Chapter 4 The Camp Meeting Revival Period
I. The East
II.
The West: Logan County Kentucky
III
More West: Cane Ridge Meeting
IV The Camp Meetings
V
The Methodists and the Circuit Riders
VI The
East Again and C. G. Finney
VII
Growth of Christianity
VIII
American Foreign Missions
IX Benevolent
Empire
X The West
Again and Wars
In every age there is a theological discussion on how, why,
and when will a revival
happen. The crux of the issue is whether the awakening is
heaven-sent and God-given or
does mankind have any power to start or control a revival.
Certainly the desire is that any
renewal is caused by a spontaneous moving of the Holy Spirit.
Regardless of the era,
believers want and hope to see the supernatural at work in
their everyday lives. If the
personal God, who made those promises in The Bible, is true,
then it is realistic to expect
something beyond the power of man to happen in his ordinary
life.
Clearly, God's Word, the Holy Scriptures, whether written or
spoken, is the
primary instrument of faith. It is beyond mans' understanding
why calls for repentance only
harden some hearts, and yet entire cities respond as in the
case of Jonah's five words of
warning to Ninevah. "Thus saith The Lord" or "The
Bible says" has certainly started many
life changing experiences. Every awakening has fervent
preachers, who appear to be called
as God's spokesmen, and they have a Bible centered message
that produces the conversion
of unbelievers and spiritual growth in believers.
A variety of opinions exist as to the patterns concerning
revival. A leading
indicator assuredly is prayer. Old Testament kings like
Hezekiah, Asa, and Josiah had their
prayers answered for renewal. Upon returning from the
Captivity Jewish leaders prayed,
and preached, and hoped for the restoration of Jerusalem. The
first church in Acts prayed
not knowing what Pentecost would bring or that they were even
a church.
It is suggested that cycles of renewal and decline are also
clues about revival.
When sin, apathy, and spiritual indifference are prevalent
usually a call for repentance and
godly sorrow is not far around a corner. Although wars,
depressions, and widespread
disease should produce awakenings, such has not always been
the case. Many times
renewal has been a prologue to wars and even a preparation for
disaster.
It is evident from the seven churches in the Revelation that
every type exists in
every age. Thus when there appears to be no revival, revival
is continuous and usually
localized and sporadic, but it has not ceased. When the church
seems to be dead and
lukewarm, there are churches that are equipping their saints
and sending a missionaries to
the lost. When the current crop of Christians is presumed to
be backslidden, there are
believers on fire for The Lord. God's kingdom work is ongoing
and always operating at
every level.
However, true revival is an extraordinary movement of the Holy
Spirit across the
nation and even the globe. When revival comes, there is
repentance from sin and trust in
Christ's redemption on the Cross alone for salvation. Above
all the revival gives the glory
to God.
When the Second Great Awakening occurred in 19th Century
America some usual
God-sent manifestations took place, and some new prayed-up
leaders introduced revival
methods different from those used in previous generations. But
it was clearly a work of
God.
I. The East:
As America neared the end of the century, the East coast
states were influenced by
the formal churches which preached the Edwards' theology of
"plain gospel truths" in an
orderly manner. The Congregational and Presbyterian churches
were well established in
New England and the mid-Atlantic states. The Dutch Reformed in
New York and the
Lutherans, Quakers and other smaller Protestant denominations
provided sanctuaries for
those with spiritual desires. The South was strongly
Episcopalian. And two small, growing
groups, the Baptists and the Methodists, were seeking out the
lost. But as usual church
membership was the gauge for spirituality and only 1 in 13
Americans belonged.
Again the evidences of spiritual decline and the voices of
doom called for a
renewal. One answer was said to be education. Dr. Benjamin
Rush, an early leader in the
US Sunday School movement, said that "the Bible as a
school book was superior to all
other books in the world." The Adams' cousins John and
Samuel wrote each other that
"education should teach the Christian system to the
children." Dr. Jedidiah Morse, the
father of America geography, wrote Geography Made Easy so the
"pillars of Christianity"
would not be overthrown in schools.
Where and who started the Awakening of 1800 is not clear.
Every denomination
and state had small, localized revivals. A long list of
spiritual rumblings can be compiled
during the last two decades of the century. The eastern
college phase was characterized by
orderliness and restraint. Hampden-Sydney College, Virginia
was awakened in 1787 and
the Presbyterian Church in the South was ablaze with revival.
Campus prayer days and
college sermons began to appear.
Dr. Timothy Dwight, a grandson of Jonathan Edwards, boldly
debated the students
at Yale College, while he was President. His chapel series on
deism, the Word of God and
apologetics; and his 1796 baccalaureate sermon "Embrace
Christ" converted many
students. Some of his proteges went on to become famous
preachers.
Edward Dorr Griffin, a Yale graduate, kept a record of his
results starting in 1792.
He started a church with a hundred convert in New Salem, Mass.
where no church had
existed over the previous 40 years. He was blessed with
heavenly sprinklings to the end of
the century. Overall the eastern stage provided many dedicated
scholars for home and
foreign missions.
A significant change took place in 1787 in Boston, when they
formed the
American Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians
and others in North
America (SPGNA). Like past organization distributing books and
raising funds became
priorities. However, the new emphasis of the SPGNA was the
"others." To them others
meant the frontier, the West, or what was referred to as areas
"destitute of the gospel."
