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3773
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1980
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
LIBRARIES
ITHACA, N. Y. 14853

 

JOHN M. OLIN
LIBRARY
wc
This is an authorized facsimile
of the original book, printed by
microfilm-xerography on acid-free paper.

UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS INTERNATIONAL
Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.
London, England
1980
LETTERS

OF AN

ENGLISH TRAVELLER

TO HIS
FRIEND IN ENGLAND,

On THE

“REVIVALS OF RELIGION,”

/

}
IN AMERICA.

BOSTON,

BOWLES AND DEARBORN, 72, WASHINGTON STREET.

Pross of Isaac R. Butts and Co.
1828.

 
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fi uteatonlunliadiduatiaitodlutorltoglimbualmatontatanluntunnteninlia
* DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, to wit:
District Clerk’s Office.

BE 1T REMEMBERED, that on the twenty fourth day
of January, a. p. 1828, in the fifty-second year of the
Independence of the Unirep Sratrrs oF AMERICA,
Boules & Dearborn, of the said district, have depos-
ited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof
they claim as proprictors, in the words following, to
wit:

“ LETTERS OF AN ENGLISH TRAVELLER TO HIS
Frrenv In ENGLAND, ON THE * REVIVALS OF RELI-
GION,’ IN AMERICA.”’

In conformity to the act of the Congress of the Uni-
ted States, entitled, “ An act for the encouragement of
learning, by securing the copics of maps, charts; and
books, to the authors and propricturs of such copies,
duiing the times therein mentioned ;”’ and also to an
act, entitled, “ An act suppleme:tary to an act, entitled,
an act for the encouragement of learning, by sccuring
the copies of maps, charts, and books to the authors and
proprietors of such copies during the times therein men-
tioned ; and extending the benetits thereof to the arts
of designing, engraving and etching historical and other

prints.
Clerk of the District of

JNO. W. DAVIS, Massachusetts.
Tue writer of these Letters, in
consenting to their publication, offers
his preface and apology in one word,
when he says that he has been in-
duced to believe, they might be of
some service to the cause of religion
in this country.
CONTENTS.

LETTER I.

GENERAL CHARACTER OF REVIVALS.

Periodical—Distinguished from all former religious
excitements—Extra mectings—unusual agitation—
Body of society divided into the three classes of
“new converts,” ‘the anxious,” and the uncon-
cerned. . . ‘ é ‘ ‘i A . 1

LETTER I.

CAUSES OF REVIVALS.

Extraordinary character of these excitements—
Clerical influence—Process of fecling by which the
Revival commences in the mind of the Clergyman—
his ideas of Religion—his doctrinal views—Spread
of the Revival among the people—unusual reli-
gious meetings, instructions and combinations—itine-
rant preachers and others, who give an impulse to the
public mind—advantage taken of extraordinary events,

death of young persons, &c.—Motives of the leading
actors in these scenes. . . . ‘ 9
vi CONTENTS.

°

LETTER Ul.

CAUSES OF REVIVALS,—CONTINUED.

Natural susceptibility of religious impression and
propensity to religious excitement—Claims of Revi-
vals to a supernatural character, increasing this ten-
dency—These claims discussed. . ‘ ‘ 23

LETTER IV.
METHODS OF PROMOTING THE REVIVALS.

Illustrated in an account of two religious mectings—
Human means and management—Circumstances con-
sidered with reference to the Revivals—Winter usual-
ly the season of them—time of general health said to
be favorable—Social plans and projects overruled
for their promotion—Religious meetings, in which the
converts, the anxious and unconcerned, are separa-
ted from each other--Domiciliary visitation—Secta-
rian zeal—Rumors. . 7 i : . 42

LETTER V. :
THE RELIGION OF REVIVALS.

The great question,of what character itis and wheth-
er so much excitement is expedicnt—Conversation in
the stage-coach—Unnatural and extravagant charac-
CONTENTS. vu

ter of the Religion of Revivals—illustrated in the
manners of society, and especially in the notion of
conversion—Prevailing ideas of the suddenness of
conversion, suspected to be modern, and to have re-
sulted in a sreat measure from Revivals, or from the
Masters of Revivals, Whitficld, Wesley, Tennant and
Davenport—Sentiments of Calvia—Mathias Flacius
of INyria--Hasty and unlearncd criticisms upon the
New Testament language about Conversion. 60

LETTER VI.

RELIGION OF REVIVALS.

Illustrated in the proceedings of the Wew Lebanon
Convention—Further reflections on the unnatural
character of this Religion. . : - 82

LETTER VII.

THE RELIGION OF REVIVALS,—CONTINUED.

The extraordinary and novel character of it—Fluctu-
ation—Tumult—Publicity—Monitorial system of re-
ligious instruction—Contracted views of religion and
of God—Observatior of Dr. Paley—Contrast _be-
tween our Saviour’s manner of teaching and that em-
ployed in Revivals—Self-complacency and presump-
tion nourished by Revivals—Their tendency to resolve
religion into a set of passive impressions—The system
wiii CONTENTS.

of Revivals fitted to enslave the mind—unfriendly to
morality—on what accounts and in what respects—
The Rerival conscience not the true conscience—
Discriminations—the true conscience not empas-
sioned but calm—illustrated in the teaching of Christ
—Further views of Revivals—Thcir evils apt to be
overlooked by their friends in the estimate they form
of them—<Admission, that they do some good—The
province of Revivals chiefly limited to less reflecting
and refined minds, which are Jess liable to be injured
by rude and harsh treatment—The prerogative of God
to bring good out of evil—Analogy between religion
and other works and ways of the Almighty—The little
prevalence which a true and exalted religion has yet
attained. A ; i . ‘ . 106
LETTER I.

ON THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF REVIVALS.

» May 16th, 1827.

 

MY DEAR FRIEND,

You are curious to know something about
the religion of this country ; a religion with-
out an establishment; a religion left to itself
—without a priesthood I had almost said ; for
every body preaches here who will; nay,
those who exhort and pray publicly among
the laity, far outnumber those who are con-
sidered as regularly ordained. Well, in truth,
if you have curiosity, prepare to have it sat-
isfied, for I shall violate the old rhetorical
rule, and plainly tell you that I am going to
he interesting.

The most remarkable thing, about the peo-

1
2 GENERAL CHARACTER

ple of this country, is their religion: at east,
in New England, from whence, as my date
tells you, I write. Sects and creeds, doc-
trines and disquisitions, preachers and people,
sermons and societies, plans and projects ;
excitements and conversions, you may hear
talked of wherever you go—in stage-coaches
and steam-boats, in shops and bar-rooms, nay
in ball-rooms and partics of pleasure, and in
short, every where. But this religion is as
remarkable in its character as it is in its
colloquial exhibition ; and the most extraor-
dinary thing in its character undoubtedly is
the system of revivals of religion as they are
called. For these are brought into a system
and plan, as much as the religion itself{—a sys-
tem of operations as much as its theology is
into a system of speculations.

But I see that I must task myself to give
you some gencral notion of these things in the
outset, for you have no idea, not even a
generic one of what Revivals of Religion

are.
OF REVIVALS. 3

Once, in two, three or five years, then, it
is common for a township, a village, or some
portion (i. ¢. some congregation or congrega-
tions) ofa city, to be thrown into a great ex-
citement about religion. The intervals are
comparatively, and [ am afraid, from what |
can learn, actually seasons of great religious
indifference. This scems in fact to be con-
sidered as a matter of course. It is often in
conversation assumed as a fact, and stated as
an apology. ‘ We have had a great Revival
here,” many both of the clergy and the lai-
ty have said to me in answer to an inquiry
into the state. of religion among them—“ we
have had a great Revival here, and there is
always a season of coldness afterwards.” ‘This
is stated indeed with rather a mournful and
sell-accusing air, but still as a matter of course,
and those who offer the apology seem to be
glad that the case is no worse with them than
with their neighb. rs. But to return ; this peri-
odical character of the Revivals, and the con-
4 GENERAL CHARACTER

stant succession of thei, are circumstances
that discriminate them from all other reli-
gious excitements that 1 have ever read or
heard of. There have been excesses and
ebullitions of zeal in the origin of all sects,
of the Waldenses, the Anabaptists, the Qua-
kers, the Puritans, the Presbyterians, &c.
And the Methodists, whose unpretending
walls are built out of the polished stones ”
of some of our stately churches, are contri-
ving through their class-meetings, and confer-
ences, and love feasts, to keep up a sort of
perpetual excitement. But the ¢ refreshings’
here, come,—only less frequently—like the
overflowings of the Nile. Not however from
any less certain laws or causes, as I think |
shall be able to show you.

But | must check my wanderings, and try
to give you some further idea of what these
Revivals are. No sooner does the first ac-
cess of this spiritual influence appear, than
the minister and the most zealous members
of his church arouse themselves. They ap-
OF REVIVALS. 5

point meetings for prayer and exhortation to
be held commonly as often as every evening
in the week. Sometimes, the assemblings
take place early in the morning. ‘The very
singularity of these arrangements arrests at-
tention. People crowd to the meetings, at
first, perhaps as much from curiosity as any
other impulse. You would be apt to think,
were you in some of the villages here, that
the business of society is to “go to meeting,”
and the individuals most interested, do often
in fact, give up all other business.—Some,
even of the most thoughtless, and indeed it is
most likely to be they, will in the ordinary
course of things, come to be deeply impress-
ed with what is passing around them. They
are uddressed by their preachers, with the
most terrific warnings, or in the most mournful
accents of pity and lamentation. ‘Their christ-
ian friends perhaps take them by the hand,
and, in new and unaccustomed tones, beseech

them to flee from the wrath to come. The
1* _
6 GENERAL CHARACTER

slumbering conscience perhaps, is aroused to
do its too much, and too long forgotten office.
At any rate, the imagination and feelings
are wrought upon. And through the influ-
ences, partly of real conversion and partly of
overwrought passion, it is not strange that
many should be thrown into the. deepest dis-
tress. [have seen men in such an agony, as
might easily be mistaken, in its apparent signs,
for the remorse of a murderer or the anguish
of a convict.—This does not, ordinarily, for
it cannot, last long. From the very excess
and violence of these emotions, there is at
length developed a gentler feeling. And 1]
have oiten suspected that this bare physical
emotion has in many cases been mistaken for
areal, spiritual change of vicws and senti-
ments. Jn many cases, too, even of this
very brief experience, I have no doubt, there
is areal, though ! could scarcely adimit, that
it is a radical change. When men have long
been taught, erroneously as I believe, that their
whole nature is opposed to God and religion,
OF REVIVALS. 7

and have found, on having their minds fixedly
bent to these great objects, that they really
are capable of loving them, they have felt as
if it was a new revelation to them. Their
feelings, of course, pass through a very great
change, which they not unnaturally liken to a
“new creation.” They probably take it
indeed, for more than it is. Itis not a reno-
vation, but an era. They feel, and_ this is
their language, that “old things have passed
away, and that all things have become new,”
but it is not so much in the habits or even the
dispositions of their minds, as in the new ob-
jects which have been brought distinctly and
vividly before their minds.

These of course—whether their experi-
ence is merely physical, or whether it arises
from a new attitude and posture of the mind—
are the ‘Converts,”: and when this change
has passed upon them, they become very im-
portant coadjutors in “the work.” They go
about warning and exhorting their former
companions, describing their joys, avowing

If
8 GENERAL CHARACTER

their resolutions, and beseeching others to
foliow them. Those who have not attained to
this change, and yet are seeking for it, are
usually denomimated “ the anxious.” So that
the whole community is divided into the three
classes of the converts, the unxious, and the
unconcerned. And mectings are appointed
for these difierent descriptions of persons.
Indeed this distinction is nade the ground of
some very repreliensibie causes of treatment
towards them, which 1 shall mention when [
go into detail.

This is perhaps cuoush in the general, and
for the present. Yet Ll imust tell you one
thing more, before 1 lay down my pen ; and
that is, what you may have already suspected,
that TP do not Jook upon these things altos
gether as you would have expected me to
have done. In short, I must take the credit
of being somewhat liberalized by travel. 1

find good men every where. I begin to
think there is a mixture of good with evil, and
evil with good, in every thing ; not even ex-
OF REVIVALS. 9

cepting our own Holy Church. These revi-
vals—but I see that ] must defer the topic of
the good and the evil till another time.
Adieu, my dear friend,—may the best in-
fluences of the Best Religion ever be given to
you and me, is the prayer of
Yours most affectionately,
eee FHKE

—~——

LETTER II.

ON THE CAUSES OF REVIVALS,

, May 30th, 1827.
MY DEAR FRIEND,

I siant pursue in this and some other letters,
the subject of nfy last, referring you to H—
for notices of my progress, “hair breadth
escapes,” &c. ‘The steam-boat incident, for
these things are toocommon here to be called
accidents, was indeed terrific.—But to leave
“ meaner themes,” I go at once to the pro-
mised subject.
10 THE CAUSES

In truth these Revivals are very extraordi-
nary things: and I shall think it worth while
to philosophize a little about them. That the
body of the people slould be thrown into a
great periodical excitement, to which their
ordinary sobriety must render them previously
averse, that they should be thrown into such
occasional commotions on a subject of per-
manent interest, which admits of no exigen-
cies and chancés like those of political strife ;
once more, that they should be thrown into an
excitement so dreadful and painful as this is,
in the first stages of it, at Icast, and that all
this should be done through the influence or
through the countenance of one man,—I mean
the clergyman,—all this is certainly very ex-
traordinary. I say of the clergyman. For
it is perfectly evident, that although various
circumstances may conspire to produce this
state of things, nothing could go. on withcut
him: without, that is to say, either his aid
or concurrence. So true is this, that I have
sometimes observed in a city, where the con-
OF REVIVALS. ll

gregations of course are completely intermix-
ed in residence, society, and relationships, yet
the Revivals will most exactly observe the
bounds ofclerical influence. Mr. A. “hasa
great Revival,”—for this is the very language
they use—in his congregation,” and Mr.
B.’s congregation—who dislikes these things,
—is not touched. This is priestly power, in-
deed, and with a witness. They talk about our
hierarchy, but in truth [ never knew a people
over whom the clergy had such an influence,
among whom such a towering spiritual hie-
rarchy was built up, as the good and intel-
ligent, but after all very superstitious eople of
New England. In our Church there is nothing
Jike it. Our clergy, you know, treat us a
good deal as other gentlemen of influence
and respectability would. ‘The ministers of
New England are—gentlemen, some of them,
and a good many are not-—but at any rate,
they are almost all of them ruders. It puts
me in mind of an anecdote thatis rclated of a
clergyman by the name of Rogers, the filth de-
12 THE CAUSES

scendant, by the by, from the martyr—whose
sufferings, by the by again, are set forth in a
most lugubrious print of himself and his fam-
ily in all the old Westminster Catechisms in the
country. The family seems to have flourished
here ; the fourth lineal descendant, I find,
having been a President of Harvard Univer-
sity. It is a curious fact, also, that the oldest
son in every instance up to the eleventh gene-
ration has been a clergyman.—But to the an-
ecdote, which to be sure, docs not deserve so
formal an introduction, though it shows that
the spirit of the family was not extinguished in
the fires of Smithfield. A traveller, passing
the house of our fifth descendant, in a retired
country parish, and seeing him employed in his
garden called out, “ do you serve here?” The
old gentleman, says our anecdote, stretched
himself up to his height of more than six feet,
and replied, “ I rule here.” The clergy still
rule, though less ostentatiously than in for-
mer days. But I am straying from the point.

