignorantly subserving them who ought to know it; if good, absolutely and relatively, they are very good and ought to have more support.

It will help the investigation to ascertain our historical position on this subject. In modern times, revivals of religion have been more or less peculiar to the churches of the United States. The pilgrims and puritans came to America in circumstances and with a spirit and doctrines calculated to result in them. They were then loosened from many of the bands which confined them in the old world, tending to check and restrain religious aspirations and the natural and free development of Christian character. Accordingly we find that "awakenings," as revivals of religion were then called, date back nearly as far as the first settlements in New England. The presbyterians from the north of Ireland and the west of Scotland, who settled to a limited extent in some of the more southern states, had suffered persecutions and trials in their native land like those that had tried and disciplined the puritans. They came with the same spirit and principles to America, they were prepared to pray for and expect the outpourings of the Holy Spirit from the loved memory of some remarkable works of grace among their people in the old world, and they too enjoyed revivals of religion in their early history here. But these works of grace were generally isolated in their character; the principle of extension had not been adopted. And under the halfway covenant system, impenitent persons were finding their way into the communion of the Church. But with the year

1735 there began, originating in Northampton, Mass., a new epoch in their history. Then occurred those remarkable cases of which we have an account in President Edward's "Narrative of surprising conversions." The work continued in that town without sensible decline for five months, and spread with much interest and power into neighboring towns in that state. It commenced with the same feature of extension in Windsor, Conn., nearly at the same time as in Northampton, and soon after in New Jersey, particularly under the labors of the Tennents. In less than a year, it had so extended that ten towns in Massachusetts, seventeen in Connecticut, and several places in other states, though sparsely settled, had become large sharers in these great blessings of salvation.

In 1740, we find the work recommencing with still greater power, or with more of the principle or extension. "Northampton, Boston, and many other places were visited at about the same time, and in one year and a half the revival had spread thoughout all the English colonies." "An eye-witness states, under date of May, 1741, that from Philadelphia to the remotest settlements beyond Boston, a distance of nearly five hundred miles, there was, in most places, more or less concern for the soul." This period of revivals continued until the year 1743. New England then had only three hundred thousand inhabitants. It was estimated by competent judges that thirty thousand of this number proved, by their subsequent lives, that they were converted in these revivals. Many thousands were also savingly changed in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the more southern states. But the intemperate zeal and various excesses on the part of some of its friends and the opposition of its enemies, led to such dissensions and strife that the Holy Spirit was grieved and the work ended. Jonathan Edwards appeared as its historian and defender, supported by one hundred and sixty of the ablest and best ministers in New England, New York and New Jersey. The excesses and intemperate zeal they condemned, but not for these, the revivals. To meet and remedy these errors, Edwards wrote his book on the religious affections. And it is believed that, conviction and repentance becoming very extensive, these gracious manifestations would have soon returned, but for that strife of twenty years between the English and French, for the possession of the North American colonies, and subsequently the revolutionary war and the formation of the "Federal Government," which drew off the public attention and intent so much to other things than the kingdom of heaven.

A whole half century passed; two generations had nearly

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