II. The
West: Logan County Kentucky:
As the new century turned, the East held its Concerts of
Prayer and reported its
renewals in colleges. The Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist
churches continued their
days of fasting and prayer, but, the West was independent from
their influences. Emigrants
had only settled there in the last quarter of the century, and
statehood had only come to
Kentucky (1792) and Tennessee (1796) in the last decade.
What had arrived in the West was the biggest collection of
lawbreakers,
whiskey drinkers, and the most uncontrolled lot in the world.
Morals were non existent.
Few women were Christians and even fewer men admitted their
faith. Chief Justice
Marshall, a devout church-goer, felt that the "church was
too far gone to be revived." The
West was considered the most profaned place in all
Christendom, and the only standards
of judgment were the gun and "Lynch's" law, the rope.
But, death and danger were daily
threats from an arrow, or milk sickness, or even some wounded
animal.
As renewal gently rippled from the seaboard to the
Appalachians, a rousing,
roaring revival shook the West. It started in the most
unlikely place: Logan County in the
southwestern corner of Kentucky and more notoriously known as
"Rogues' Harbor."
The most unsavory characters had covenanted with one another
to keep out law and
order, and any "regulators" who would steal their
lawbreaking freedoms. They were
refugees from every know crime.
In 1797 James McGready, a Presbyterian preacher from North
Carolina, came to
the three little "river" congregations in Logan
County. McGready was a Log College
graduate and was under the tutelage of John McMillan, the
first Presbyterian pastor west
of the Allegheny Mountains. McGready had been aroused at the
Hampden-Sydney revival.
When McGready arrived at the Muddy, Red, and Gasper River
churches,
he set aside the third Saturday of each month for prayer and
fasting. He, also, lined up
believers to pray at sunset on Saturday and at sunrise on
Sunday. Secular businessmen had
been spending days alone in the woods praying for the unsaved
in Logan County.
A rise in the spiritual level occurred during each year of
McGready's ministry.
In June, 1800 at the annual Red River communion meeting an
astonishing five
hundred showed up from the three congregations and from a
range of sixty miles away.
McGready had to enlist the preaching of five colleagues
including Presbyterian William
McGee and his Methodist brother John from Tennessee. The event
was so large that they
were forced to a continuous outdoor service that lasted into
the next week. The pulpits
followed McGready themes of heaven, hell, and salvation.
For three days the Red River was a solemn, orderly
Presbyterian gathering with
communion as the central event. But on the final day Monday
during the preaching and
shouting of Methodist John McGee, people began to weep, and
shout, and fall in ecstasy.
Many responded to the call to "let the Lord God
Omnipotent reign in their hearts."
Many conversions were reported. Some pastors were convinced
that the emotionalism
was the work of God; others resented the unusual excitement.
Marshall and Manuel in
their great second book From Sea to Shining Sea said, that
"nothing like this had
happened since the Book of Acts."
This event was probably the first "camp meeting"
although the term was not
coined for another two years. McGready and his associates were
moved to announce
another four-day sacramental service in late July at Gasper
River. The news spread.
Communicants were told to come prepared to encamp with wagons
and provisions.
Gasper River was the turning point of the Kentucky revivals.
The crowd swelled to
estimates of 10,000 from a hundred miles away. Men chopped
down trees and arranged
split-log benches to create a "church-in-the-wilderness."
An ecumenical gathering of
Protestant preachers took turns preaching and encouraging
emotionalism. Everyone was
concerned with one issue: the eternal salvation of their souls.
The melodrama continued
into the night and torches were lit to end the darkness. The
backwoods was like a
battlefield of crying out and falling down slain in the Spirit.
Religion was alive in the West.
They called it the Kentucky, the Logan County, and the
Cumberland Revival.
Barton Warren Stone, the pastor at Cane Ridge, came to observe
the excitement.
He had been converted at the Guilford, North Carolina revival,
when McGready was his
preacher. Stone's evaluation of the Gasper event was "
The devil has always tried to ape
the works of God, to bring them into disrepute; but that can
not be a Satanic work which
brings men to humble confession, to forsaking sin, to prayer,
fervent praise and
thanksgiving, and to a sincere and affectionate exhortation to
sinners to repent and come
to Jesus the Savior."
In the succeeding months sacramental meetings with anticipated
emotionalism
rolled throughout the neighboring states: Tennessee, the
Carolinas, Virginia, Pennsylvania,
and the Ohio region. The Presbyterian and Methodist preachers
held joint communions,
while the Baptist practiced "closed communions." At
every gathering large numbers made
stirring conversions to Christ. The eastern preaching methods
of restraint and logical
exegesis gave way to frontier shouting of "hell-fire and
damnation." The backwoods was
ablaze with perhaps a day like Joel had prophesied.
While the Presbyterians ignited the revival, it was the
Methodists, who gained from
the fruits of the "camp" meetings. A new
organization, the Western Conference, put all
Methodist churches west of the Allegheny Mountains under their
presiding elder Bishop
William McKendree. In the West six thousand new members were
added to the Methodist
denomination during the first two years of the century.
By the spring of 1801 the West throbbed with hopes of
continuing the revival and
the renewing of acquaintances that the winter had separated.
The flames of the Holy Spirit
again leaped from meeting to meeting. Flemingsburgh in April,
Cabin Creek (Mason
County) in May, and then the overwhelming Concord meeting (Bourbon
County) where
seven Presbyterian ministers preached to 4,000 souls. Next
came Point Pleasant and Indian
Creek (Harrison County) as crowds gathered from all directions.