A Revival usually commences with the
OF REVIVALS. 13

direct and systematic exertion of the pastor.
And to begin with the beginning, the first inqui-
ry would be, what begins it with him? And
here it is that I shall philosophize a litle. I
think there is something extravagant and un-
natural in his own religion that brings him
into this state of mind. Just so far as reli-
gion or any other principle fails to be rational,
although there may be a great deal of im-
pulse and zeal about it, it wants reality and
heartiness. Justin that proportion, do cant,
and the holy tone, and the sanctimonious
countenance and demeanor take the place of
an interior and quickened interest. Just so far
does religion, however much it may have to
do with the passions, fail to incorporate itself
with the mind, and to make a part of it. A
mind in this state, for human nature is so far
true to itself, must be restless and conscience-
stricken. Add to this, the supposition, that a
man’s notion of religion is extravagant, that
he is thinking of some unreasonable and unat-
tainuble state of feeling as constituting religion,
14 THE CAUSES

and you will see that all this working together

in his mind must, in process of time, produce

an effervescence. Dissatisfied with his official

duties which are incessantly bringing him into

contact with religion, growing more and more

mechanical, the more he has to do with the

subject, he feels, and there is a particular rea-

son in his office why he should first feel, and

there is a reason in the nature of things why

he should periodically feel, the urgent neces-

sity of some grand arousing from his lethargy.

He wants an excitement—a paroxysm—any
thing but what he has. The maximum of
h’s religion is not the vigor of moral health,

but a fever; and his moral constitution is

brought into a kind of necessity of having this

fever once in a few months—or a few years.
as the case may be.

We must add to this that the doctrines he
embraces, partaking of the same extravagance
that characterizes his general views of reli-
gion, lead him to the same results. He be-
Jieves that all men are naturally and utterly
OF REVIVALS, 15

depraved and wicked, and deserving of un-
speakable and endless misery,—that the
character which they bring. from their very
birth, which they derive from their creaticn,
dooms them to eternal and infinite sufferings.
As he walks abroad among the people, as he
looks around upon the living and happy mul-
titude, he exclaims, no doubt with unfeigned
pity, “these multitudes, gay and joyous as they
are, are children of perdition ; they are going
to hell; they hang by the brittle thread of life
over the burning and bottomless abyss—an-
other day, another moment, and where may
they be?.... There is a change,” says he,—for
he is not thinking in this exigency of the long
course and habit of virtue, and devotion—
“there is a change, he says, which will save
them. They cannot produce it themselves,
but it must be wrought in them by the special
grace of God. In one moment, the power of
God could make all these reprobate creatures
the heirs of heaven. They are all uncon-
scious of the horrible catastrophe that awaits
16 THE CAUSES

them, and of themselves unable to escape
it—they are as dry bones, as dead men in the
valley of vision, and they are soon to awake
to everlasting burnings!”..... It is thus, that
receiving the figurative representations of
scripture as literal, and forgetting those quali-
fications of its language which the reasonable
interpreter must make,—he conjures up his
fearful system of faith--fearful enough in-
deed, if it were really and universally believ-
ed, not only to plunge the world into an
unheard of excitement, but to drive the whole
world to absolute madness.

Such, I suppose, is the process by which
the Revival commences in the mind of the
Minister; and thence its progress among the
people is not difficult to account for.

He first applies himself of course to the
church, 7... to the body of communicants.
He appoints special meetings of this body,
meetings for prayer, days of fasting, &e. He
tells them that it mainly depends on them
whether there shall bea Revival. He preach-
OF REVIVALS. 17

es to them, often to the neglect of the congre-
gation. In an excursion which I made last
week, I spent Sunday at a small village in
the interior, and attended church all day.
Both sermons I observed were addressed to
the church members, or at least related ex-
clusively to their duties. I expressed my
surprise to mine host at evening, and he said
the same thing had been going on for several
months, “ and you would think, said he, that
the church members were the worst people
among us.” Lasked him of how many the
church might consist, thinking I might find
some apology for this course in their numbers.
He replied that there were less than filty, and
the congregation | perceived was large, con-
sisting, I should say, of five or six hundred.
By being thus singled out, and by the manner
in which it is urged, and intreated, and warn-
ed, the church is at length aroused, and pre-
pared to act on the body of the congregation.
And when several neighboring churches are
excited in this manner, the way is prepared

If
18 THE CAUSES

for a more extended system of exertions. The
clergy induce the churches to appoint dele-
gates, who, with themselves, visit the several
townships in succession, hold mectings, keep
fasts, and sometimes visit the people from
house to house. You will easily see how
much calculated this last procedure is to strike
an awe upon the people. Indeed, this sys-
tem of doiniciliary visitation is one of the most
censurable things in the whole plan, and I
shall take some other time to give you a fur-
ther account of it.

To these causes which are general and may
be relied on, some are to be added which are
accidental. ‘There arc two or three Itiuerant
Preachers in this country who had a talent
and acquired a reputation for producing these
excitements, and, now, from having this repu-
tation, are almost sure to produce them
wherever they go. The people among whom
they come would account themselves guilty
of the most awful obduracy, and ready to be
forsaken of heaven, if they should refuse to be
OF REVIVALS. 19

aroused. The very fear of not being excited,
excites them. This would seem to be the
influence that attends these men, for I do not
hear, that they have any pretensions to the
powers of Whitfield, or even of Jonathan Ed-
wards, the reasoner ;—and whose moral argu-
ment, too, according to tradition, was at times
one of the most commanding power. Some-
times, these itinerant preachers find strong
compctitors for the honor of producing Revi-
vals, in the feebler sex. I have heard lately
of two or three instances, where converts of
this description have thrown a population of
several hundreds into the deepest agitation.
One young female, (of whom I had had par-
ticular information,) only fourteen years old,
having been converted, went out to exhort her
neighbors, and eventually was carried over
the whole township, from house to house, in-
structing, admonishing, and even praying.
Indeed, my informant said, much as if he had
been speaking of the competitors on the race-
2
py 1) THE CAUSES

course, that, “there was not a man in the
town that could pray with ber.”

Advantage is sometimes taken of the extra-
ordinary events of Providence, to produce an
excitement. A sudden death, or the death
of a youug person, is often employed for this
purpose. The whole process of the sickness,
death, and burial, [have known to be con-
verted to this use, with the most remorseless
disregard of all the claims of relationship and
private grief. A young and tender female,
thrown into a violent sickness, half distracted
with pain, or more than half delirious, will be
visited by successive clouds of dark browed
faces, which she scarccly recognises as ac-
quaintances, and will be warned and prayed
with, till she is brought into the most horrible
state of fear and agitation, and till in fact, she
is hastencd out of the world, by the very incans
that are professedly, and, no doubt, designedly
used, to save her soul. From the moment
she has departed,—at the funeral and for
weeks after—her awful example is held up;
OF REVIVALS. Qi

the expressions of her horror and despair are
publicly repeated ; and itis said perhaps in
the very presence of her parents and friends,
that she has gone to the other world an un-
converted soul,—and perhaps even the horri-
ble inference is not withholden! You will
readily believe that people who will bear this,
are prepared to be wrought upon in almost
any manner, and to almost any degree. 1
ought in justice to say that I think the larger
portion of the community here, would not
bear it. T trust, for the honor ef human
nature, that such scenes are not frequent.

1 ought not to close this letter, in which 1
may secin to you'to have reflected somewhat
severcly on the clergy, without professing my
entire conviction of their good intentions. I
have not a doubt of their sincerity, and desire
to promote what they conceive to be true re-
ligion. Indeed, it is diflicult to question the
sincerity of any class or sect of relivionists.
There is still room however for the suspicion
of some wrong motives, among the promo-
22 THE CAUSES

ters of Revivals;—and for the entrance of
doubts, about the wisdom of their proceedings,
the door is wide open. Thus with regard
to the motives, there may mingle with general
sincerity, such personal considerations as the
eclat which a great Revival gives to the pastor
under whose ministry it takes place, the in-
creased favor which he has with his brethren,
the influence he gains among the churches,
&c. As to the wisdom of these things, I
shall have something to say hereafter.

For the present I release you, by subscri-
bing myself,

Most affectionately, your friend,
% XK * eee HH
“OF REVIVALS. 23

LETTER III.

CAUSES OF REVIVALS, CONTINUED.

»JUNE 2d, 1827.

 

MY DEAR FRIEND,

I Have not quite satisfied myself, as yet, in
what I have said of the causes of the great
religious excitements here. And though I
sent off a letter but three days ago, I resume
this subject while it is fresh in my mind.

Much, undoubtedly, is to be referred to
the deep interest which all men must take,—
which human nature is fitted to take, in such
a subject as religion. 1 wonder, sometimes,
that the religious guides, while urging their
doctrine of total depravity, and representing
human nature as utterly devoid of all religious
feeling, do not suspect that the effects they
produce are a refutation of their theory.
Let them try their power on “ the unreason-
ing tribes,” or let thern suppose the beings
whom they address to be all reason, purely

Q*
24 THE CAUSES

such, without any moral emotion or suscepti-
bility, and sce, if they could produce or expect
any such results. They say, that it is the
power of God, that gives eflicacy to their
preaching, and so do I say, but it is the
power of God operating through the very
constitution of human nature. The human
heart is made to feel a solemn interest in its
moral welfare and danger, and especially in
these subjects, as they extend themselves to
the unknown and dark futurity.

In this view, I confess, that all the extrava-
gances of pious zeal in the whole history of
religion, secm to me interesting. Iam not
disgusted or amused as t once was, with the
excesses and enorinitics of superstition. I
can receive a lesson of wisdom, even from
Simcon the Stylite, as he stands upon the pillar
which his folly erected. The poor Hindoo,
suspended from a trec, to be withered and
shrivelled by the rays of a tropical sun, teaches
a most affecting truth. ‘Che same truth does
the wild Indian proclaim, when he causes
OF REVIVALS. 235

the tragedy of Jeptha’s daughter to be acted
over in order to appease his wrathful deities.
What a powerful principle—for this is the
lesson and the truth—what a powerful princi-
ple must that be which can command such
sacrifices !—which overlooks all the ordinary
and obvious calculations of selfishness, and
lives upon pain and torture—which feeds the
fires of martyrdom instead of being extinguish-
ed by them, and instead of being quenchied in
b‘ood, is still opening its fountains anew in the
veins of ten thousand victims ! Would nothing
suflice, upon the altar of religious sacrifice,
but the very sinews, and hearts’ blood, and all
the tenderest affections of the heart—nothing
but suffering of body and anguish of mind!
So mankind have thought at least, and though
they have thought erroneously, they have by
the same means, fully shown how strong as
well as misguided, the principle of religion
has been within them.

It is nothing new or surprising, therefore,

oO *

that this principle should be productive of

2+
26 THE CAUSES.

very extraordinary cffects. Such unques-
tionably are those witnessed in Revivals of re-
ligion. There is a deep, though often sup-
pressed concern, in most minds, about duty
and conscience, about heaven and hell, and
the favor of God: there ought to be. It is
too often dormant, indeed, but it only wants
the call of circumstances to arouse it. Such
a call is made in Revivals of religion. And,
regarding the whole matter in this light, I con-
fess that I feel a deep interest and even sympa-
thy in the state of the public mind in such sea-
sons. I know that these plodders in the fields,
these toilers in the workshop, these drudges
in the humbler callings of life, as the mere
worldly man will regard them, have each of
them a soul ; and I know, that oftentimes, be-
neath the pressure of their burdens and the
cloud of their cares, they deeply fecl it. And
I sympathize with one of these men, when,
from the plough or the work-bench, or from
some humbler task he comes up to the crowd-
ed meeting, and says, “ what shall I do to be
XN

OF REVIVALS. 97

saved?” I might wish that he were more
wisely guided, but that is not so much his
own fault, as the fault of his teachers. It is
a pity, indeed, that he could not be recom-
mended to solitude, reading, prayer, and
communion with his own heart, that he could
not be directed to seek religion in a more sim-
ple, calm, and natural way, that he could not
be led to see it, as a more purely spiritual
thing, as existing more in habits of feeling
and conduct, and less in temporary frames and
sudden experiences ; but, nevertheless, in his
frames and experiences, in his fears and ago-
nies, in his very mistakes and errors, I see the
breaking forth of his higher nature, as light-
ning from the dark cloud. I look upon it with
less pleasure, indecd, than upon the calm and
tempered sunshine, but still I look upon this
irresistible power of the yeligious nature in
man, with respect and awe.

{do not know but this propensity to reli-
gious excitement is sometimes made, in Re-
vivals, a subject of deliberate calculation for
28 THE CAUSES

selfish purposes. I suppose it is. I have
conversed with intelligent men here, who are
inclined, I thought uncharitably, to refer much
to this as a cause. I am afraid, however, it can-
not be denied that, in some instances, clergy-
men have deliberately and coolly resorted to
a Revival, and set all their energies and devi-
ces at work to produce it, in order to save a
sinking reputation, or a failing parish. For
all this, I do none the less respect the fecling
that exists among the people, who of course,
know nothing of the unworthy designs or
motives of their pastor.

Indeed, my friend, it cannot be concealed,
and every thing that I see and all my reflec-
tions convince me of it more and more, that
most of the evils of a religious nature, in this
country, and our own, and in every other, are
owing to the clergy! ‘To them is chiefly
owing the odium theologicum, that has existed
in all ages—to them the slavish dread of in-
quiry and innovation, to them the variance,
strife, and uncharitableness that prevail among
OF REVIVALS. 29

the people—to them, the extravagance of
these religious excitements. Let the clergy
who are their promoters, unite together in
recommending moderation among the people,
Jet them appoint but one extra meeting in the
week,* let them take up a more calm, gen-
tle, and rational method of teaching, and no
one can doubt that the character of their re-
vivals would be very materially changed. A
clergyman in the city of » gave me an
account of a revival in his parish, in which
the passions, and especially the baser pas-
sions, such as fear, were scarcely addressed
at all.“ The leading impression, he said, on
every mind, was regret for past forgetfulness
of God and past ingratitude towards him.”
Now this, | am ready to say, was extremely
interesting and delightful. Tat sure, that I
never yet knew the community that had not

 

* Itis a fact that the Faculty of Professors in the An-
dover Institution advised their pupils to hold in a time
of religious excitement but one extra meeting in the
week. We gladly stale it, as yreatly to their honor.
—Amer. Ed.
30 THE CAUSES

cause to be deeply affected by sucha convic-
tion. But, observe, the clergyman in this
case, was a man, though of an earnest, yet of
an extremely rational and wide-reaching
mind.

I said, I was ready to pronounce altogether
in favor of sucha Revival as this. But, in
truth I should be obliged to pause upon such
an admission. ‘To say nothing of the general
effects of these excitements, I cannot help
suspecting from what I have scen of them,
that there is fanaticism always, and necessari-
ly, at the bottom of them ; that they are based
upon false ideas, and upon this, in particular,
the root of all fanaticism, that they are the
special work of God, the fruit of his super-
natural interposition. Let these things be
looked upon as the natural results of human
feeling, let the idea of any thing extraordina-
ry and preternatural be taken away, and I
suspect that three quarters of that which sup-
ports them in the public mind would be taken
away also. “It is the work of God,” is the
OF REVIVALS. 31

declaration that carries awe and contagious
fear over the minds of the body of the people.
This represses inquiry, silences doubt, spreads
anxiety and apprehension, among the timid,
and emboldens the confidence of the forward
and presumptuous.

This impression of something supernatural,
is very obvious and striking, at times, in case
of the conversion of an individual, especially
if the individual be noted from any cause, and
the event takes place in a time of general in-
difference. It is curious to witness the feeling
that is often awakened by such a circum-
stance. The poor people of the Sandwich
Islands could scarcely look with more of min-
gled awe and exultation on the rising flame
from the volcano in the valley of Kirauea.
It is indeed, among these people, oftentimes,
the rising and volcanic flame of a great reli-
gious excitement. But it is of the impression
of the simple fact that I was speaking, and this
is, indeed, of the most singular kind.  Itis
often a prominent topic of public conversation,
32 TIE CAUSES

prayers and sermons for weeks together.
The people talk of it with awe and rapture
in their countenances, according as fear or
triumph predominate in their minds; the
whole neighborhood feels as if the power of
God had appeared in the midst of it; the
Masters of Revivals wear a face of solemn
importance, as if some great thing had hap-
pened. The extraordinary convert is brought
forward and showed off, if he will permit bim-
self to be so treated, or, it may be, that he
shows himself off, by going into the assembly
of the people, and proclaiming that he, who
was yesterday a totally depraved sinner, is to
day a favored child of God, and a happy
heir of heaven. And what is the great thing
that has happened ? Why, at the utmost, that
this man is convinced of his sins and is re-
solved to amend,—he has been a bad man,
and he means to be a good man. A very in-
teresting purpose, certainly, but furnishing no
reason for so extraordinary a sensation. Men
often make resolutions to be better, but they
OF REVIVALS. 33

do not think it necessary to proclaim them,
nor others, to take such notice of them. ‘This
extraordinary sensation, therefore very plain-
ly discloses the deep-rooted notion that pre-
vails among the people, of something super-
natural in these conversions.

