REVIVALS.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3172, 19 April 1879, Page 1

REVIVALS.

("The writer was I6nbe^pre'sent'".«t.;an Evangelical prayer meeting in one of the Western Counties. The congregation were partly church-goers, partly dissenters, of various denominations, united for the time hy the' still' active revivalist excitement. Some were highly educated iben and women: farmers, tradesmen,

servants, sailors, and fishermen made up the rest. All were representative specimens of Evangelical Christians, passionate

doctrinalists, convinced that they, and they only, possessed the "open sesame" of heaven, but doing credit to their faith by inoffensive, if not useful live*.

I The services consisted; of a series of addresses, from different speakers, interchanged with extempore prayers, directed rather to the audience than to the Diety. At intervals the congregation sang hymns, and sang them particularly well. The [ teaching was of the ordinary kind, expressed only with- more'than usual distinctness. We weretold that the basin«Bi of> each individual man and woman in the world was to save his or her soul; that we were all sinners together—all equally guilty, hopeless, lost, accursed children, unable to stir a finger or do a thing to help. ourselves. Happily, we are not required to stir a finger; rather, we were forbidden to attempt.it. An antidote had been provided for. our sins, and a aubsti- . tute for ourobedience. Every thing had been dono for U9. We had but to lay hold of the perfect righteousneM which had been fulfilled in our behalf. We had but to put on the vesture provided'forour wearing; and our safely was assured. The reproaches of conscience were silenced. We were perfedtly happy in this world, and certain to be blessed'in,the next. If, on the other handj'we'iolgTeeteds the differed grace; if, through carelessness or intellectual, perTersenessi or any other cause, we 'did not apprehend' it in the proper manner; "'if, 'l 'wifc 4ried- to" please God ourselves by "works of righteousness/ the sacrifice would then ( cease to . aiail us. It mattered hothirig' whether, in the common acceptance of the word, we .were good or, bad ;we,;wjw lost ,«U the same, condemned by perfect justice to everlasting, torturdi f fj; f f ;:/l:^. ■ -' ; The listeners seemed- delighted. They were hearing what.they, had come to hear —what they had heard a hundred times before', aiud wliat^ they jW.b'uld hear with ,■■. . equal ardour a hundred; tiin^s 1 ajjain—the .', Gospel in a nutshell; ; the Jmagzc; formula > which would cheat the devil of his due. While, they said that it was,impossible for men to lead good lives/ they were, most of them, contradicting, their i woVds by i their practice. While they professed to be tjhinking only of their personal salvation, they were benevolent, generous, and selfforgetful. People, may express themselves in whatformttla they pleasej but if they sincerely: -believein God, they try .to act uprightly and'justly.; and the, language of theology, hovering, as it generally does, between extravagance and conventionality, must not be scanned too narrowly. But one cannot but remember that the Christian's life on eartH us^d to be represented as a ( warfare;. tjbat the soldier who went' into battle considering only how he could save his own life, (Woulddo little credit to the cause he was fighting for ; and that there were other things besides and before saving their souls which earnest men usedto think about!'' .-.."" v '', \ ;Wjhen; the first address] was over, the congregation sang the following singular hymn;-*.;,;; ... , Nothing, elther.ffreator.small, nothing, sinners, no; Jesus did it—did it all lonff, longago. K> ; J; ,i ; Weary, weary, burdened one, 'wherefore' toil you co? Cease your, doing, all was done, long, long ago. Till to Jesus' work'you cling by aslmple faith, :l>oing is a deadly thrajri'doinfrerols In death. : . ■-.-; And this, we said to ourselves, is Protestantism. To do our, duty has, become ,o deadly thing. This is what, after, three centuries, the creed of Knox and Luther, of Coligny and Gustavus Adolphus, hat come to. The first reformers were so , careful about-what men did'that if they could they would have- lain the world under a discipline as severe as that of the Roman Censors. !Their modern representatives are wiser than their fathers aud know better what their maker requires of them. To the question " What shall I do to inherit eternal life P " the answer of old was not "Do nothing," but " Keep the commandments." It was said by the Apostle from whose passionate metaphors Protestant theology is chiefly constructed, that " the Gentles who did by nature the things contained in the law," were on the road to the right place. But we have changed all that. We are left face to face with a creed that tells us that God has created us without the power to keep the commandments—that he does not require us, to keep them; yet at the same time that we are infinitely guilty in His eyes for not, keeping them, and that we justly deserve to be tortured for ever and ever. The scene of tho evening was too soothing at the time for unpleasant reflections on the paradoxes of theology. The earnest attention,, the piety, the evident warmth of belief, the certainty that those who were so loudly denouncing the worth of human endeavour wouls>Wriry away with them a more ardent desire to do the works of righteousness of which they were denying the' necessity—these things suggested happier conclusions on the condition of humanity. When fhe hearts of men are sound, the .'Power which made and guides us corrects the; follies,;,of onr heads. , ■■■ ... >• f. , Nevertheless, when we are considering the general influence for goodbOr .evil of a system or systems,, the nintellectual aspect of them cannot bft disregarded. Religion 'is, or ought to= be, the consecration of the whole man, of hie heart', his conduct, his knowledge^ and his mind, of the highest faculties which have

booh given iv trust to him, and tho highest acquirements which he has obtained for himself. When the gospel was first made generally known through the Roman Empire it attracted and absorbed the most gifted and thoughtful men then living. Pagan philosophy of the past Christian era has left no names which will compete on its own ground with those of Origen, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria. The Protestantism of the sixteenth century commanded the allegiance of statesmen, soldiers, philosophers, and men of science. Wherever there was a man of powerful intelligence and noble heart, there was a champion for the Beformation: and the result was a revival, not of external emotion, but of moral austerity. The passion of evangelical teachers in every country where the Eeformation made its way, was to establish, so far as the world would let them, the discipline of Geneva, to make men virtuous in spite of. themselves, and to treat sins .as crimes. The writings of Knox and Latimer are not more distinguished by the emphasis with which they thunder against injustice and profligacy than by their all but total silence on " Schemes of Salvation." The Protestantism of the nineleeuth century has forsaken practice for opinion. It puts opinion first, and practice second; and in doing so it has parted company with intellect and practical force. It lias become the property of the hysterical temperament which confounds extravagance with earnestness. When the [Reformers broke the spell of superstition in the sixteenth century, their revolt was ascribed bythe Catholics 1o the pride of human reason/ Some enchantment must now have passed over Protestantism, or over the minds of those to whom it addresses itself, when science and cultivation are falling of from it as fast as Protestantism fell away from its rival. How has a creed which had once sounded the spiritual reveille like the blast of the Archangel's- trumpet come now to proclaim in passionate childishness the "deadliness" of human duty P—Fhotjde on "Modern Protestantism."