Whole settlements
appeared to be vacant. The host was from every background:
young and old, male and
female, slave and free, and saved and unsaved. At each
gathering they spread the tidings of
where the next meeting would be held.
III.
More West: The Cane Ridge Meeting:
The monumental meeting of the Kentucky Revival was at Cane
Ridge in Bourbon
County on Friday August 6, 1801. Pastor Warren Barton Stone of
the Concord and Cane
Ridge congregations was the leader, and he invited 17 other
Presbyterian, Methodist, and
Baptist preachers to the sacramental occasion. A log
meetinghouse was the site, and it still
stands today as a shrine to the event. It had a standing room
only capacity of 500. It was
built by Robert Finley, the founding pastor and a friend of
Daniel Boone. It was covered
with a bamboo roof, and thus the name "cane ridge."
A large tent was set up in
anticipation of an overflow crowd, and seven speaking
platforms were built on the
perimeter of the camp.
As the throng began to arrive, the roads were clogged with
people on foot, on
horseback, and in wagons and carriages. Some came from
Tennessee and even from
Ohio. The wagons circled the perimeter and overflowed the camp.
They counted 147
wagons for the weekend. Local hospitality was swamped, and
people would sleep on
floors and in barns. The crowd was overwhelming and estimates
ran as high as 25,000.
Even Governor James Garrard came the 20 miles from Lexington,
the capital and largest
town in the state at less than 1,800 population. The multitude
was a diverse assemblage of
converts from earlier meetings, curiosity seekers, merchants,
and even a minority of
rowdies and drinkers, who were a source of much prayer.
The schedule of events called for a Friday evening preaching
service, Saturday was
to be a day of fasting and prayer in preparation for the
communion on Sunday, and
Monday everyone would break camp and be sent homeward bound.
Nothing spectacular happened on Friday night. Pastor Stone
opened in prayer and
Matthew Houston began to preach. A gentle rain forced the
crowd into the meetinghouse,
but many small groups visited and prayed together into the
night.
Saturday was a day of power and excitement. The event turned
into a series of
gatherings. The main centers of preaching were: the
meetinghouse, the tent, and a separate
meeting where the Negroes gathered. Numerous other attractions
caused people to
spontaneously rush back and forth when a stir took place
during some nearby preaching or
the many physical exercises that occurred throughout the week.
During the preaching the sounds of moaning, groaning,
screaming and crying had
become commonplace in the western revival. The most universal
exhortation, "Lost!
Lost!" struck terror throughout the camp. The unsaved
would cry and weep, while
compassionate friends entreated them to turn to the Lord Jesus.
The most prevalent physical "exercise" was falling
down. It was usually
accompanied with fainting, some bodily agitation's, and even a
trance or coma. It caused
the crowds to begin exhortations and praises, while trying to
co-labor with the preacher.
Confusion reigned. James Finley said that, "the noise was
like the roar of Niagara."
The religious ecstasy was thought to be a new experience of
the Holy Spirit.
Barton Stone devoted an entire chapter in his biography to
describe the physical wonders.
The most dramatic was the "jerks." A person would
fall down and his head and neck and
limbs would snap back and forth. The crowd would gather around
and exhort the person
with pleas, "Repent! trust Jesus! be born anew!"
When someone would fall down in the
trance, sinners usually agonized over their own spiritual
condition. Other bodily signs
included: dancing, running, and leap frogging. A confusion of
vocal utterances included:
barking, shouts, groans, and babbling that was called holy
laughter or singing.
Treeing the devil was a bizarre attraction. The individual and
even groups, usually
got down on all fours and barked up the side of a tree. The
person was always followed by
the crowd, and they shouted and encouraged the actions with
"Sic Satan, sic 'em, sic 'em."
It was recommended that dancing and "holy" leap
frogging would relieve the condition.
Another exotic behavior was when women fell to the ground in
gross, indecent sexual
positions. Some skeptics wrote off the activities because
these were only "ignorant,
frontier, hill billies," but the spiritual results could
not be denied.
One Kentucky girl Rachel Martin lay in a trance for nine days
before reviving.
A seven year-old girl on a man's shoulders gave an amazing
testimony. Some scoffers and
mockers in the midst of their swearing and drinking were
suddenly struck down flat on
their backs. There were an abundant number of instances to
motivate repentance.
Most of these Kentuckians were of Scotch-Irish background, and
many of these
strange manifestations were repeated later in the Ulster
Revival of 1859.
One general feature of the Cane Ridge was the enthusiasm and
the freedom of
expression by the laity. Every sermon was received with "Amens"
and "Hallelujahs."
Anyone could exhort sinners and give biblical wisdom. The
worship through hymns and
hand clapping aroused the emotions of most. Even the small
number of skeptics and
hecklers shouted and made comments. Hundreds of believers,
referred to as professors,
gave short testimonies or professions of faith. One estimate
was given that 300 laymen,
both black and white, testified. No sooner did the hysteria
subside in one part of the camp,
when hundreds would rush to the next loud exercise.
The holy frenzy continued into the night. Lamps, candles,
torches, and campfires
created an eerie background. The singing and noise would not
cease. Ministers such as
Matthew Houston, John Lyle, and Richard McNemar started
unscheduled preaching in
the tent to calm the crowd. A thunderstorm with lightning
added an immense drama to the
nighttime preaching as the commotion continued to the next day.