In fact, this very notion, as well as any
thing else, may be considered as one of the
efficient causes of a spreading religious ex-
citement. The solicitude which is often ex-
hibited to maintain this point, shows of what
importance it is, in meeting all those objec-
tions and misgivings, that would naturally arise *
with regard tothe extraordinary and exirava-
gant proceedings which are adopted in such
cases. It is common to represent the matter
as if some silent and mysterious influence
had been, for a considerable time, descending
upon the minds of the people, and, at last,
as if this influence came almost visibly down
like the overshadowing of a cloud.

I would not have you suppose, my dear
friend, that I reject or go any way towards
34 THE CAUSES

rejecting the doctrine of a divine influence on
the mind. For I perceive from your last,
that you are leaning to very serious views of
this subject. And such also are my own. I
have not a doubt that the Father of Spirits
may, and does influence the minds of his
creatures. It would be monstrous, it seems
tome, while we admit his instant power to
be manifest in all other created things, to ex-
clude it from those beings who most need its
control and guidance. Nay, I am a firm
believer in the doctrine of immediate interpo-
sitions, in behalf of the exposed, the tempted,
and distressed. I know not on what else to
found the propriety of prayer—of prayer, at
least, considered, in its original, and primary
sense, as a petition. But certainly we must
take care in our theory to limit these in-
terpositions, somewhere. For if they are the
rule, and not the exception, the law and not
the proviso, they are no longer interpositions.
Without doubt, the whole course of religious
experience is to be traced to God as in some
OF REVIVALS. 30

sense its author and director ; but not surely
to successive interpositions of the Supreme
Being. These we must believe are reserved
for peculiar emergencies.

But the general condition of a sinful being
is not such an emergency, because it is
general. The conversion from that state, may
be ascribed, indeed, to God’s teaching, gui-
dance, grace and spirit, but not to any miracu-
lous interposition. Otherwise it would cease
to be miraculous, since a miracle, an interpo-
sition implies a departure from the fixed and
regular course of things. If it is cnough to
constitute any thing a miracle that it is the
work of God, the product of divine power,
then all the events that have taken place in
the universe are but a series of miracles, the
conversion of a sinner, then, is not a miracle:
nor is the conversion of hundreds any more
so.*

* The writer docs not scem to be aware, that the
advocates of Revivals reject the word, miraculous, as
descriptive of that divine influence which produces
them. We let the passage stand, however, since the

2
36 THE CAUSES

But I go a step further. The grace of
God, however truly communicated to human
experience, 1s modified by human experience.
This is unavoidable. No one will undertake
to say that every good thought or affection
which springs up in the human breast, is pure
as the Divinity that inspired it. Religion, we
say, is the gift of God. But whose religion is
perfect? Whose religion is not modified by
his taste and temperament, and by the state
of society around him ?

You see the point to which I would arrive.
If these alleged conversions were miracles,
we should have nothing to do but admire
them. Ifthey are not, then, like all other
thing is the same, and would naturally be so expressed,
by an intelligent stranger, not acquainted with the ex-
pedients, at evasion, which are constantly used in our
controversies. Aninfluence is contended for, which
is beyond nature, or in other words, as the writer very
well expresses it, in another part of these letters, it is
contended “ that effects are produced which cannot be

accounted for by any known laws of the human mind.”
This is the very definition of miracle—Amer. Ed.
OF REVIVALS. 37

facts, are they submitted to our scrutiny.
Suppose, that they are real conversions :
some of them doubtless are. But suppose,
for the sake of the argument, that they all
are. Still it would not follow, that they are
altogether to be approved. Jt would not fol-
low that they take place under the most fa-
vorable circumstances, or that they are of the
most desirable character. Men become con-
verted, or in other words, they become good
and pious, through various extrancous influ-
ences,—various modes of preaching, various
representations of truth, various religious in-
stitutions and social aids—but does it follow
that all these influences are equally good?
It pleases God to accommodate his power and
grace to liuman weakness and extravagance,
but does it follow that weakness and extrava-
gance are as good things as wisdom and
moderation ?

The mistake seems to be here. It seems
to be imagined that a divine influence on any
mind, affords a sanction for the human means

3
38 THE CAUSES

X

which have been devised for it,—for the hu-
man process through which that mind has
passed. The reasoning is this. “I have
become a good man. I could not have become
such, but through the grace of God. The
grace of God would approve of nothing but
what is perfectly right; but what, in other
words, is morally best. Therefore the means
and the method by which I have become a
good man, are the best. And therefore,”
adds the self-coimplacent fanatic, “it is asin,
itis agrievous impiety, it is the sign of a
wicked and irreligious mind, to oppose this
method.”

But surely fanatic was never more blind.
Do not men become pious, through all possi-
ble processes—of sudden excitement and gra-
dual reflection, of fear and hope, of ignorant
instruction and wise instruction, of teachings
from the word and teachings from providence,
of Methodist class-mectings, and Episcopal
ordinances, of noisy conventicles, and the
silent meetings of the Quakers? And do
OF REVIVALS. 39

they not all become Christians through divine
aid? But shall each one, therefore, assume
his own experience to be the only gospel
standard? Shall he proscribe all who differ
from him, all who prefer a different expe-
rience, as opposers of the work of God ?

Revivals of religion then, in common with
all other religious experience, are subjected
to our examination: they are not to escape
under the broad character of being works of
God. To pretend that all doubt or distrust
of them is a sin, you will easily see, is either
gross fanaticisin, or grosser imposition.

“ But,” I can conceive that some of their
advocates may say— though there is nothing
miraculous in the experience of individuals,
is there not something, in fact, amounting to
a miracle, in the general occurrence of these
events? Is not the simultaneousness and
strength of these impressions in so many
different minds—is it not even miraculous? ”
Should you not say that he who could ask
this question, knows not much of the history
40 THE CAUSES

of religion in past ages—knows not much of
the human mind, of the power of sympathy,
of the contagious and combustible nature of
human passions—-nay, knows not much of that
solemn religious nature, through whicl God
is ever testifying his power, even in the ex-
cesses of folly and weakness, fanaticism and
superstition ?

Besides, if we admit the idea of miracu-
lous interposition, in these cases, where shall
we stop? The Anabaptists, the Quakers who
were scarcely less extravagant at the outset,
the Methodisis who, in their origin, followed
hard after the Quakers, the early Puritans,
though employing the sword of Cromwell,
would claim from us the same assent. Nay
more, the extravagances of every particular
Revival, against which, I find, that some of
the more moderate feel obliged to protest,
must nevertheless be entitled to shelter them-
selves under the same broad sanction. And,
after all, what is the sanction? Why, this in
truth, and nothing else—the opinion of some
OF REVIVALS. 4l

men, fallible and erring as ourselves, and they
too, deeply implicated, that these Revivals
are the special and miraculous works of God:
the opinion of partics in their own cause. I
say miraculous, for unless these things are ac-
tually miraculous, there is nothing in them, I
repeat, that can demand an implicit approba-
tion. Unless there be such a sanction, we
are commanded, indeed, to ‘try the spirits,
whether they be of Tod.” The apostles
were too modest to exempt, from such a
judgment, the effects of their own inspired
teaching and miraculous dispensation. or
“ petty men,” in the comparison, to rise up
in these days, and to fulminate anathemas
against all who distrust the effects of their
zeal, if it were not ridiculous, would be mon-
strous !

I have given you a homily, instead of an
epistle: but 1 sat down, this time, not to re-
port but to reason.

The next time I will report, and give you
some account of the methods by which this

S*
42 METHODS OF

extraordinary system of Revivals is kept up.
In the inean time, and at all times, J am most

truly,
Yours,
HHH HHK HE

—p=—

LETTER Iv.

METHODS CF PROMOTING THE REVIVALS.

, JUNE 11th, 1827,
MY DEAR FRIEND,

] ave just returned from attending two
evening tweetings—two in one evening !—
what will our good Bishop say? Let him
read the letter, if you think it worth his no-
tice, and he will see that I have been safely,
if not usefully employed.

T thought these meetings so characteristic
of two religious sects here, and of the me-
thods by which the Revivals are promoted,
that I determined while attending, to give you
some account of them. The first was ina
PROMOTING THE REVIVALS. 43

church of the Orthodox, or Calvinistic Congre-
gationalists, the second, of the Arminian
Methodists. The Methodist, especially of
this particular class, is all gentleness and
pity. He “woos the soul to heaven.”
He works upon the passions. ‘The medium
through which he operates, is social sympa-
thy. The preacher of the other class carrics
a sterner face ; and instcad of offering the
bosom of sympathy, and inviting the poor
troubled sinner to lean upon it, he presents a
sword to the sinner’s own bosom ; and his:
language is, “I must probe this festering
wound to the quick ; I must cut off this fatal
gangrene.” A sinner with these people, you
must know, to know the whole enormity of
this treatment, is one who has not passed
through this moral paroxysm, this revival
process, (either by himself or in company
with others,) and who, according to their
representation, cannot pass through it by any
efforts of his own. Such an assembly of
sinners, I suppose, was gathered this evening

3t
44 METHODS OF

at the first place of worship where I attend-
ed. So, at !cast, the preacher seemed to
consider the most of them. He first told
them their duty, which consisted in some
mysterious and unintelligible coming to Christ.
Then he averred that they could do it if they
would. The third point, was in the words of
the text, “but ye will not come to me.”
This indisposition he stated, they had derived
from their birth. It was a part of their nature,
and therefore amounted to an inability ; yet,
an inability, he said, of the most dreadful
kind, because it was altogether their own
fault. You will observe, he had just said, that
it was derived from their birth ; eutailed upon
them from Adam, before they had a being.
The fourth step in the process of reasoning
was to cast them on the sovereign grace of
God. This grace, he stated, God had before
determined, by an irreversible decree to be-
stow upon whom he would. There, with
many terrific warnings against the reluctant
and rebellious, he left it. I was glad, for
PROMOTING THE REVIVALS. 45

consistency’s sake, that he did not close with
an Arminian exhortation. He ended with
lamentations, which, if they had not been so
outrageously unreasonable, would really have
been pathetic. Ie said he could only weep
over them and pity them. He could only
breathe forth the voice of instruction and
prayer in their behalf, as Ezekiel did over
the valley of dry bones; and God only knew
who of them, or whether any of them, would
be raised from their death in trespasses and
sins.

The metaphysical part of this discourse,
which was four fifths of it, was a piece of as
chilling ratiocination as | ever heard from the
mathematical chair at Oxford. ‘The preacher
displayed his mete physical apparatus, he drew
forth his sharpest instruments, and, though he
was cutting the heart-strings of the people, or
thought he was, he did it as mechanically and
coldly as ever did surgical operator. He
seemed to think the human heart was to be
approached by a regular system of tactics.
46 METHODS OF

Every thing with him, indeed, was a matter
of system. He gloried in Calvinism as the
only plan of doctrine by which sinners could
be driven to conviction and utter despair of
themselves. I thought 1 could almost discern
a smile of triumph in his countenance, as he
drew the lines, and set up the fences of this
narrow and gloomy theology, which turns the
earth into one vast ficld of slaughter. This
sort of preaching is sometimes significantly
called, “ penning up sinners,” and when thus
penned up, and restive and angry at their sit-
uation, many consider them as in a most
hopeful nearness to the kingdom of heaven.
And indeed many persons are made to think
that the reasonable anger they fecl at such
treatment, the moral horror with which such
doctrines strike them are the workings of a
depraved nature, “the cpposition,” as they
are taught to call it, “ of the natural heart.”
But it is time that] turn to a more inviting
scene 3 more inviting at least, if not more
wisely ordered. The Methodist Chapel was
PROMOTING THE REVIVALS. AY

hard by, and though it was 9 o’clock, when I
left this dismal preacher, and his dejected con-
gregation, yet, as | was abroad on a tour of
observation, 1] determined to go in. It hap-
pened fortunately to be at the very moment
when a second service, designed more par-
ticularly for the benefit of troubled and anxious
persons, was commencing. As I entered, I
observed at the farther end of the chapel,—in
an enclosure, about which was a slight rail-
ing very much hike that which surrounds the
altars in) ow? churehes—a_ person with his
hands crossed and partly folded in each other,
and with an air of pious abstraction in his
whole demeanor, walking back and forwards,
and singing. He hada rather youthful but
still pale countenance, with just enough of
sallow io give it a pensive expression, and all
this added effect to a very sweet and socthing
strain of music. Et was in the sclemn measure
of a chaunt, or recitative, and the sentiment
agreed well with the tone of it, being an invi-
tation to the sinful, the sorrowful and heavy
48 METHODS OF

laden, “ to come to Jesus.” This is the burden
of many of their sacred songs, of whose power,
you can scarcely have any idea, without hear
ing them. ‘Their effect on those whose taste is
not at all offended by them, must be immense,
and doubtless often is overwhelming.

The music soon ceased, and the Minister
of the congregation came forward, and in very
gentle and affectionate tones, invited all who
were anxious for their salvation to approach
the altar, that they might reccive his counsel
and the prayers of their christian friends.
About thirty, as IT judged, went out from the
mass of the congregation, and kneeled down
around the altar. The minister then spoke
to them of their situation and feelings, in a
manner that was really paternal. ‘There was
no harshness in his language, and he used no
denunciation. He spoke with as much ten-
derness and sympathy as if he had been ad-
dressing persons in great affliction, or as if he
had been by the bedside of the sick and suf-
fering. Indeed, I could not help feeling, as
PROMOTING THE REVIVALS. 49

if some of the strict claims and discrimina-
tions of conscience had yielded, very par-
donably perhaps, to the gushing tide of pity
and sympathy.

When the exhortation was over, he invited
them to join in prayer. There were several
persons around the minister, and within the
altar, who knecled down together, and some
of them as their feelings prompted, prayed in
succession. The manner and spirit of their
prayers was really touching. ‘The tone, con-
trary to what I expected in a Methodist cha-
pel, was generally mild, and even when it
arose to vociferation, it appeared to be the
vociferation of affectionate and carnest en-
treaty. The persons prayed for, were de-
‘nominated by all the most kind and affection-
ate appellations. They were “ poor souls”—
and “ dear souls ”—and “ inourning souls”—
and the burden of every prayer was that they
might be “ made happy.” What struck me
particularly was the social character of this
service, especially compared with the barren
ceremonial of the Congregational churches.
50 METHODS OF

There was no formality, no praying by rule
or appointment. It was a series of prayers,
or rather one continued intercession, and
each one who led the devotions of the others,
seemed to do so from the immediate prompt-
ings of his feelings. Others, at the same
time, accompanied the most interesting peti-
tions, with exclamations of ‘ Amen,” or
“God grant it,” or “we beseech thee.” It
seemed as if there was a social and common
feeling in these supplications, such as perhaps
no insulated prayer of one individual could
ever express. Every now and ihen, in the
brief intervals of this service, the sweet singer,
whom I before mentioned, lifted up his voice,
commonly singing one or two stanzas, such
asoccurred to him at the moment, and admira-
bly adapting his selections to what had been
uttered in prayer or exhortation. In fine,
though a more splendid ceremonial might
more impress a people accustomed to such
things, yet for the plain and sober people of
New England, especially of the lower classes,
PROMOTING THE REVIVALS. 51

it seems to me that the Jesuits themselves
could not have devised any thing better adapt-
ed to captivate and carry away the mind,
than this simple service of the Methodist
Chapel. And yet it was quite evident that
nothing could be farther from art.