On Sunday the main event of the gathering was Holy Communion,
which took
place at the meetinghouse. The table was set up in the shape
of a cross and could
accommodate about a hundred. It was estimated that between 300
and a thousand took
the Eucharist. Another appraisal claimed upwards of 3,000 at
the Lord's Supper, but the
Presbyterians had passed out only 750 lead tokens on Saturday.
The major requirement for participation was some kind of
guarantee of eternal life.
The man or woman had to have experienced a broken or contrite
heart because of their
sin, guilt, or wickness. After being "convicted" or
"anxious" the transformation to a
believer with hope in Christ must have occurred. The "baptism
of the Spirit" should have
produced some internal, emotional change or regeneration.
These sinners would then be
"saved or converted," "born again," or
"made a Christian." They'd had a new or second
birth.
Only the Presbyterian ministers presided over the communion,
but the Methodists
where allowed to partake of the bread and wine, too. Many
table settings, perhaps 8-10,
were required and the commemoration of the Lord's Supper
continued into the afternoon.
It was an intensely emotional and meaningful worship service,
especially for the
Presbyterian tradition, as tears of joy and sadness were
commonplace. It was to be a day
of renewal. The other physical exercises which occurred
outside did not happen at the
communion, but it was as expected the pinnacle of the weekend
for the laity.
Outside the dynamic preacher William Burke made his pulpit 15
feet above the
crowd on a fallen tree. Lightning had felled the tree. The
Methodist preacher was said to
have gathered an audience of 10,000, and again the noise level
rose. The day was a repeat
of the intensity from Saturday, and it continued into the
night. It was almost a circus
atmosphere, and newcomers had come for the day because of the
reports going out from
Cane Ridge.
By Monday the food levels were dwindling. However, new
arrivals had heard
about what was happening so they continued to flock to the
action. Some had gone to
their home church on Sunday, and they too returned to add a
new energy. The crowd
swelled to it largest attendance, an estimated 10,000 people
on the grounds
For four more days the massive rally continued leaving people
breathless. The
sleepless ministers were exhausted. Finally out of food and
out of energy, but everyone
dramatically effected, the crowd went home.
What had happened in the six days at Cane Ridge? The
conversions were in the
thousands, and the number "slain in the spirit" was
also in the thousands. The estimated
attendance was between 10,000 and 25,000. The major assessment
was that "this was the
greatest outpouring of the Holy Spirit since Pentecost."
Rev. George Baxter, a Presbyterian minister and President of
Washington College,
came to observe the after effect and said, "I found
Kentucky to appearances the most
moral place I had ever seen. A profane expression was hardly
ever heard. A religious awe
seemed to pervade the country. Upon the whole, I think that
the revival in Kentucky the
most extraordinary that has ever visited the Church of Christ."
Cane Ridge drew national attention and was one of most
reported religious events
in American history. Most of the ministers gave detailed
accounts in their memoirs and
autobiographies. The diary of John Lyle has valuable details.
Colonel Robert Patterson,
who was involved in the founding of Lexington and its
Presbyterian Church, reported on
eight sacramental meetings during 1801. Cane Ridge was one of
them. Many letters from
people, who witnessed the events, were published in journals
around the country during
the next years. It has also been the subject of many notable
books by Paul Conkin,
Bernard Weisberger, and portions from W.W. Sweet and William
McLoughlin.
The Methodist church membership grew around 10,000 a year,
which was 168
percent during the next ten years. The Baptists added 10,000
new Kentucky members in
the three years after Cane Ridge. Sensational growth continued
in both denominations for
the next decades until they were first and second in the
nation by 1840.
The Presbyterians had first experienced the western revival
and they added 10,000
new members from 1800-1810, but their major fruit of it was
division. The leaders, who
had experienced the Logan and Cane Ridge revivals, formed the
Synod of Kentucky. By
1809 they organized The Cumberland Synod and a split from the
General Assembly. The
schism group was referred as the New Lights.
Several issues caused disagreement. One was the Calvinist
doctrine of election or
pre-destination by God's foreknowledge of salvation. The
Arminian view or the new
Methodist position dealt with free-will and the perseverance
or growth that showed signs
of repentance. Some critics called it "conditional"
salvation. A second question dealt with
the mode of baptism. The New Lights agreed that the scriptural
form of baptism was
immersion like Jesus in the Jordan River and only after they
were believers. All sides did
agree on one issue that the Holy Scriptures should be the
source of their theological
opinions. However, as is still the case, they held differing
interpretations.
As for Barton Stone and his colleagues a new Protestant church
was born. They
first organized the Springfield Presbytery in 1803. Another
group led by Thomas Campbell
had separated in Pennsylvania. By the late '20's the two
groups unified into the "Disciples
of Christ" or the "Christian" church. The long-time
Presbyterian pastor David Rice, who
had served in Kentucky since 1783, was tagged as an anti-revival
man. Some Germans
formed a new denomination and called it the "United
Brethren" which was led by Philip
Otterbein and Martin Bohme. Also, several prominent ministers
at Cane Ridge joined the
new Shaker sect from Europe. However, unity and
interdenominational cooperation and
not dissent was the main activity during the awakening.
IV The Camp Meetings:
The camp meeting was the rage of the West. Everyone hoped to
duplicate the
intensity of Cane Ridge. The communion service remained the
main attraction, but the
gathering was a welcomed affair for those isolated farmers
scattered in lonely cabins.
The conversion and salvation of souls continued as another
primary design of the
scheduled event, however renewal and religious impetus was an
intended hope for the
churches and individuals. The spontaneity, and even excess as
some judged it, gave way to
formal well-organized meetings bordering on military
regimentation. It became not only a
religious event, but, also, a social, and even a political and
economic venture.
In its heyday the camp meeting was a meticulously planned
event. Sites were
selected that could handle the travelers. Camping areas were
assigned based on church,
city, and even race, if Negroes attended. Law enforcement
committees made sure the
camp rules were followed and that thief and "courting"
improprieties did not occur.
The scheduled sermons were announced by blowing a trumpet and
everyone was
expected to attend, unless they were ill. At 10:00 AM, in the
afternoon, and at 6 PM
public preaching took place. Everyone was required to be
seated during the sermons.
No walking around or talking was permitted, and even a smoking
ban was in effect during
the preaching. Afterwards, usually until 10 PM, a love feast
or some kind of meal was
available. Then at 10:00 PM, rest was required and all
activities ceased.
While most denominations cooperated in the camp meetings, it
was the
Methodists, who made it a central part of annual church life.
Bishop Francis Asbury
wrote in his Journal that 400 meetings were held in 1811. By
the mid-1820's only the
Methodists held camp meetings, and by the 1840's cabins
replaced the tents. Eventually
the summer vacation camps and Chautauqua meetings replaced
these frontier gatherings.
However they still remained Bible conferences and a time for
renewal outside of the
regular church routine.
V. The
Methodists and the Circuit Riders:
While it was the camp meetings that provided a venue to
present the gospel and
gather a harvest time of souls from the scattered westerners,
it was the circuit riding
Methodist preachers, who called on their isolated homes and
taught them how to be
disciples of Christ. These itinerant laymen were the backbone
of the successful growth of
the Methodist Church in the first half of the 19th Century.
The Methodist organization was a well conceived network that
was designed to
reach every person on the frontier. The circuit rider traveled
a range of 200 to 500 miles.
He stopped at "classes" or "stations" for
preaching appointments in homes, under trees,
and in taverns. Each location had a class leader and 10-20
people in the "congregation."
He usually made his rounds about every 4-5 weeks. These mobile
ministers prepared their
sermons on horseback and preached almost everyday and
sometimes twice: morning and
evening. No area was too remote to be outside the reach of the
Methodist system.
The circuit preacher was usually single, and had little more
than a common school
education. In 1800 there were no Methodist seminaries. He did
not give his sermons from
erudite notes, but used homespun stories to apply the biblical
offer of free-grace to all. For
his grueling schedule he received $80 a year in1800. Their
reputation for faithfulness was
so renown that during bad weather people said, "that
nobody was out but crows and
Methodist preachers."
The Methodist organization was peerless in the Protestant
church. The circuit rider
was appointed by the presiding elder, who was the district
superintendent. The traveling
itinerant was shifted to another circuit every year or two by
order of the Methodist manual
called the Discipline. Each district was assigned to a
regional unit called the Conference,
and every four years a "Quadrennial Conference" was
held. At the top of the structure was
the bishop, and Francis Asbury was the most famous and the
most powerful, too.
A supply of circuit preachers came from the class leaders, who
had some proven
speaking ability. Another source was the itinerants, who were
converted during the
revivals. Some of the most famous preachers, who rose through
the system were saved at
these awakenings, such as James B. Finley, Peter Cartwright,
and Jacob Young.
By the 1840's the circuit rider like the camp meeting was
passing with time. The
Methodists were now the largest denomination in the nation.
They were starting schools
of higher learning like Ohio Wesleyan and DePauw. They had 34
colleges by the Civil
War. Like other religious bodies they split in 1844 over the
slavery issue. Besides, the
frontier was now beyond the Mississippi, and it was Oregon
fever and California gold.
However, the two great legacies, the camp meeting revivals and
the circuit riding
evangelist, had recorded a blessed impact on the history of
American Christianity.
The Methodist growth paralleled the rise of three prominent
names: Francis
Asbury, Peter Cartwright, and Richard Allen.
Francis Asbury was the only Methodist preacher to stay in
America during the
Revolution. In 1784 he and Thomas Coke founded the first
American national church
body, the Methodist Episcopal Church. When Asbury came to the
colonies there were 600
Methodists, and when he died in 1816 the denomination had
grown to 200,000. His
travels on horseback were unparalleled. He rode over a quarter-of-a-million
miles, crossed
the Appalachians sixty times, wore out six horses, preached 16,000
sermons, ordained
4,000 ministers, and presided over 224 conferences. He
traveled from Maine to Georgia
and inland to Indiana. He was never married and owned little
more than a horse and what
was in his saddlebags. His life made one of the biggest
impacts of anyone on the American
church. He was known as the "Johnny Appleseed of the
Gospel."
A second Methodist Peter Cartwright was a frontier preacher
for 60 years. He was
a circuit rider, traveling evangelist, and church planter. He
"saw the divine light" at a
Kentucky camp meeting in 1801. In his career he baptized
almost 10,000 converts, and
preached almost 15,000 sermons. He was known for his ability
to stand up to the frontier
ruffians. He debated any issue against the Shakers, Mormons,
and particularly slavery. His
most famous opponent was Abraham Lincoln in the 1846 Illinois
Congressional election,
which he lost. His Autobiography written in 1857 is a great
source on the westward
spread of Christianity.