I must wait for a brighter hour to finish this
letter—and in the mean time, I send my
nightly wish and blessing to you across the
wide waters that separate us.

You see, my friend, in what I but poorly
narrated to you last evening, some of the
methods by which these Revivals are pro-
moted. The idea prevails here, as I have
probably more than once implied before, that
they are altogether supernatural, and yet no-
thing ever more showed the working of hu-
man passions, and I might add of human con-
trivance. Imagination, sympathy, fear, and
hope are all powerfully addressed. I have
52 METHODS OF

secn an assembly, and that too collected in a
place where the very wisest instruction might
have been expected—an assembly of youth;
among whoin at their first coming together,
there were tears and sobbings all over the
house--I have scen them addressed during
the whole evening with nothing but the most
terrific representations of their state,-—which
Was compared sometimes to that of persons,
benighted in a path!ess forest, surrounded by
howling wild beasts, and by pitfalls and preci-
pices ready to receive them at every step,—
and, then again, to that of unhappy wretches
cast upon a desolate shore, with the roaring
sea ready to ingulph them :—and when I] saw
and heard all this, it seemed to me astonishing
that any sane man could call this the especial
work of God. If there ever was a work of
man, I thought with myself, it is this.

I have intimated, that there is contrivance
in these things. I donot mean trick or cun-
ning, but it is quite evident that the promoters
of these Revivals are not altogether willing to
PROMOTING THE REVIVALS. 53

leave them to that c vine power, of which
they so confidently boast. Or, in other words,
they act on the principle that man is to “ work
together with God,” though they are anxious
to deny the obvious inference. Circum-
stances that may affect the public mind, are
never lost sight of. In the first place, these
excitements commonly prevail in the winter,
which is the season of leisure. IT do not
say that they deliberately fix upon this
season for their operations; but the fact is
worthy of note, and might fairly lead them to
hesitate about referring all to that divine
power, whose accesses they would scarcely
dare to measure, by the declination of the
sun.* ‘Then, in the next place, every thing

* The committee of the Oncida Presbytery state it
asa “fact, worthy of notice, that revivals prevail al-
most invariably in a general time of health.’ The
fact is indecd worthy of notice, and warrants the same
inference as that stated in the letter. Nay, would it
be presumptuous to conclude, since sickness and af-
flictions do humble the heart, and were designed for
this end, that there is really more religion among the
people in a time of sickness, than in a time of health ?
But the committee say the reverse is most likely to
be trne.—Amer. Ed.

St
54 METHODS OP

that would divert the pub'ie mind from reli-
gious concerns, is particularly and carefully
guarded against. A serics of musical enter-
tainments though ever so innocent, a deba-
ting society of young men, though in ordinary
circumstances a very good thing, a Mechan-
ic’s Association, though almost onc of the best
things in the world, would mect the pointed
disapprobation of the pastor and his zealous
friends, in any township or village, where a
Revival is commencing.

Means of a much more exceptionable
character, arc often resorted to. Whena
number of converts are made, it is common to
appoint in the same house, cne mect.ng for
the converts, and another for “ the anxious.”
They assemble at the same hour in different
apartments. The very circumstance of such
a separation among friends and associates, is,
of course, very ipressive, and upon the one
part, itis always made a means of terrible
effect. Nay, I have been told of a case
where a clergy:nan, who holds the highest
rank, among his brethren, and is most of all
PROMOTING THE REVIVALS. 55

distinguished in these matters, who proceeded
in this manner, or, a worse, in a Boarding
School of young ladies. If there is any case
in the world, where the utmost discretion
and gentleness should be used, it would surely
be that of young ladies from twelve to six-
teen years of age, separated from their pa-
rents, and with feelings, on every subject in
the highest degree, susceptible and tender ;—
and yet, these young end timid females were
assembled in the school room, there separated
and placed on different seats according to
their presumed character of converts, or
anxious, or unconcerned, and then addressed
with language imagined to be suited to their
several conditions. Comparisons were made ;
the anxious were pointed to the happy con-
verts, who of course would feel flattered by
so enviable a distinction; the careless, or
those presumed to be so, were pointed to the
anxious ; congratulations, warnings, and de-
nunciations were scattered about with an
effect as terrible as if they had been “ fire-
4
56 METHODS OF

brands, arrows, and death ;” there were tears,
and sighs, and groans, enough,to break the
hearts of these young creatures; and the
whole school, as you would suppose, was
convulsed with raptures, and fears, and ago-
nies. And yet I believe the clergyman gained
credit, and I could never hear that the school
lost any.

I have before spoken of what I think de-
serves to be branded with a name, and there-
fore I shall call it again, domiciliary visitation.
You have only to know what this ts, to be
satisfied of the effect it must produce. Two
or three men, strangers often, some or all of
them, enter a house with an air of preterna-
tural solemnity, and signify their wish to see
the family together. As the male members
of it are commonly absent on their business,
they have to deal only with the females of the
family. These, with their natural timidity
and reserve, sit down in fear and silence, to
await the dread communication. Their in-
quisitors open with the most pointed questions,
PROMOTING THE REVIVALS. 57

put in the most awful manner, concerning
their most secret, solemn, and delicate fecl-
ings, and if they find them stupid, as they are
very likely indeed to be stupified with such
treatment, these men of the “ Holy Office”
close with tremendous warnings, and more
tremendous prayers. I have heard even in-
telligent females declare, that they never met
with any thing, so horrifying, to use a word of
our lamented friend, Morris Birkbeck’s, as
onc of these visitations. And yet to resist one
of them would mark out the family that did it,
with the most signal reprobation.

Iam afraid I must add, that sectarianism
contributes to feed the fire of these excite-
ments. Every sect, of course, expects to be
built up by them. But more especially do
all turn their indignation against those more
liberal and judicious sects that stand aloof
from the “ great work.” These are chiefly
the Unitarians and Episcopalians. The pre-
vailing horror, now, I find, is of the Unitarians.
This sect is spreading so rapidly, that the
58 METHODS OF

whole extended system of Revivals is arrayed
against them in particular, and is expected
soon to work their utter downfal. It seems
to me, I must say, whatever I might wish, a
very hasty and ill-judged expectation. I have
talked with many persons of this class, and
whatever may be their crrors, I think I never
met with persons more firmly convinced they
were right. Iam certain, it must be some-
thing more than a great stir or a great passion
that will convertthem. And yet I find that
their opponents, the Orthodox, all believe, that
there is some deep and sccret misgiving in
their minds, and imagine that, at the first blast
of the trumpet of Revivals, the walls of this
spiritual Jericho will fall down. Let this be
as it may, and however it may turn out, it is
certainly a very bad aspect of this zeal, that
it should take the character of proselytism.
I have heard that many families of Unitarian
congregations have been visited, and urged
to leave their teacher, and come over to the
other side. Certainly, nothing can excuse
PROMOTING THE REVIVALS. 59

this. The world has seen enough of the
danger of enlisting the bad passions in reli-
gion; but here seems to be a settled and
deliberate scheme for doing it.

One thing more I must mention which has
a greateffect. A day of Revivals is a day
of rumors. Storics are perpetually told, of
marvellous conversions, and awful shakings in
this place and that place, of dreams and vi-
sions and sights. Indeed, I know of nothing
that appears to depend more on human favor,
than this same work that is alleged to be so
divine. Governor Such-an-one, says this,
and General Somcebody-else, says that, in
favor of Revivals, and therefore, they must
be good things. Then again, the errors of
opposing sects are giving way, and it is ru-
mored all over the land, that the Deacon of
such a heretical Minister has left him, or that
the Minister himself has abjured his errors,
and acknowledged that the power of God is
with his opponents. Perhaps, the scene of
his confession is laid on his death bed, and

4*
60 ON THE RELIGION

°
>

the solemnities of dissolution lend awe to the
impression.

But lam tired of telling you these things,
as I am of hearing rumors even, and there-
fore I bid you at once, an affectionate

Adieu.
HHKH XHKH#KE
—p——
LETTER V.

ON THE RELIGION OF REVIVALS.
,» AuGustr 10th, 1827,
MY DEAR FRIEND,

In my previous letters to you, as far as I
can rerzember their multifarious topics, L have
treated of the character and causes of these
phenomena, called Revivals, and of the means
by which they are wrought into a system of
religious influence. But the great subject of
all, is still behind. ‘The great question is—
though indeed they take it for granted in the
very name which they give to these popular
OF REVIVALS. 61

excitements—the great question is, are they
really “revivals of religion?” Or in other
words, what is the religion of these revivals?
After all, it must come to this—it must, with
the judicious and reasonable among them-
selves. Every thing in religion, must be
compared with the scriptural standard, must
abide the test of reason, and good sense, and
real expediency. Of measures, as well as
men, it is true, that “ by their fruits shall ye
know them.” It is not enough to say, that
there is a great deal of feeling for a time,—
no, nor a great deal of good {ecling, if there
is more bad than good, or if the impression,
whatever it be, all passes away like “ the
morning cloud, or the early dew,” or the
rushing stream which the rains have swollen.
Were a ian to erect a manufactory on such
a stream, deceived by its turbid waters and
rapid flow, he would find binself sidly mis-
taken. And as inuch may they, who build
their churches on temporary excite.nent.

I say, therefore, that the great question for

4t
62 ON THE RELIGION

the philosopher, the philanthropist, the chris-
tian to ask, is still behind, and it is this : Do
these Revivals do any good ? or at least, any
sufficient good to overbalance the unquestion-
able evils that follow in their train? Excite-
ment about religion is not religion : though no
error has bec: more common and universal
in the world than to mistake it for religion.
It is, nevertheless, to be submitted to the test
of expediency, just as much as any institution,
form, plan, mode of preaching, or in short,
any other mode of religious influence. Ifa
man says, ‘it is true, I should not like so
much excitement in any thing else, but this is
not an ordinary case ; the salvation of souls is
at stake ; the work of God is not to be meas-
ured by human maxims ; the great day of his
power has come among us and is not to be
judged by the light that has shone upon other
and former days: ”—I say, if any man rea-
sons, orrather, presumes this, you sce that he
goes blindfold into the whole subject, and falls
at once, as if it were self-evident, upon the
OF REVIVALS. 63

very thing he should find to be true, after a
full and Jaborious examination.

And yet I suspect that this is the way of
thinking with twenty-nine out of thirty, of all
the people you will meet here. Ihad an in-
stance of it only yesterday. I got into the
stage-coach, that leaves B at four o’clock
in the morning, and as we were passing
through one of the neighboring villages at
sunrise, I perceived a company of people
leaving a small building by the road, which I
took to be a school-house. As I had never
seen any thing of this sort before, I asked a
fellow passenger, whether this was one of the
religious meetings I had often heard of ? He
replied that it was, and added, that there was
a great’ Revival in this place.

As one can talk pretty freely under an in-
cognito, and, as | am sometimes ready to force
a conversation, to help off the tedium of a ride
in the coach, I ventured to say—* You secm
to be a very strange people in this country ;
you are certainly a very sober and consider-

 
64 ON THE RELIGION

ate people; you are not half as excitable, at
least, not in your social character, as the
French or Italians; I see nothing like their
eager conversation and violent gesticulation
umong your men of business; you go calmly
and rationally at work, I see, in prosecuting
all the great interests of society—if you
would make the people intelligent, I observe
that you build school-houses and hire teach-
ers, and seid tl.e children to be instructed,—
and so, if you would build up your free and
excellent government, you certainly do not
think it best to do so, by great political com-
motions :—how is it, then, that you have these
great excitements in rel'gion! How is it
that ou, who do eve y thing else by calcu-
lation, trust this to passion!”

As the person I addressed, was about to
answer me, and as 1 thoug:t sensibly, from
the expression of counterance with which he
heard me, a s:e uv an! guttural voice arose
behind me, as cecp as if it had come from a
cavern, instead of the back seat of a stage-
OF REVIVALS. 65

coach, and on quite a different moral note, as
you will perceive, from that which I was wait-
ing to hear: “ My friend,” said the speaker,
‘you are astranger, I perceive, in this coun-
try: I hope you are not a stranger also, to
the grace of God.”

“Why, that,” I replied, ‘ would depend on
what you mean by the grace of God. But
not to agitate a question so personal,” said I,
if you will excuse me—how do you defend
so much excitement in religion, when doubt-
less you would not recommend it, in any
thing else. 1 should suppose, that religion
would be a subject for the greater calmness
and sobriety.”

“ Ali! sir,” rejoined he, in the same mea-
sured and sepulcbral tone, “ tle cases are very
different. Hf your neighbor’s house were on
fire, you would be in haste to save his pro-
perty, or to extricate his family fron danger.
If the city we have just Ieft, were about to be
invaded, there would be a hurrying to and fro,
an unwonted commotion, an anxiety and
66 ON THE RELIGION

dread among the inhabitants: in cases like
these there would be an excitement. But.
sinful men are in tenfold greater danger than
the occupants of a burning house, or of a
besieged city. And when”—he proceeded
with increasing animation—* when the Lord
I'fts up a standard to the people, as clear as
‘he vision of Constantine, is it strange that
they should be struck with wonder and awe?
When he makes bare his arm for their es-
cape and salvation, shall they not be trans-
ported with gratitude and rejoicing? And
this,” said he triumphantly, “ this is a religious
excitement.”

“You have certainly a right,” was my re-
ply, “to choose your own illustrations ; but
still you will allow, that they are not arguments.
Admit, that sinful men are in the danger you
state, and J believe it is far greater than your
comparison would imply, though it may not
be so imminent, yet, after all, there would be
a fair question about the best method of de-
livering them. You can easily conceive iu
OF REVIVALS. 67

the cases you have stated, that men may be so
eager, so much excited, as not to act with the
proper order, nor with the fullest vigor and
effect :—so mad with zeal, as I have often
scen them at a great conflagration, that they
will do the most unreasonable things in the
world. Now why should it be thought that
men, in such a state of mind, are so particu-
larly wise, or safe, or well guided? You,
surely, will not say that men’s being thrown
into a great excitement, is of itself a proof that
they are divinely guided or influenced.*
That would be a heathen, rather than a chris-
tian sentiment. The ancient pagans did, in-
deed, mistake phrensy for inspiration, but he
would do little credit to the sober instructions
of our Sa-our, who should verge towards a
similar error. In short, sir, this is the ques-
tion, I would ask ;—need a man be any less
rational, is he to be supposed any less ration-
al, because he is under a divine influence ?

* Nevertheless this is the great error of the Revival-
ists.— Amer. Ed.
68 ON THE RELIGION

Might we not say rather that this would make
him more so ?—that a divine influence would
strengthen his reason and all his intellectual
powers, instead of enfeebling them? Why
then should a man proceed any less rationally
or any otherwise, in the work of religion,
than he does in the business of education, or
in discharging the duties of good citizenship ?
He is, it is true, dependent on God, and
God’s power, I hold, instead of being confined
to religion, extends to every thing. Not a
spire of grass can grow without it. And,
now, because this is true, because the instant
and ever-working power of God, is in every
field around us, would you have men, instead
of going regularly and soberly about the work
of cultivating the soil,—would you have them
assemble in crowds, and assail, first one field
and then another, with axes, and ploughs, and
barrows, and turn the peaceful culture of the
earth, into a scene of tumult, and noise, and
confusion? Excitement,” ] added, ‘seems
to me to savor of what is human : it is man’s
OF REVIVALS. 69

work. But the work of God, as it isin every
thing else, so I should expect it to be in re-
ligion, marked with simplicity, order, and
calmness.” .