Finally, Richard Allen, an ex-slave from Philadelphia, began
preaching on the
Methodist circuit in 1781. Because of the segregated seating
he started the Bethel African
Methodist Episcopal Church in 1794. Bishop Asbury even
dedicated the building.
However in 1816 after winning a Supreme Court case, his group
left the Methodist
denomination and became the AME church or African Methodist
Episcopal Church. He
was their bishop from 1816-1831. His Philadelphia AME Church
grew to 7,500 members
in the 1820's.
VI. The East
Again and C.G. Finney:
While the Second Great Awakening in the West was characterized
by wild physical
exercises and emotionalism with itinerant, traveling
preachers, the East was just the
opposite. Mainly educated clergymen spoke in the Calvinist
terms of the sovereignty of
God and the depravity of man, but calmness and intellectualism
reigned.
Nevertheless the revival swept everywhere. Dr. Gardiner
Spring, New York's
Brick Church pastor from 1810-1873, said that between 1792 and
1842, "Scarcely any
portion of it (the American church), but what was visited by
copious effusions of the Holy
Spirit. From north to south, and from east to west, our male
and more especially our
female academies, our colleges, and our churches drank largely
of this fountain of living
waters." The awakening was not limited to place, or
people, or occasion.
Many colleges and towns were visited by revival not once, but
many times over
like waves in intervals several years apart. Yale had over a
half dozen renewals and the
same movements took place at Dartmouth, Williams, Amherst, and
other schools.
Iain Murray concluded that, "A list of college presidents
in this period is almost a list of
revival preachers." In 1819 Joshua Bradley chronicled
several hundred revivals between
1815-18 throughout the nation, and he said that he could have
published volumes on the
thousands of reports that he had received. The western New
York State had so many
revivals that it was given the title the "burnt" and
"burned-over" district.
While the spiritual enemy in the West was easily and simply
sin, the Eastern
opposition was again another mental veneration. At first it
seemed to be that old adversary
deism, especially when that red-head deist Thomas Jefferson
won the Presidency.
However by the second decade of the century, the new
intellectual foes of the faith were
the Unitarians.
The basic Unitarian doctrine was the rejection of the
Christian Trinity and
particularly the divinity of Jesus. Under William Ellery
Channing they first took Boston,
then the Harvard College faculty. By 1830 half the tax-supported
Congregational churches
in New England had fallen into their rational and scientific
one-god system.
Nevertheless, the second Great Awakening in New England
centered around the
Yale men and their President Timothy Dwight. Benjamin Silliman
wrote that "Yale
College is a little temple; prayer and praise seem to be the
delight of the greater part of the
students, while those who are still unfeeling are awed with
respectful silence." Some
historians credit Dwight with starting a second eastern wave
of revival in 1802.
The revival leaders from New England were usually clergy in a
local church, who
had some college faculty experience, and they preached in a
restrained, calm manner. Even
their audiences responded in a serious, sober fashion, but
repentance and praise to God
was obvious in many places. It was quite the opposite of the
western revival.
Timothy Dwight was President of Yale from 1795 until his death
in 1817. He
contended for the faith by arguing against deism, and
emphasized the duties to be
performed by a Christian. His chief disciples included
Nanthaniel Taylor, Asahel Nettleton,
and Lyman Beecher.
Nanthaniel Taylor was the first professor of theology at Yale
and a prominent
pastor in New Haven. His attempts to reconcile the Calvin and
Edwards' doctrines with
the 19th Century evangelical convictions became known as the
New Haven theology. The
New England struggle continued with the old Puritan criticism
that it was just another
legalistic system on how to be a practicing Christian.
Taylor's bottom line was: sin is
voluntary; it's a choice.
Asahel Nettleton followed in the intellectual preaching manner
of Jonathan
Edwards and became a successful traveling evangelist. His
method of involving the local
pastor found a calling throughout New England and New York. He
participated in nearly
60 local awakenings, and at Saratoga Springs in 1819 two
thousand converts made
professions of faith in Christ. In 1831 he made a successful
evangelistic tour of the British
Isles. He was a bachelor and one of the few Congregational
itinerants in New England of
that time.
Lyman Beecher, a convert of Dwight's at Yale, had a long
career as a Presbyterian
revivalist. He was a noted reformer against dueling, the
disestablishment of Connecticut's
Congregational churches, temperance, the Unitarians,
abolition, and other issues. He was
President of Cincinnati's Lane Seminary from 1832-50. His
vision and passion for
evangelism on the frontier was an encouragement for decades.
As the patriach of 13
children, he was the father of the famous Henry Ward Beecher
and Harriet Beecher
Stowe.
Another Connecticut-born evangelical was Charles Grandison
Finney, the father of
modern revivalism. He had a remarkable career as an
international revivalist, college
professor and president, and innovator of the modern revival
meeting. His preaching was
responsible for an estimated 500,000 converts. He spent 8-years
as traveling evangelist
and the1830-31 Buffalo meeting was his greatest success. In
1836 he pastored the 4,000
seat Broadway Tabernacle in New York City. In 1837 he became a
professor and for a
while President (1851-66) of Oberlin (Ohio) College until his
death in 1875. He held
successful urban revival meetings in New York, Boston, and
twice to the British Isles.
He wrote his widely read Lectures on Revivals of Religion in
1835. It was a
handbook on techniques and laws of revival for converting
sinners. He wrote 25 books
on his lectures. His new measures were criticized by some like
Beecher and Nettleton. He
was the first to permit informal prayers and to let women pray
publicly. He used the
Methodist "anxious bench" and publicly prayed for
unrepentant sinners by name. He
introduced the alter call and the invitation for a public
decision to accept Christ. He, also,
used the protrated or nightly meetings during the weeknights.
His meetings were always
undergirded with prayer warriors like Daniel Nash. It was said
that "Nash prayed and
Finney trusted God to do the work." However, the common
men and women were
attracted to his small town roots, and he was a religious folk-hero
to them.
He was a large man at 6"2 with a penetrating stare. He
was accused of "bullying,"
but he was convinced of man's ability and his will to repent.
The Calvinists and
Presbyterians, who ordained him, objected to his revision of
God's grace, but he urged
people to pray in faith for the conversion of their lost
friends.
His teachings also included the doctrine of perfectionism or
sanctification, also
referred to as holiness and obedience by faith. His
theological position has been called a
"second blessing." He proposed that a believer could
"walk in righteousness before God"
and lead a "victorious life." His last nine books
and forty years of teaching emphasized this
tenet.
A corollary to this righteous walk was the ensuing impact on
the rise of benevolent
societies and the reforms of the Jacksonian era. Finney worked
for the abolition
movement. Oberlin became a center for the anti-slavery
crusade, and a station on the
underground railroad. Women's' rights, temperance, the poor,
and other social reforms
benefited from his preaching. He opposed Sabbath-breaking, the
Mormons, Freemasonry,
and churches with seating limitations like the pew rents.
The obvious legacy is the design that Finney set for future
revivalists like Moody,
Sunday, and Graham. The post-Civil War holiness movement and
the social gospel
principles owe some roots to Finney, also. Like Andrew Jackson
during the reform era,
neither was an instigator, but both were great champions for
masses. Jackson was known
for their democratic opportunities, and Finney was known for
their eternal choices.
VII. The Growth
of Christianity:
The 19th Century saw a huge growth in the voluntary
participation of the laity.
The distinguished church historian Kenneth Scott Latourette
called it "The Great Century"
for the expansion of Christianity. The evangelical zeal of the
Second Great Awakening
corresponded with the increase in education and publishing,
the interest in moral and
humanitarian reforms, the growth of benevolent societies, and
the foundation of foreign
missions. A historian would be remised, if he did not note the
similarity, and perhaps, the
vanguard to these events in Great Britain
The only interruption to the 1800 Awakening was the War of
1812 or for Europe
the Napoleonic Wars. Although the event caused Anglo-American
tension, the British
churches invited their ancestors to renew the Concerts of
Prayer for the defeat of
Napoleon. The British revival expert J Edwin Orr suggested
that these prayers coincide
with a long period of peace after the Battle of Waterloo.
When Christianity spreads it is always accompanied with an
emphasis on literacy
and education because believers will search the Scriptures.
While the 1800 awakening
rushed through the college campuses, another more long lasting
educational influence
came to pass. One Yale graduate and teacher was using his God-given
talents to
"propagate science, arts, civilization, and Christianity."
He was Noah Webster, a daily
Bible reading Christian. He published a Speller in 1790 and
his famous Dictionary in
1828. He succeeded in insuring a standard English language for
the United States, and in
there original form he had many scriptural notations
throughout his books. In the history
of US publishing, the Bible is number one and Webster's
Dictionary is number two.
Religious historian W.W. Sweet refers to this period as the
era of organization.
There was a great need for Bibles and religious material. Many
denominations began
publishing weekly religious papers. The famous Connecticut
Evangelical Magazine was
printed from 1801 to 1828, and it became the best source on
the 1800 revival. In 1816 the
American Bible Society began an awesome history of publishing
Bibles and tracts that
passed the six and a half billion figure by the end of the 20th
Century. In 1825 the
American Tract Society was founded. Both furnished a supply of
Christian literature at
home.
When Henry Ware, a Unitarian, was appointed professor of
theology at Harvard,
Andover Theological Seminary was established because of the
threat to Christianity. Other
denominations began founding seminaries to train pastors or
they added schools of
theology within their established colleges. By 1860 half the
colleges in the nation had been
founded by the four largest denominations: Methodists,
Baptists, Presbyterians, and the
Congregationalists.
Most of the churches followed the British pattern and
established the Sunday
School and the mid-week prayer meeting as a part of regular
church life. The Sunday
School classes provided a great opportunity for the laity to
volunteer and to serve. The
American Sunday School Union was founded in 1824, and supplied
teaching materials for
the classes. A rather famous hymn-writing layman was the Vice-president
of the Union for
18 years. He was Francis Scott Key, who wrote the Star
Spangled Banner.
VIII. American
Foreign Missions:
The development of the American foreign missions movement can
be tied to two
Massachusetts schools: Williams College and Andover Seminary.
During the Summer of 1806 five Williams College students led
by Samuel John
Mills Jr. met for regular prayer. Inspired by the new emphasis
on world geography and
world travel books the group joined in intercessory prayer to
take Christ to the world. A
thunderstorm drove the prayer warriors under the protection of
a haystack. Samuel Mills
made the famous "haystack prayer meeting"
declaration. "We can do it, if we will!" he
vowed.