“I see, sir,” said he, “that we can never
think alike upon these matters. You have
no apprehension, I am afraid,”—for this is
the monitory, not to say, minatory style in
which a thorough-paced Revival man always
talks—“ you have no apprehension, 1 am
afraid, of the utterly depraved state of human
nature, and of the great work that is to be
done for it. You scem to think that religion
is to grow up in the soul, just like the vilest
weed that springs from the earth.”

“No, sir, I beg your pardon,” I rejoined,
“not like the vilest weed, but like the health-
ful corn; and if I recollect rightly, f read
such a comparison as this—‘ first the blade,
then the car, then, the ripe corn, in the ear.’
Now, sir, it seems to me, that the promoters
of Revivals cannot wait for this process, but
would bring the corn to its full growth ina
single day.”
70 ON THE RELIGION

‘It is in vain to talk,” said he, “ but I must
observe in your own words, that illustrations
are not arguments.”

“But my illustration, I may beg you to ob-
serve,” said I, “is founded on my argument.”

He deigned me no reply, but wrapped his
cloak about him, with a manner, which was as
much as to say, (not exactly in the words of
our English law,) “ my cloak is my castle ;”
and we both, I suppose, resigned ourselves to
our meditations. ‘Those of my solemn friend,
] presume, turned upon the new instance
which I had furnished him, of the depravity
and deceitfulness of human nature. Mine you
shall have.

The great mischief of these Revivals is, that
every thing is distorted by them, into an ex-
travagant and unnatural shape and_ posture.
Tfind, in fact, a new religion here. The
wholesome doctrines of the fathers of our
church, the sober spirit of Taylor, and Hoadly,
and Paley, would no more do for these peo-
ple, than the coldest speculations of heathen
OF REVIVALS. V1

philosophy. Religion, instead of being re-
garded as the general habit and whole charac-
ter of the mind, is a paroxysm, and a_pecu-
liarity in the mind. It is a peculiarity, I re-
peat, something like a distinct sense, some-
thing novel, singular, and almost marvellous.
Religion, you and | believe, is a man’s self,
made holy, pure and excellent. This cer-
tainly is the christian doctrine. But there
seems to have grown up among these excite-
ments, and grown out of them very naturally
as I think, an idea akin to that of the old pa-
gan philosophy, that religion is some divine
afflatus—breathed into the mind—having no-
thing in common with it—existing independ-
ently and alone—not incorporated with the
mind and dwellig in the most intimate friend-
ship with it, but maintained within it, as an
abstract principle or ethereal essence, by a
foreign and preternatural influence ; or, to use
the language of the philosophy, by influxes
from the fountain of light.

And hence religion, being so regarded, is

af
72 ON THE RELIGION

always treated asa stranger. If you were to
go into a place where one of the Revivals had
recently prevailed, you would observe that
ithad infected the very manners, and given an
air to the very countenance, of society. This
would especially ap ear when any reference
was made to the strange guest, that had come
in among them. You would perceive at
once that you was introduced to the company
of the initiated. You would immediately be
put to the question—for the autiated cannot
rest, till they know whether you are one of
them—* Had you passed through this change?
Had you got religion?” If you had not, an
air of mystery would hang about all tLeir in-
tercourse with you. There would be no ease,
no freedom ; at least not in the good sense—
there might be freedoms of a very offensive
kind. If, on the other hand, you were one
of them, you would be treated differently, in-
deed, but just as singularly. You would,
then, be entitled to all the signs and pass-words
of this freemasonry of religious experience.
OF REVIVALS. 73

In short, religion, with these people, is an
extraordinary thing, obtained, and to be ex-
hibited in an extraordinary manner. He who
has got it feels strangely. He who talks
about it feels strangely. And Jan testify,
that he to whom the conversation is addressed,
often feels strangely too.

The notions of conversion which prevail
here, and which are fostered by these excite-
ments, particularly illustrate this tendency of
them, to place every thing in an unnatural and
irrational light. The idea here is, that men
are converted and made Christians in one mo-
ment—that grace descends not like the calm
and refreshing dew, slowly developing the
growth of nature, but like the lightning, sudden
irresistible, and blasting every thing natural.
And that which they so much covet does, in-
deed, seem to blast all natural good sense.
For how, with one relict of sense, can men
talk about getting religion in an hour or a
moment. A curious instance occurred to me,
a few days ago. I sent my servant toa tailor

5
~
74 ON THE RELIGION

to ask why a coat, I had ordered, was not
brought to me, and the answer was, that ‘the
principal workman had got religion that morn-
ing, and could not finish it.”

1 could not help reflecting on it. Just
compare religion with other things. Certainly,
it is an acquisition as diflicult. as any other—
as difficult as any habit or attainment of the
intellect, for instance. Now what would be
thought of it, if it were gravely stated, that a
man had got knowledge, or intelligence, or a
philosophic habit of mind, on a certain morn-
ing ? Comparisons, like these, test, at once,
the fallacy and absurdity of these notions.

But comparisons aside—look at the thing
itself. Call religion by any other name,
let it no longer be this mystical peculiarity,
but a broad and rational principle—call it for
instance, goodness, or virtue, or devotion, and
how impossible would it be, to talk of getting
devotion, or virtue or goodness, on a given day
or hour? Or, take religion to pieces—resolve
this conplex thing into its parts, and who could
talk of getting benevolence, or patience, or
OF REVIVALS. 75

humility, on a certain morning—much more
of getting them all together ?

This idea, nevertheless, of an instant
conversion, gocs deeply and intrinsically into
the very principles of a Revival. Without
this idea, it could not go on, nor exist, a
single day. Let it only be said that the
work of religion is the work of life, that all
a man can do in a single moment is to
resolve to be religious, and that future days,
and years must test the strength of his re-
solve; let it be said that he cannot be par-
doned, and assured of heaven, all at once, but
only, and in proportion, as he ts purified ;—and
there could be no extravagance nor transport.
Men would be sober. It would be a time of
thoughtfulness, and self-distrust, and prayer,
rather than of unnatural excitement, and mis-
timed confidence.

Tam willing to allow, that he who makes
this resolve, may feel joy in it—and that
when new objects, especially such as those of
piety, are opened to the mind, they may justly
70 ON THE RELIGION

excite it: but all this is very different from
the visionary transport and fallacious confi-
dence of these new converts, who sing songs
of triumph long before they have gained the
victory, who boast themselves as those who
put off the harness, when they are only putting
it on.

Jadecd, I am inciined to think, that these
modern excitements are responsible for the
whole of this mischievous notion of sudden
conversion. It isa modern doctrine, I sus-
pect, even of the history of modern Ortho-
doxy. The fathers of Revivals, Whitfield
and Wesicy, and Tennant and Davenport, have
given at least its prominence, to this dogma of
wild fanaticism. Vhe fathers of ow church,
certainly know nothing about it. And accor-
ding to my recollection of the dissenters, of
Baxter, Doadridge, &c. they are not respon-
sible for it. And as to Calvin, he says express-
ly, speaking of repentance or regencration,
which he states to have, in his use of the words,
the same meaning——“ regeneration,” he says,
OF REVIVALS. q7

‘is not accomplished in a single moment, or
day, or year ; but by continual, and sometimes
even tardy advances, the Lord destroys the
carnal corruptions of his chosen, purifies them
from all pollution, and consecrates them as
temples to himself; renewing all their senses
to real purity, that they may employ their whole
life in the exercise of repentance, and know,
that this warfare will be terminated only by
death.” If, in the abundance of your candor,
you should question the fairness of this, and
observe that Calvin seems to be speaking of
the whole process of sanctification, | can only
reply that he says, he is speaking of regenera-
tion or repentance. And he adds that “* God
assigns to believers the race of repentance to
run, during their whole life.” All this, is a
way of speaking about regeneration of which
T assure you, you would not hear much among
the metaphysical doctors, to whom of late I
have been listening. And this, as I think, I
might show, from the earlier Calvinistic wri-
ters, was the old way—the old way, I aver,
5%
78 ON THE RELIGION

though some occasional expressions of a dif-
ferent complexion might no doubt be quoted
from them.

But nothing could be quoted that approach-
es to the “ new light” which in this new world
has been thrown upon theology—-which
teaches that a man may “obtain religion,”
not in a year, or a day, but in a much briefer
space—in, a moment;—that in the grand
modern improvements of spiritual machinery,
the work may be far more easily as well as
expeditiously done, than of old,—-that in fine,
the vilest sinner upon earth may, in an instant,
be fitted for heaven.

I suppose, the happy votaries of this new
light would reflect upon the old Calvinists,
pretty much as Matthias Flacius of Illyria,
(who wrote in the 16th century) does upon
their Apostolic Fathers—and especially upon
Jerome and Euscbius, whorn he mentions.
He complains that after all their skill in Jan-
guages and philosophy, they were “ ignorant
of the human disease and of Christ the physi-
OF REVIVALS. 79

cian ”—that they give ‘a very low and imper-
fect description of a Christian, making him
only a man, who by the knowledge of Christ
and his doctrine, is brought to the worship of
the one true God, and the practice of sobriety,
righteousness, paticnce, and other virtues.
But not a word about regeneration and impu-
ted rightcousness.” “ Poor, ignorant, primi-
tive Christians !? exclaims Lardner, “ 1 won-
der how they could find the way to heaven!
They lived near the times of Christ and his
apostles. "They highly valued, and diligently
read the holy Scriptures, and some wrote
commentaries upon them, and yet it seems,
they knew little or nothing of their religion,
though they embraced and professed it, with
the manifest hazard of all earthly good things,
and many of them faid down their lives rather
than renounce it.”

1 confess, [ have wished some of these mo-
dern lights of the new world, would know
something about languages, too, as well as the
ancients, or else, that they would tell what

dt
80 ON THE RELIGION

they do know. J have heard these preachers
again and again, address the people in this
manner. ‘ My brethren, examine and judge
for yourselves. Ponder the language which
is used to describe the conversion of a sinner.
He is ‘new created,’ he is ‘born again.’ Is
not this strong language? Must it not, I ask
you, mean a great deal? Is there not a given
moment, when a human being is born? Must
not the change, therefore, which is indicated
by this language be instantaneous? And must it
not be immense?” They seem never to
have read so standard a theological writer as
Lightfoot, who tells us that this language
among the Jews, from whom it is derived,
was always used to desenbe a proselyte; that
a Gentile who embraced the Jewish religion
was always called, “ one born again,” “ anew
born child,” so highly did they conceive of
this distinction. And the Romans, too, of a
contemporancous period, as he tells us, used
to say of a man freed from servitude and in-
troduced to the privileges of citizenship, that
OF REVIVALS. 8]

he was ‘born again.”—If these teachers of
the people would explain the matter thus,
they would find themselves stript of their
strong argument. Proselytism was a sudden
event. Any change of a religious ritual or
system, so far as it is publicly exhibited,
must be sudden. So doubtless was this part
of the christian conversion. But the other
part, the moral, the spiritual change, which, no
question, was likewise required, instead of
being sudden, was, and is, and for ever must
be, the slowest of ull processes. The Roman
slave could be freed on a given day—but so
cannot the slave of sin.

But I have wandered, I scarcely know
whither, and I gladly quit modern folly and
ancient wisdom, too, to subscribe myself,

Most affectionately yours,
KR KK HH KEK,
82 NEW LEBANON CONVENTION.

LETTER VI.
THE NEW LZBANON CONVENTION, AS 1LLUSTRA-
TING THE RELIGION OF REVIVALS.

, Sept. 4th, 1827.

 

MY DEAR FRIEND,

T aicut have spared myself the remarks
with which T began my last letter to you, and
which I have made in some others of my let-
ters, to the same purpose ;—for since writing
them,a document, fully authorized to speak
on this point, has fallen under my eye, in
which the ground I have there taken, is en-
tirely conceded. This is the Report or Do-
ings of a Convention of the Clergy at New
Lebanon, in the State of New York, assem-
bled to settle some difficulties and differcnees
of opinion that have sprung up, in regard to
the proper methods of promoting the Re-
vivals.

1 might here remark that I have, in these
Letters, presented Revivals to you under
NEW LEBANON CONVENTION. 83

their mildest form, as they exist in the portion
of country from which I write. But it seems
that some, who had taken this fire from the
paternal altars of New England, and carried
it to the settlements of the West, have found it
more dangerous, among the more combustible
materials, and wooded tracts of the ‘ new
country.” In short, there were great ex-
cesses, and the leaders of Revivals in the
Kast, thought it necessary to protest against
them. This caused a schisin between the
East and the West ;—for the children were
by no means ready to submit to the parental
rebuke,—-having their marvellous works to
show as well as their Fathers. Indeed, the
Fathers might have known from their own
expericnce, LE suspect, that the Jast thing to
make men question the validity and excel-
lence of their own doings, the Jast thing to
make them confess and submit, is “a Revival
of religion.”

A mecting of the parties was, therefore,
convened to deliberate upon the matters: in
84 NEW LEBANON CONVENTION.

dispute, and one of the earliest resolutions was
to this effect, that Revivals of religion may
be attended with so much evil, as to overbal-
ance the good they do.

Now, this, certainly, is very moderate and
reasonable. Nay, it is all that the most arrant
skeptic about Revivals, can desire. Revivals,
then, are not necessarily a work of God. I
am glad that this point is thus formally con-
ceded, and that reason and reflection may
hereafter be admitted to have something to
do with these things; for surely nothing ever
more needed their light. In common con-
sistency, these gentlemen must no longer
brand with the title of the “ enemy,”* every
one who calls in questicn their Revivals. If
they find fault with each other, they must not
complain if others find fault with them. Un-
less, indeed, they propose to monopolize all
the religious fault-finding in the country.

This Convention furnishes so conspicuous

* Do they mean, by this title, the ‘ Evil one ?’
Am, Ed.
NEW LEBANON CONVENTION. 85

a theatre for that kind of observation which ]
am daily practising in this country, that I must
Not pass it without some further notice. It
falls in also with the immediate object of my
letters to you. For it presents a striking spe-
cimen of what is too often the Revival spirit,—
much praying, and much dissension and wrath.
I speak of praying, and “I name it, filled with
awe ”—but alas! this word includes all sorts
of supplication, from that of the humble pub-
lican to that of the proud and scorniul phari-
sec. But to proceed: in the first piace, the
Convention passes a vote, “to request those of
their brethren who are in the place,” ¢. e. the
good laboring peuple in the township of Leba-
non,——for ] suppose they did not mean to re-
quest themselvesto pray for themselves—to in-
termit their harvest labors, or at least, “to spend
as much of their time as may be convenient
in special prayer for the divine blessing on
the proceedings of this mecting.”* Then we

“The supposition here made, docs credit io the wri-
ter’s candor, but I think he is mistaken. The vote I
should say, is avote of the Convention, that itself, its
86 NEW LEBANON CONVENTION.

are told a great deal about the prayers of the
Convention in every part of their Report. It
seems as if they thought, the command had
been, “ when thou prayest, go upon the house-
top, or publish it in the newspaper.” — It is
minutely stated, in every day’s Report, that
the Convention prayed morning and evening,
and the public is informed of ‘seasons of
prayer, interspersed with singing,” and how,
when the discussion waxed warm, more than
once the Convention “ united in a season of
prayer.”

But under this cloud of incense,—which
so much pains is taken to render conspicu-
ous—things are going on of quite a diflerent
aspect. You see,—as it is now and then
disturbed by what the sailors would call a
“ flaw ’—you see the keen and jealous con-
test of parties. All the selfish passions, that
belong to such a contest, and all the devices

members be much in prayer,—which makes a case of
something worse than ostentation, or bad taste. If Lam
right, the Conventicn puts a duty, commanded of God,
universally binding by the word of Scripture, to voTE!
What if there had been a majority against it ?—Am. Ed.
NEW LEBANON CONVENTION. 87

of ingenuity have full scope and free play.
There is moving, and counter-moving of reso-
lutions, and amendments proposed and with-
drawn, and carping at phrascology, and _frit-
tering away its meaning, and concealed at-
tack, and parrying by the dexterous sleight of
words, as much as ever you saw in the most
petty and secular Iegislation. The following
is a specimen of a day’s discussion, and such
ts the subject !

‘Mr. I. (one of the Eastern gentlemen,)
introduced the following proposition.

“Tn social incetings of men and women,
females are not to pray.” [Something in the
style of an edict, our friends - and
would think, but that does not seem to have
been a matter of objection: “ females are
not to pray.’”]

‘ After some discussion, adjourned to meet
tomorrow morning, at 8 o’clock. Concluded
with prayer.’

‘Friday, July 20. Met according to ad-
journment, and opened with prayer.’

 

 
88 NEW LEBANON CONVENTION.

‘The consideration of the proposition under
discussion yesterday was resumed. After
further discussion, united in a season of
prayer. Then attended further to the discus-
sion, &c. Concluded with prayer.’

‘Friday afternoon. Met according to ad-
journment and opened with prayer.’

‘The consideration of the proposition was
resumed.’

‘It was moved by Mr. A. (one of the
Western Gentlemen) that the further conside-
ration of the proposition be postponed till we
have gone into an inquiry into matters of
fact.

‘ After some discussion, united in a season
of prayer.’

[After this, the courage ofthe West scems
to revive 5] and ‘Mr. A. asked and obtained
leave to withdraw his motion, for postpone-
ment, and it was withdrawn.’

[The question is then furtner discussed, is
taken, and the convention is equally divided. ]
Next,
NEW LEBANON CONVENTION. 89

‘It was.moved by Mr. F. (of the West) that
the following question be answered, to wit;
“Ts it right for a woman in any case, to pray
in the presence of men? ”?

[This question looks rather Socratic and
dangerous, and the eastern men secm to take
the alarm—] and ‘afier some discussion, it
was moved by Mr. E. that the further conside-
ration of this question be indefinitely postpon-
ed. The motion was seconded, and after some
discussion, Mr. EF. asked and obtained leave
to withdraw his motion, and it was with-
drawn.’

[The next step is to introduce “the fol-
lowing proposition ” from the West.] “ There
may be circnmstances in which it may be
proper for a female to pray in the presence
of men.”

‘The question was taken,’ and eight are
for it and ten are against it: so it is decided,
in this conclave, that a female may never pray
when men are present, let the case be what
it will.

t

Qy
90 NEW LEBANON CONVENTION.

“ Adjourned, &c.—Concluded with prayer.”
Such is one day’s labor of this “ Important
convention.” The next day was chiefly taken
up with the question, whether it is proper “ to
call persons by name in prayer?”

You are to understand that these practices
and some others prevailing in the West, had
given great umbrage to the East. ‘The three
or four first days of the convention are occu-
pied with propositions from the eastern gen-
uemen, which reflect severely, sometimes by
innuendo and sometimes openly, on these
practices. The western gentlemen of course
wince under these propositions, and strive by
every means to ward off the attacks, or to
push aside the more covert implications. But
after a while, therr turn comes, aud, then, they
hurl back implication and innuendo. For
whereas, the Eastern inen had said, in one of
their propositions, ‘there may be so much
infirmity and indiscretion and wickedness of
man, in conducting a Revival” as “ to ren-
der the general evils greater than the local
NEW LEBANON CONVENTION. 91

and temporary advantages”—their Western
Brethren amiably retort, in the following pro-
position, to wit: “attempts to remedy evils
existing in revivals of religion, may, through
the infirmity and indiscretion and wickedness
of men, do more injury and ruin more souls,
than those evils which such attempts are in-
tended to correct.” That is to say, * you have
accused us, by implication, of “infirmity, in-
discretion and wickedness,”
make the same agreeable charges against you.
You have interfered with our proceedings, de-
nominating them weak, indiscreet and wicked ;
we term your interference so.’

“ But how do the people regard these strifes
and recriminations of their Ministers?” you
will say.‘ Dothey look with complacency
upon this Convention? Does the cloud of
incense hide and keep out of sight the strug-
gle, and the whetted instruments, and the
‘disjecta membra,’ that are beneath it?”
Why really I donot know. The Convention
boldly sends out this account of their dis-

6

and now we
92 NEW LEBANON CONVENTION.

putes, bare and naked as a skeleton—(I hear
your interjectional comment on the publication,
as more strange even than the proceedings) —
nevertheless this they do; they publish with
as little hesitation, as if they were doing the
wisest thing in the world; and itis not for
me to say, that they do not best know the
ground they stand upon. Indeed, Ican see
no evidence that they have miscalculated their
own strength,—or, (that which makes it,) the
weakness of the people. Among their par-
ishes I hear no complaint nor question. Their
report comes out headed with the title, “ Im-
portant Convention ;” and nobody seems
to suspect that the title can have but one
meaning!

Nay, [ should not wonder, if many of the
good, honest people of the land, should think
there was the most remarkable unanimity
in this body. For there is one device, that
I have not yet told you of, in regard to which
the convention may lay claim to perfect ori-
ginality. I challenge your invention to devise
NEW LEBANON CONVENTION. 93

a way in which a deliberative body, consist-
ing of two adverse and determined parties,
shall so contrive it as to pass some twelve or
liventy votes on the very topics at issue, with-
out a dissenting voice! Why thus itis. When-
ever a proposition is brought forward which
is extremely unpalatable to one party, i. e. “to
the Eastern or the Western party—a proposi-
tion which calls forth the most decided judg-
ment, which awakens the strongest feeling of
hostility, and every body knows that it does—
why then, said party modestly, “ DECLINEs
voTINnG :” and_ so the resolution passes, nem.
con. What a delightful harmony, which is not
only founded on inutual love,—witness the
last resolution which T mentioned—but which
is backed by such exemplary diffidence !
However, to be serious, the device is no
doubt shallow enough; and yet I suspect it
takes, or else the public has takeo its cue
from the Convention, and though disliking its
proceedings, “declines voting,” I very much
question, however, whether this last is the true
94 NEW LEBANON CONVENTION.

solution. There is such an air of sanctity
spread over this meeting,—its Report is intro-
duced with such commendation of “ the spirit
of christian tenderness (?) and supplication,
which seems, it is said, to have pervaded it,”
and which itis “ hoped will be diffused through
all the congregations,’—the actors them-
selves have so much reputation as great Re-
vival-men, a reputation making it almost
blasphemy to speak against them—and then,
so much, I repeat, is said in the minutes
about their prayers and seasons of prayer—
and those who decline voting on any resolu-
ton, though evidently galled by it, still so
plously referring themselves to Providence for
their refusal,—there is, ] say, so much of all
this, that, it would not be strange, perhaps, if
the real merits of the case were buried under
this load of extrinsic and imposing circum-
stances. |

The last feature of these transactions which
1 just stated, really deserves to be more dis-
tinctly noticed ; I mean, the reference to Pro-
NEW LEBANON CONVENTION. 95

vidence. This j is made in several cases in a
manner which is painful and almost shocking.
For instance,—after the severe and recrimina-
tory resolution, which I have before comment-
ed on, ‘those who declined voting ”—i. e.
the persons attacked, “ entered the following
as their reason, to wit,—‘* as the above does
not appear to us to be, in the course of Di-
vine Providence, called for, we therefore de-
cline toact.’” That is to say, the aggressors in
this controversy, who had framed sundry
propositions, severely reflecting on their West-
ern Brethren, find, when it comes their turn to
be attacked—attacked, too, on the very points
in debate,—they find, I say, that the obnox-
ious proposition is not “called for, in the
course of Divine Providence,” and “ therefore
decline ” having any thing to do with it. “ Not
called for in the course of Divine Providence?”
What is a call of Providence, but a call of
those circumstances in which men are placed?
And did not these as much require an expres-
sion of opinions on one side as the other?
6*
96 NEW LEBANON CONVENTION.

Did Providence require these men to vote
only when it would gratify their own passions ?
What were the circumstances? Simply these
—that there had been difficulties, differences
of opinion about certain matters of gene-
ral prudence and propriety in the methods of
conducting Revivals, and that a number of
men professedly assemble together to discuss
and settle these very matters. What follows?
These very matters are brought forward—pro-
positions are introduced on the very points at
issue, and lo! the party disaffected—after hav-
ing gained its own ends—the party disaffect-
ed to these propositions is not “ called upon ”
to do any thing about them! Whatif the other
party had entertained the same extraordinary
scruples, when they were attacked? They
might very easily have done so, if they had
anticipated this unprecedented kind of eva-
sion. Why, then, the case would have stood
thus. The whole body of the Convention,
assembled to decide upon certain subjects,
would have sagely discovered, when these very
subjects were brought forward, that they were
NEW LEBANON CONVENTION. 97

“not called for in the course of Divine Pro-
vidence!!” See, too, what a clever inference
would follow. ‘You had rather a stormy
time at the Convention,” I might say to one
of its members. “ Oh ! no; a very harmoni-
ous time,” he might answer. “ But I observe
contradictory and even recriminatory propo-
sitions in your minutes.” ‘Oh yes; there
were some such brought forward by the oppo-
site party but we considered them as not call-
ed for,—we voted them out of . the Conven-
tion—the Convention as a body had nothing
to do with them.” Did the non-voting ma-
jority mean that the latter part of this infer-
ence should be derived from the course they
pursued ? or did they mean nothing ?

But the subject is too grave for satire, and
too plain for elucidation. Let the matter,
at issue, be what it may, Iet the right or the
wrong, in the general question, be where it will,
there can be, with reflecting men, but one
opinion, as to the extreme impropriety. to use
no harsher word, of sheltering the fcelings of

6
98 NEW LEBANON CONVENTION.

personal mortification or anger, under a
solemn reference to the counsels of the Al-
mighty Governor of the universe !

After all, you will ask, what has the Conven-
tion accomplished? The answer is, nothing.
Its members might as well have stayed at
home. They would have done just as much,
and decided just as much, by throwing mis-
sives from a distance, as by coming to close
action. For what have they done? They
have frained a number of propositions so ex-
tremely general that scarcely any body could
object to them, and about which every body
knew beforehand that they did not differ, and
then they have brought forward a number of
other propositions to which the two parties
alternately listened in a silence, which, if it
were not politic, would fairly be construed as
sullen, and which may have been both. The
very expense of thus gathering a convention
from a range of country four hundred miles
in extent, ought, though an inferior considera-
tion, to have some weight in estimating its
NEW LEBANON CONVENTION. 99

conduct; the more especially as, 1 suppose,
the persons invited went not “to war on their
own charges,” but were provided for, by contri-
bution from their churches—from those very
churches, who are perpetually exhorted to
give the last farthing they can spare, to the
missions, and who have thus been subjected
to an expense, that would, in some of the sta-
tions, have supported a missionary for three
years. If, indeed, the ministers had frankly
come forward to their churches, and said,
“ Brethren, we regret to tell you, that we
have accomplished nothing, that we cannot
agree about these matters, that we are just as
far apart as ever ”—then, I will allow that the
reflections I have made would be severe.
But instead of this, they come forward, with
all the apparent confidence of men who have
done well, and they would doubtless take it
very ill, iftheir Churches thought otherwise.
Their Periodicals and Newspapers sing “laud-
amus,” and would have “ THe ENEMY know,”
that if he speaks a word of censure, he does
100 NEW LEBANON CONVENTION.

it at the peril of their high displeasure. By
‘the enemy,’ of course they mean all good
Christians who stand aloof from their Revi-
vals, and especially, our Church, which { am
happy to find is the refuge of a great many
intelligent people here, who cannot bear the
excesses of the popular religion.

However, the good people here may take
heart, for if the Convention threatens them,
or calls them by hard names, that is not
half so bad as what they do towards one an-
other. Anong themselves, there is actual
war; their whole report bristles with hostile
propositions ; their whole proceedings remind
you of nothing but storming and mining ; and
when every other resort fails, they arm
themselves with prayers. For it is observable
that the Convention almost always goes to
prayer, when dissension is at the highest. I
was struck with observing for instance, that
their extraordinary “ seasons of prayer ” were
never so frequent as on the day when the
question was whether “a female might pray
NEW LEBANON CONVENTION. 101

in the presence of men.” This certainly
was no great moral inquiry on which men
might feel a need of divine direction. ‘The
explanation doubtless is, that this was a little
question of great temporary interest -—and of
what sort of interest, the general character of
their proceedings sufficiently well shows.

It would scem in fact, as if the Convention
felt it dangerous at length to go upon disputed
ground, and the first part of their report ac-
cordingly dwindles away into some of the most
extraordinary moral truisms that, I imagine,
ever engaged the deliberations of a grave as-
sembly. The Convention can agree upon
nothing but such propositions as these, that,

Language adapted to irritate,”’—is wrong :
it was high time to judge so ;—that,

“All irreverent familiarity with God, such as
men use towards their equals”—is improper:-—

That, “ ‘To depreciate the value of educa-
tion ”—is not well :—that,

“To state things which are not true, for the
purpose of awakening sinners,” isa bad thing.

Again,
102 NEW LEBANON CONVENTION.

“The immediate success of any measure,
without regard to its scriptural character ”
i. e. without regard to its rectitude, “ does not
justify it.”

“* No measures are to be adopted for promo-
ting revivals, which those who adopt them, are
unwilling to have published.”

If propositions like these, need to be so
solemnly laid down, what must be the infer-
ence? What must be the state of things, and
what the tone of morality, when a Convention
of the clergy, who have “ compassed sea
and land,” hill-country and champagne, four
hundred miles over, sit gravely down, and
solemnly vote, that dark intrigues, uncon-
scionable expedients, angry specches, lying,
and impiety, are bad things, and wrong?
What would be thought of the state of society,
where a company of merchants should get
together, and pass formal resolutions, declar-
ing that fraud, cheating, and falschood were
wrong, and ought not to have countenance?
This Convention for supporting and defending
Revivals, could not possibly have framed a
NEW LEBANON CONVENTION. 103

severer satire upon Revivals than they have
done !

But enough, and enough. I have dwelt thus
long on this Convention, though the only
concern I have with it, is to depict to you the
state of religion in this country, and particu-
larly the effects of the great religious excite-
ments of which I] have taken so much pains
to give you an account. You may depend
upon it, they are not to be desired among the
Evangelical body of our church, to which you
are attached, and which, though I do not
agree with it in all respects, I allow to be so
worthily seeking out the means of promoting
a more fervent and earnest religion, in Eng-
land.

I cannot help adding that the account I
have been giving you, furnishes strong corrob-
oration of a remark which I made in my last
letter, that these religious excitements com-
municate an unnatural character to religion,
and tend to widen the separation, which has
always so much prevailed, between religion
104 NEW LEBANON CONVENTION.

and all the ordinary principles of human
reasoning and conduct. It is because this
was a religious Convention, and a Conven-
tion of Revival-men, that it escapes the ordi-
nary sagacity of the people here. Only
suppose the same things to have taken place
in a purely secular assembly, and you see at
once how differently it would have been re-
garded. Suppose, for instance, that in the
late change of the ministry, in our country,
the different portions of the liberal party,
those who took office and, those who for va-
rious reason would not, had met together,
and tried for an amalgamation—suppose that
after some grave and general propositions
about politics, they had come to the points at
issue; then imagine discordant propositions,
concealed attacks, blunt recriminations, the
forbearance of those who ‘ decline voting,”
and the iinposing reference to Providence—
suppose it all in short, and suppose it all pub-
lished, as a specimen of the tender and_har-
monious deliberations of these men,—and, I
NEW LEBANON CONVENTION. 105

am sure that the prayers of the whole bench
of Bishops attending, could not have made
the people of England tie up their tongues as
they do here, and look a solemn assent to such
proceedings.

This is‘one of the great evils that still clings
to the religion of the whole world. It is not
brought down to those principles of common
sense, by which men judge of other things.
It is not brought into free contact with the
mind. ‘There isa mystery and a spell at-
tending it, even till now. And never till it is
disenchanted, never till it comes to dwell in
the freedom of our minds and the simplicity
of our affections, never till we learn to com-
mune with it, as the companion and friend of
our bosoms, shall we experience its full power,
or perceive its transcendant glory! I feel
that I wish much for you and myself, when, I
say—that it may thus come to ws, is the
prayer of your affectionate friend,
106 THE RELIGION

LETTER VII.

THE RELIGION OF REVIVALS,—-CONTINUED.

» SEPTEMBER 13th, 1827.
MY DEAR FRIEND,

I am in haste to finish with what the good
Bishop calls this “ transatlantic madness,”
and shall try to bring within the compass of a
single letter, what farther I have to say upon
it.

The e2traordinary and novel character of
this religion is what, continually and every
day more strongly, presents itself to my re-
flections.

Ihave been accustomed to think of the
course of a good and pious man, as a regular
progress. No description has scemed to me
more beautiful or true, than that of the in-
spired penman, when he says, that “ the path
of the just is as the shining light, shining
brighter and brighter unto the perfect day.”
But here I find a religion of fluctuation. Its
OF REVIVALS. 107

progress is not like that of the steady and ma-
Jestic luminaries of heaven, but rather like
the erratic and glaring comet, now heated
and blazing, in its approach to the sun, and,
then, after having spread trouble and perplex-
ity among the nations, retiring from our sight,
to its long and cold wanderings from the
fountain of heat and light.

IT had thought, too, that religion. was calm
and tranquil,—that it was designed to con-
trol the impulses of passion and to hush and
sooth the troubled and agitated spirits of men.
But here is a religion of tumult and excite-
ment. I perceive, indeed, that the leaders,
of late, are striving to suppress all outward
marks of agitation, and are anxious to state,
as often as possible, that “ the work is re-
markably calm.” But this very little alters
the real state of things. The 7nward com-
motion still exists, and means are constantly
used to make it about as strong as the reason
ean bear. In some melancholy instances, it
is stronger. ‘The great effort to keep down

6t
108 THE RELIGION

the outward demonstrations, only betrays a
consciousness, that the agitation is deep within,
that the soul is shaken to its very foundations.
It is to no pnrpose, to say, that the victim is
calm, when he is on the rack. It avails no-
thing, at least, in defence of the torture, to say
that he is calm. It provesthe strength of his
fortitude, not the lightness of his sufferings.
And that the object still is,—notwithstanding
all appearances and disclamations—that the
object still is, to create the decpest internal
agitation, is evident from the fact, that the
appeals are chiefly addressed to the most ex-
citable passions, thatthey are mostly adapted
to plunge the mind into despondency, gloom,
and terror, as to raise it to unwonted anima-
tion and rapture.

The publicity, too, of all this, is another
thing that contradicts all the ideas 1] had
formed of religion. I had felt especially, as
if religious anwieties naturally shrank from
notice. To bury them in the heart, or to bear
thein to the altar of private devotion, ‘or, at
OF REVIVALS. 109

most, to unfold them in private and intimate
intercourse with a friend,—this has seemed
to me as a kind of law for feclings so sacred.
You and I know, my dear friend, how sacred
and comforting is such an intercourse. But
here, all this appears to be done in public;
nay, it is actually done in public meetings.
People are actually questioned concerning
their most secret and delicate feelings zn a
crowd, and it is considered a mark of pride
or obduracy, to decline so open a disclosure.
seeseeelt is a kind of monitorial system of reli-
gious instruction. Lay members are deputed
to act as monitors, and they go around from
seat to seat, putting all indiscriminately to
the question, and offering their advice and
guidance. ‘This illustration is perfectly just,
as applied to what are culled conferences,
(which are large and promiscuous assembla-
ges of people) and it certainly presents but
an unfavorable view of this system of religious
instruction. For I believe it is conceded,
that even in common education, the monito-
a
110 THE RELIGION

rial system, especially in the hands of ordi-
nary pupils, is but a grosser and more me-
chanical way of doing that, which were much
better done by a single skilful instructer. It
is a quicker and cheaper process, and is often
attended with more noise and show than real
utility. The comparison, I fear, is but too
exact in many particulars.

All these unnatural and untoward features
of religion, you must know, too, are wrought
into the very system of Revivals. They are
not mere appendages, but essential parts of
the system.

And it is another, and not the least evil of
this system, that it engrosses the mind,—
taking precedence, if not place, of every
thing else in religion. Revivals are the great
things, the great objects of desire, the great
epochs in the moral history of society. Nay,
in the limited apprehension of their votarics,
they fill the mighty space, to be occupied by
the eternal and infinite themes of religion
itself. Men’s ideas of this glorious concern
OF REVIVALS. Ill

seem to be circumscribed by the little and
tumultuous scene, in which they are engaged.
The vast and comprehensive system of means
and influences which God has ordained, the
decent ordinances of piety, the Sabbath still-
ness, the calm and gentle voices of nature, the
solemn teachings of providence and life, the
all pervading power of conscience, the all
pervading and ever working spirit of the Al-
mighty—these drop out of sight, and all seems
to be girdled in, by the walls of the conference-
room. Ihave heard many prayers in such
circumstances, which seemed not to go be-
yond the dome of the tabernacle, where they
were offered. God was addressed so familiar-
ly, so much as if his whole mind and counsel
were employed upon that one Revival, and
that one assembly, so much, too, as if, even
in that limited circle of his regard, he were
a capricious being, that he seemed to be wor-
shipped as a deity of the place and occasion,
rather than the Universal Father—as a God
112 THE RELIGION

of Revivals, but not, 1 must be pardoned
feeling, as the God of the Universe.

I have heard many prayers, which were in
a strain like this. Lord, have mercy upon
sinners in this assembly. We are afraid they
will never have another opportunity. We are
afraid they have gone too far already. But
if thou canst come over the mountain of their
transgressions, if thy paticnce is not clean
gone for ever, we pray that thou wouldst open
the arms of thy mercy to them this once.
Not for their sakes, but for thine own great
name’s sake, pardon them. Glorify thy
power, and get to thyself a great name, in
overcoming their opposition. We leave them
in thy hands. But we pray, if it be consist-
ent with thy glory, that thou wouldst have
mercy upon them.” As I have gone out
from such.a meeting, beneath the open sky,
and lifted my eyes to the calm and boundless
heavens, I have said with myself, is it to the
God of all these worlds, that ] have heard
men pray this evening? Asi have gone ca,
OF REVIVALS. 113

meditating upon what Jesus Christ has taught
me concerning this gracious, sovereign, and
infinite Being, I have exclaimed, is it to this
universal Father, that these men have pray-
ed?

T always think, in such circumstances, of
an observation of our admirable Paley. I
cannot give you the language, as I am not
able at this moment to refer to the passage.
But it is to this effect. Whenever, says he,
I witness the zeal of the Methodists, and ob-
serve the excitement that attends their meet-
ings, fecling as 1 do, the infinite weight and
seriousness of the concerns of religion, I am
tempted for a moment to go along with them,
but i never can help exclaiming, on an in-
stant’s reflection,—how different is all this,
from the sober spirit of our Saviour, from the
calm, dispassionate and rational manner of his
teaching! It scems to ine, as if every re-
flecting man, who witnesses one of these Re-

vivals would make the same comment. It
week
4
114 THE RELIGION

should be considered, moreover, that our Sa-
viour was placed in circumstances which
would seem to justify him in the attempt to
arouse the public mind by the most exciting
and empassioned appeals. He was a Re-
former, and he had no share in the sins which
he condemned. On these accounts, he is not,
—as some of them seem fond of considering
him—he is not altogether an example to our
modern preachers. ‘They speak not with the
same authority, nor with the same conscious
innocence in themselves, nor in the same ex-
traordinary and exciting situations. But all
this only sets in a still stronger light, the wide
contrast between our Saviour’s moderation
and calmness, and the passionate zeal of those
who profess, more nearly than all other men,
to follow him.

Yes, more nearly than all other men.
This over-weening self-complacency is one
of the worst traits in their religion. They
hold themselves up to the people, as the only
ministers who preach Christ, and their meet-
OF REVIVALS. 115

ingsas the only services which have the spirit
of Christ in them. Ifa preacher, not of their
class, delivers a sermon, teaching that to be a
Christian, is “ by the knowledge of Christ and
his doctrine, to be brought to the worship of
one true God, and to the practice of sobriety,
righteousness, patience and other virtues,”
they are as petulant and contemptuous about
it, as Flacius Illyricus, whom I before quo-
ted, was, about the early fathers and teach-
ers. ‘They pronounce it, “ mere cold mo-
rality !” and say, more in scorn, I am afraid,
than in pity, that “there is nothing of Christ
in it.” The pity, you will judge, however,
they are as little entitled to feel as the scorn.

But what work do you think this spirit will
make, when through “the droppings of the
sanctuary ” it is distilled upon the mass of
the people. A man, not much acquainted
with religious fanaticism, would be astonished
at the presumption and boldness which are
thus spread through the lowest classes of so-
ciety. If you were travelling through this coun-

7
116 THE RELIGION

try, you might hear on every side, people of
the least possible title to any such confidence,
persons of the most ordinary capacity and
no knowledge,—who so far from being fit to
judge of high spiritual matters, had not got so
far as to “ cleanse the outside of the cup and
the platter,”—persons who so far from being
judges of religious purity and decorum, seem-
ed not to have learnt the morality of washing
their faces—you might hear them proudly
pronouncing judgment on the purest and best
men in the country,—denouncing one, and
cutting offanother from all hope, and gracious-
ly permitting a third to stand ull the harvest,
admitting with the most solemn and porten-
tous shaking of the head, that he might be
saved, though it would be “ so as by fire.”
And this—to show you that J] am not wan-
dering from the subject,—this is the result of
those principles of religion which give birth to
Revivals. It is because these misguided
people are taught to rely on supernatural im-
pulses, because they are puffed up with the
OF REVIVALS. 117

notion of special grace being imparted to them,
and giving them a superiority over the natural
understanding of other men, that they thus
speak of those, to whoin, in any other rela-
tion, they would not lift their eyes, but with
respect and deference. People of humble
capacity and acquisitions are not disposed,
- but as they are influenced by others, to de-
part so far from the modesty that most truly
becomes them. They are not often found
deciding so contemmptuously on the merits of
a distinguished lawyer, or an eminent physi-
cian. But when it comes to religion, they
are told that the case is altogether different.
And those who feel themselves to be ignorant
of almost every thing else, are encouraged to
pronounce on the profoundest questions in the
infinite subject of religion, and on the most
delicate and complicated questions in the
forbidden subject of their-neighbor’s heart !
This idea of religion as something preter-
natural, leads to another and still worse result
—a result to which the whole system of Re-
118 THE RELIGION

vivals tends. Itis, that religion is very much
resolved into a set of passive impressions.
There is enough activity, indeed, in Revivals
—enough and too much, such as it is. But
it is all designed to prepare the mind to be
operated upon. Now, if a man should be
active in any thing in this world, it certainly
isin procuring his own worth, his own virtue,
his own piety—in one word, his own happi-
ness. ‘This is the very law of happiness, and
it is heaven’s Jaw, never to be broken. And in
so far, as a man trusts to passive impressions,
will he certainly be deceived. In fact, Lam
inclined to believe, that this is the great de-
lusion that attends most of the religious feel-
ing that I see around me. It is not active,
not self-wrought, and therefore it is not effec-
tual, not habitual. It dies away, because it
has no root in itself. Men get a great im-
pression at one of these Revival meetings,
just as they do at a solemn mass, or a sacred
concert, or, though the subject of feeling be dif-
erent, just as they do at the theatre ; and the
OF REVIVALS, 119

emotion is, oftentimes, about as valuable in
the one case, as the other.....In truth these Re-
vivals are the grand modern drama in religion,
and men will act their part and have their day
in it, I suppose, as they have done in all the
religious dramas, whether Popish or Protest-
ant, that have gone before it. Meanwhile,
the real business of religion, like the real bu-
siness of life, I trust, will go forward. For,
really, if religion consists in any thing, it con-
sists in action—-in mental, moral, habitual,
daily action. It is not the business of religion
to shut men up to despair and inaction ; nor
to “shove them off’--as a distinguished
preacher of Revivals latcly said in a sermon
—‘to shove them off in an open boat, with-
out sail, oar, rudder, or compass.” The
business of ministers, he said, was “to get
them into the boat, and shove them off, and,
then, they were left in despair to the mercy
of God.”

This tendency to depress the mind of a
people, is a feature in the system of Revivals
120 THE RELIGION

that T must not pass entirely over. For al-
though a man may be elated with spiritual
pride in reference to the world at large, he
may be, none the less, in subjection to a sys-
tem, and to his Minister. Extremes often
meet here, as they do elscwhere. The
proudest may be the most cowardly and ab-
ject. The most self-sufficient, may be the
least independent. At any rate, lam certain
that Revivals, here, do more than any thing
else to fasten the yoke of religious timidity
and subservience on the mass of the people.
There never was a people in the world who
had less true religious freedom, less true
freedom of thought and feeling, than a con-
gregation over whom this brooding incubus of
a Revival has settled itself heavily down.
Every one’s religious experience must be
broken in, to the prescribed measure and
form. Every one is asking, not, in his simple
and solitary thoughts, how he should feel, but
how his neighbor feels. Every one must be-
lieve certain things, and do certain things,
OF REVIVALS. 121

and pass through a certain process 3 or he is
lost. And the things that I here speak of are
not the essential things of virtue and devotion,
but the tcclinical things of a Revival. [do
not say, that all this is arbitrarily imposed by
the Minister: it results, in fact, from the very
esprit du corps of a great religious excitement.
* The whole head is sick, and the whole heart
is faint” with this one terrific agitation.
Above all, no one may hesitate, doubt or op-
pose, as I have said before, because ‘it is
the work of God.” The new convert gets
up in the assembly, and says with an awful
and preternatural tone and countenance, that
he has “ felt the power of the Holy Ghost in
his soul,” and, though he may be one of the
weakest and most ignorant persons in the con-
gregation, the whole beart of the people bows
down at his words, as if he spoke with the
voice cf a prophet. IT would not say this
with any contempt, and I certainly do not
with any surprise, for how can the people do
otherwise, so long as they believe in the su-
122 THE RELIGION

pernatural character of what is passing around
them? The public mind must be enslaved,
by such a system. It ought to be, if the pre-
tensions of this system can be sustained. If
miracles are passing about me, if events are
taking place in the dwellings of my neighbors,
which cannot be accounted for by any known
laws of human nature, I have nothing to do,
but to yield up my mind to them, and to
yield it up, with fear and trembling. The
legitimate consequence of superstition is
mental servitude.

With this tendency of the system, to take
away the proper activity and freedom of the
mind, J must connect the unfriendly bearing
it has on a pure and elevated morality. I
hear, indeed, of instances in which men are
reclaimed from the grosser vices,—and lam
told, too, of cases where an opposite result is
produced. And it would not be strange, I
think, if in that total unhinging of the mind
which is often produced by these excesses,
the flood-gates of morality should be burne
OF REVIVALS. 1233

away by the torrent of religious excitement.
Excitement of itself is always dangerous;
and some of the circumstances of this are
particularly so. This being constantly abroad,
and in a crowd—and the evening-meetings
especially, which, night after nigut, draw ser-
vants and young people from their homes,
must have a tendency to unsettle the mind,
and to give it a distaste for the strictness and
sobriety of every-day duties.

But it is of a higher morality, that I was
about to speak—-of morality as touching all
the relations of men to one ancther—the
morality of kind thoughts, and forbearing
words, and charitable judgments, and well
governed passions—the morality that requires
modesty in the young, sobriety and self-re-
straint in the ardent and zealous, gentleness
among relatives, and peace among neighbors.
This, I am afraid, does not flourish much
in Revivals. These virtues are apt to fall
out of the account among the high and exag-
gerated objects of religious zeal and excite-
124 THE RELIGION

ment. Little or nothing is said of them.
The public mind is turned"to convictions and
Conversions, to glooms and raptures, to
frames and experiences, to metaphysical
processes of feeling, and mysterious dogmas
of faith, and while engaged with these, it
naturally comes to think very slightly of the
gentle and unpretending duties of social and
domestic life.

The Revival conscience, in fact, (if I may
use the expression) las often seemed to me
a very different thing from the true, pure,
and refined conscience. It takes a different
standard, and brings the character to a dif-
ferent test. If a man has attained to a cer-
tain extravagant state of feeling, it suflices
with many, and they will scarcely think of
going beyoud to the matters of strict truth-
telling and plain-dealing honesty, and a scru-
pulous care to the temper. Far be it from
me, to say that such a neglect of these ordi-
nary and, after all, most dificult virtues, is
inculcated or abetted by the teachers; but it
OF REVIVALS. 125

arises, more or less from the very state of
things. The mind, under a great excite-
ment, is impelled, and almost assumes to
itself the right, to act and judge, upon ex-
traordinary maxims and principles.

Under this influence, too, means for carry-
ing on the Revivals are freely adopted which
would scarecly be thought very creditable or
correct in any other case. [tis just as we
Witness it often, in a great political excite-
ment. Men will do things, at such a time,
which, they would feel, did not comport with
a high sense of honor or morality, at any
other. The exigency, they say, justifies it.
And so, the moral exigency which a Revival
presents, is thought to justify extraordinary
principles of moral conduct. There are
plans and combinations for getting possession
of the public mind, or there is management
for operating upon an individual mind—there
are secret plottings and whisperings, or bold
innuendoes, or rumors circulated on slight
evidence, or easy inferences that in secret

74
126 THE RELIGION

stab the fairest reputation—and there are
cruel and shocking liberties taken with pri-
vate feeling, from which a man with any high
tone of moral delicacy, would revolt, if his
moral discrimination were not whelmed in
this flood of excitement.

The true conscience—and in this it differs
from that of Revivals—is not an empassioned
emotion, the offspring of fear, nursed by
agitation, and guided by agonies and rap-
tures. It is a sober, calm, severe, self-con-
trolling power, the image of the tranquil and
undisturbed Divinity, the development of
the moral nature, unfolded by reflection,
directed by wisdom, and chastened by a holy
caution. Itis the fearing to offend, not the
fearing to suffer. It is this last feeling that
awakens so much excitement; the former
does not. And I am apt to think that con-
science holds but an insecure position amidst
the stirring of the passions. - Even remorse,
which is conscience putting forth its utmost
power—even remorse is terribly calm.
OF REVIVALS. 127

There never was a teacher that dealt so
closely with the conscience as Jesus Christ ;
and yet there never was a teacher so devoid
of passion, so devoid, | might say, of fervor,
and of all that the world calls cloquence.
Now, who would not feel, that if our Saviour
had adopted the Revival methad of teaching,
if he had labored to throw the people into a
great and overwhieltning agitation, if he had
taught them to expect immediate and super-
natural impressions from heaven, anil to re-
solve almost the whole of religion into these
impressions—wwho would not feel, I say, that
such a course must have been unfavorable to
a sober and severe, to a gentle and refined
morality. Ile would have found enough of
Jewish pride and caballistic mystery to enlist
in his cause—and that, too, without passing
through any great change. Te would have
found Pharisees enough to boast, and Essenes
to speculate, and Scribes to expound, and
Rabbis to dispute, and a populace ready
enough for tumults, but he would scarcely

‘8
128 THE RELIGION

have found the sober and self-denying, the
peaceable and patient disciples of the cross.

[ fear, it must be added, that this system is
not less unfriendly to intellect than it is to
morality. Indeed it is quite obvious that the
system is notat all designed to promote intel-
lectual improvement, nor, in fact, to promote
religious knowledge. The same set of ideas
is repeated over and over, with various illus-
trations, for months together. The great
object is not to enlarge and perfect these
ideas, but to impress them. To conduct a
Revival requires no range of thought; to
experience it, forbids the calmness of inquiry.
Men of the least talent and reflection are
often ithe most successful in promoting them,
and the most ordinary persons in these scenes,
may rise to the highest consequence. The
great appeal is made, not to the intellect, but
to the imagination. and the passions. ‘The
ordinary means of mental and social improve-
ment are made to give way before the pro-
gress of a Revival. Those who yield to its
OF REVIVALS. 129

influence, can think of nothing else. They
cannot read any thing like history, or books
of general knowledge and literature; they
cannot attend a course of philosophical lec-
tures 3 they cannct join a Mechanic’s Institu-
tion; they cannot do any thing for the
improvement of the mind. Even schools
are sometimes broken up, for a season, by
these excitements. I was conversing lately
with a very intelligent. gentleman from the
western part of the state of New York, who
appeared to talk with the most serious appre-
hensions for the prospects of society in that
quarter. He said that all social improvement
was at an end where one of these Revivals
came—that people lost their interest in all
intellectial pursuits, that the courtesies of
life declined apace, that the rudest liberties
were taken with private character and feeling ;
men had less respect for each other, and less
respect, even, for the ordinary and established
services of religion, and it seemed to him,
that if this system should be extended and
130 THE RELIGION

consolidated, it would overshadow the moral
and social prospects of that whole country.
Indeed, if the same zeal was manifested, the
same time given, the same number of evenings
spent, for the acquisition of knowledge and
the general improvement of socicty, it is easy
to see, that the social and intellectual progress
of the people would be altogether unexam-
pled. As itis, I presume that no one will
pretend, that there is any such progress of
the public mind, during one of these seasons
of excitement. In fact, the intelligence of
the country generally stands aloof from it.

In estimating the effects of religious ex-
citement, it is common, and is indecd a part
of the very excitement itself, to overlook the
evil that it does. The eflect upon the con-
verts themselves, questionable as it is, seems
to be thought the only thing worth consider-
ing. As to those who are passed by and
reprobate, they can but be destroyed; the
conversion of others, cannot, it is thought,
make their destruction any more sure, and
OF REVIVALS. 131

so, their case is very calmly left out of the
account. The number of converts, there-
fore, and the accessions to the churches,
engross the whole attention. Statements are
continually published, setting forth the experi-
ences of the regenerated, their joys and hopes,
and the triumphs of the saints; but you hear
nothing, all this while, of the bitterness, the
evil speeches, the uncharitable surmises, the
jealousies and strifes, that also make up a
part of every Revival. A church may be
rent asunder or thrown into confusion, a min-
ister may get into contention with the people,
and may be burnt out by the very fires which
he has kindled——this is not a very uncommon
occurrerce, L am told—but these things do
not come into the account of an Awakening.
The statements are always ex parte of course,
and, therefore, triumphant. We hear of the
factitious and mistaken joys of a little compa-
ny, but we hear nothing of the soured and
irritated mind of the public, nothing of the
stern and scornful infidelity that is silently
g*
132 THE RELIGION

nourished amidst these scenes of erring and
extravagant zeal, nothing of the spread,
among the people at large, of strange, fanati-
cal, gloomy and repulsive ideas of religion.
There is one class of those who are injured
that has especially moved my pity. ‘These
are the timid, the tender in heart and scrupu-
lous in conscience, who, not having expe-
rienced the same illumination as others, con-
clude that they are forsaken of God, and
pass years, and in some cases, their whole
after lives, in perpetual dejection and gloom.
The triumphal chariot has passcd by indeed,
with shout and acclamation, but these are left
by the way side, to mourn and weep, as if
they were unworthy to lift their eyes to
behold the procession of the favored and
happy.

Let me not be unjust. No doubt, some
good is done. The vicious and vile are in
some cases reclaimed. There are hard in-
crustations of habit over some minds, which
nothing but blows will break. ‘There is a
OF REVIVALS. 133

deep worldly stupidity, which nothing but a
voice of thunder will reach. Jost men, with
the prophet I believe, would be more affected
by “the still small voice ;” but there are
some who want outward tokens—to whom
‘the fire,” and “the whirlwind,” and “ the
earthquake” would carry a deeper impres-
sion. Many such, I doubt not, in these scenes,
begin a better life—begin it, with unfortunate
auspices, indeed,—but then, many of them,
perhaps, would not otherwise have begun it
at all.

It would be too much to demand, that every
man’s religion should be just like our own.
The less inward reflection there is, the more
necd exists, I suppose, of outward stimulants
to keep up the vigor of piety : and the less
refinement there is, the stronger must these
stimulants be. I have sometimes thought,
that for the common people, in retired coun-
try villages, who meet with but little to arouse
and quicken the mind, where a general stag-

nation and stupor of mind is the thing most to
et
134 THE RELIGION

be feared, it is not so much amiss that religion
should come in the form of excitement.
And in the good order of providence, these
are the minds, in general,—the less informed
and cultivated—that form the materiel, out of
which Revivals are made. Exceptions there
are, of course, to this, as to every general re-
mark. If I would not be unjust to the system,
sull less would Ito the men. The general
character of these excitements, as I have
stated it to you, is undoubtedly modified, in
particular hands. [have met with clergymen,
not only of great worth, but of great refine-
ment of mind, who are favorers of the Revi-
vals. think, indeed, that they are mistaken
on this point, but that does not alter their
general character. The misfortune is, that
their natural good sense and intellectual cul-
tivation, are not suffered to bear, as they
ought, upon their notions of religion. They
would not think of promoting the general
cause of huinan improvementin any other of its
departments—they would not think of promo-
OF REVIVALS. 135

ting common education, or learning, or the po-
litical welfare of the people inthis way—their
sense and good judgment and good taste
would revolt at it; but here is the great evil,
religion is adifferent thing; here is the strong
hold of allthe superstition and fanaticism in the
world. Take religion out of the hands of com-
mon sense, and there is an end to all restraints
upon its excesses and errors. ‘Through the
same meansit is, that learning has been, at one
period, scholastic and puerile, a system of
grave trifling ; and through the same means, des-
potic governments have always entrenched
themselves within the inaccessible barriers of
prescription and legitimacy. There have
been learned fools, and refined despots, and
it is through the same process, that there
have been intelligent and accomplished error-
ists in religion. While, however, it is by such
reasonings, that I account for the exceptions
above stated, it is quite clear, from fact as
well as reasoning, that these gross excite-
ments have free play, only beneath the “ hori-
136 THE RELIGION

zontal line” that divides the mass of society.
Tam firmly persuaded that among a body of
people characterized by a rational faith and a
pure and refined taste, one of these Revivals
could not proceed a single step. Even sup-
posing the same religious feeling to exist in
such minds—as I devoutly wish more of it did
exist in them—yet its tendencies would all be
Anti-Revivaltendencies. Such persons would
retire to their homes, to their closets, to their
own hearts: they could not be rade to come
out and exhibit themselves; they could not
be made to tell their experiences 5 they would
feel as if it were “ casting their pear!s before
swine.”

Tt is the province of God to bring good out
of evil. He causes even the wrath, whe folly,
the mistakes and extravagance of man to
praise him. He brings good out of the con-
vulsions of society, as well as the convulsions
of nature. This would be an ill reason, in-
deed, for desiring these social commotions, or
for working them into a system and plan of
OF REVIVALS. 137

moral influence. We pray not, for storms
and earthquakes; we stand aloof, if possible ;
we shrink and fly from them. As little could
I think of praying for great commotions in
the religious world. If they came, if they
could not be withstood, I should stand aloof
from them. If ] were obliged, as a believer
in Providence, to admit that they are, like
tornadoes and earthquakes, the work of God,
the results of that wayward nature he has
given us, [ should still regard them as his
“ strange work.” The chosen path of reli-
gion, I should seck for, amidst calmer tokens.
I should expect to find in this path, analogies
to what is divine inother things. I could not
be brought to believe that religion must be at
war with every thing else that God has made.
TI would have it go on, with the goings on of
all things around it, blending with nature,
blending with life, holding the communion of
holy joy or patient trial with all the mercy and
discipline of heaven. I would not have the
soul shaken and convulsed in order to hasten
its great spiritual development.
138 THE RELIGION

I would not expect to bring forward the
growth of the all-perfect principle of spirit-
ual life, in a day or a week. I would not at-
tempt to force it in a hot-bed, nor do J believe,
that it is to be treated as if it were an exotic
in the soil of the human heart. I would have
it set in its native soil, and nourished with in-
fluences, generous and broad as the heaven
that spreads above it, and fair and gentle as
the earth around it. How beautiful in this
connexion are the words of our Wordsworth,
when speaking of the devotional influences of
that real scene, to which I have just compared
the true and noble means and aids of piety.

** Sound needed none,
Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drank
The spectacle; sensation, soul, and forra
All melted into him; they swallowed up
His animal being: in them did he live,
And by them did he live ; they were his life.
In such access of mind, in such high hour
Of visitation from the living God,
Thought was not, in enjoyment it expired.
No thanks he breathed; he proflered no request;
OF REVIVALS. 139

Rapt into still communion that transcends
The imperfect offices of prayer and praise,
Tlis mind was a thanksgiving to the power
That made him.”

Alas! my friend, how little is there to be
seen of that religion which this holiest of our
living poets has drawn, with such intimate
perception and such lavish beauty upon his
manitold page! How little of its true and full
development, has the religion of our blessed
Saviour yetreceived among his professed fol-
lowers! Mcn seem not to be able to be earnest,
without being extravagant, or rational, without
being dull. ‘They seem, in fact, scareely to
have conccived of it. Authors write on, and
the people read on, as if they had no compre-
hension of the sublime and beautiful harmonies
of christian virtue,—as if they took it for
granted, that to be at once solemn and cheer-
fii, strict and liberal, simple and profound,
free in thought, and yet bound in conscience,
were things totally incompatible. That union
of opposite qualities, that mingling in the
140 THE RELIGION

mind of all that is lofty, with all that is hum-
ble, that severe self-control which springs
from conscious and keen susceptibility, that
powerful feeling which from its very power
is calm, that tranquillity which is touched and
rapt, with exquisite religious tenderness—it is
all, alas! beyond the aim and imagination of
most good men: it is yet to come. May it
come quickly ! It would, indeed, be the
coming of Christ in the hearts of men!
May it quickly, and may it fully come!
This would indeed be a Revival of religion.
Heaven forbid! that the phrase in its proper
sense, should Jose any of its interest to my
mind. I have indeed many objections to these
things ; Ihave one to the very phrase, as it is
here used. The very phrase, Revivals of
religion, carries to my mind the idea of but
petty concerns and doings, compared with
that one sublime revolution, that great REVI-
VAL Of RELIGION, to which I am looking. ‘This,
to me, and so far as the world around me is
concerned, is the noblest interest and the
OF REVIVALS. 141

grandest hope of life—to see poor, misguided,
wayward, wearied human nature, pursuing at
last, its true end, and obtaining its true rest—
to sce these restless and impatient seckers
after good, finding that which they seek—to
see the poor contented, and the rich temperate,
the lowly high-minded, and the lofty humble,
and the learned wise, and the votaries of
pleasure virtuous, and worldly men devout—
to sce the mists cf error and the shadows
of delusion, that have so Jong hung in dark
clouds over the ways of religion, clearing up,
and to behold happy multitudes thronging
those ways of pleasantness and patlis of
peace. There is nothing in this world to
compare with an object so noble and a
hope so glorious.

But I ain admonished by the length of this
Ictter to close. [look with deep interest
upon the great experiment which society, and
which Christianity are making in this country,
and I may express this interest in some further
communications to you. I have thus far,
142 RELIGION OF REVIVALS.

seized upon only one of the most palpable
features in the state of things, this side of the
water. There are other topics, of a no less
interesting, though of a less extraordinary
character.

I shall now, however, rest my pen, and re-
lieve your patience, for a considerable time.
But whether writing or not writing, whether
present with you, or far removed by the “ world
of waters,” [am ever and most afiection-
ately,

Your friend,
HR K KHKKHH

Ernara.—Page 6, line 6, for conversion, read conviction.
Page 76, 12 lines from top, for of the history, read in the history.
Page 78, 5)ines from the bottom, for their, read the.