Samuel Mills was the son of a Connecticut minister, and he had
been dedicated to
world missions by his mother. He was older than most students
at 23 when he entered
Williams College in NW Massachusetts. He was known for his
excellent organizational
skills. By 1810 Mills and his missionary-minded haystackers
completed their studies at the
new Andover College, and they met a kindred friend Adoniram
Judson.
By now the group called themselves the "Society of the
Brethren" and kept their
missionary dreams secret for fear being labeled fanatics or
zealots. But that year in
conjunction with the Congregationalists, they organized the
foreign missions society called
the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The
association ordained
five: Adoniram Judson, Luther Rice, Samuel Nott Jr., Samuel
Newell, and Gordon Hall as
missionaries on Feb. 8, 1812. Three professors and two area
pastors laid hands on the first
American missionaries. It was Andover Professor Edward Dorr
Griffin, who placed his
hand on Judson.
Dr. Griffin invited Judson to share his pulpit, the biggest
and richest in Boston;
however Adoniram and his new bride Ann Hasseltine set off for
India as the first American
missionary couple. They ended up in Burma and carried on a
great work.
Adoniram translated the Bible into Burmese, and compiled a
Burmese-English
Lexicon-Dictionary. Their courageous career faced disease,
filth, imprisonment, and death.
She died in 1826, and he died on shipboard in 1850 just after
finishing his dictionary and
completing his work in Burma.
Samuel Mills was called to stay in America to oversee the home
missions in the
West, and the distribution of Bibles and tracts until 1816.
Then his foreign missions
passion was directed toward Africa. He was sent to select the
location for the American
free Negroes to colonize Africa. He chose what is Liberia
today. He, too, died on
shipboard returning home after his mission was completed. He
was age 35 a faithful
servant, who desired to take Christ to the world and to make
intercession for these foreign
souls. How appropriate that two of the pioneers of the
American overseas missions
movement on their homeward journey arrived at a celestial home
in heaven and not on a
terrestrial shore on earth.
The American missionary movement expanded through the
denominations. In
1814 the Baptists founded their society and the Judson's
adopted them. Luther Rice, who
had gone to Asia with the Judsons returned to the US to
recruit Baptist's for foreign
service. The Methodists formed their society in 1819 and began
with an income of eight
hundred dollars. In 1837 the Presbyterians and the Lutherans
organized their foreign
missions boards. By in large, Christianity was on the verge of
the Great Commission: "Go
ye into all the world and preach the gospel to all nations."
One of the eyewitnesses of the times Heman Humphrey said of
the effects from the
Second Awakening, "When that era dawned, there were no
Missionary societies, foreign
or domestic, no Bible societies, no Tract societies, no
Education societies, no onward
movements in the churches of any sort, for the conversion of
the world. At home it was
deep spiritual apathy; abroad, over all the heathen lands, the
calm of the Dead Sea - death,
death, nothing but death."
IX. The Benevolent
Empire:
Perhaps the biggest change in American Protestantism that took
place from the
Second Great Awakening was the willingness of lay people to
volunteer their time, talent,
and money. In part the end of the favored tax support to the
established churches caused a
plea from voluntary sources. Many of the organizations were
funded and controlled by
individuals, who cooperated across denominational lines.
However, for sure the strongest
motivation, was the desire by the laity, as well as the
clergy, to see the salvation of lost
souls. Evangelicalism was commonplace.
A major result of mass conversions was not just a new concern
for the unsaved,
but an effort to clean up the society around those, who had
new life in Christ. Many joined
parachurch groups to accomplish this end. They were given the
title "The Benevolent
Empire" from the preaching of Charles G. Finney. Finney's
words were "every member
must work or quit. No honorary members." Consequently the
converts from the revivals
were anxious to attack social ills.
The major benevolent societies included: the ABCFM, the
American Bible Society,
the American Sunday School Union, the American Tract Society,
and the American Home
Missions Society. They were part of the "Great Eight"
which raised an immense total of
nine million dollars in 1834. The most famous benefactors were
Arthur and Lewis Tappan,
the wealthy New York merchants, who led the anti-slavery
movement in their times. The
abolition movement received the greatest attention from the
ministers and the lay people,
who crusaded for moral reforms.
Christians were involved in some other humanitarian labors for
the improvement of
society that were not just parachurch Christian organizations
only. Finney gave his
blessing to the temperance movement at the Rochester revival,
and most of the bars were
closed. For others their good works included prison reforms,
the peace movement,
women's' rights, education, Sabbath observance, and attacking
any vice like profanity that
was detriment to society. In a large sense the 19th Century
reform movement in America
owes its roots to the Christian values that were a part of the
mainstream of US culture.
X. The West
Again and the Wars:
The western influence on the Second Great Awakening and the
expansion of
American Christianity would eventually add credibility to the
frontier theories of Frederick
Jackson Turner at the end of the century. He felt that the
West influenced the East. For a
certainty the West did offered an attraction and a hope of
opportunity for a new life and a
new start.
In the early days of Jefferson's administration The West made
national attention.
Thanks to Toussaint L'Overture and Haiti's rebellion, Napoleon
offered President
Jefferson an opportunity to purchase the Louisiana Territory.
Immediately afterwards
Lewis and Clark and Zeb Pike wanted to explore it. The
conspiracy trial of Aaron Burr, a
wayward grandson of Jonathan Edwards, furthered the
speculation that the West was a
new kingdom.
The War of 1812 was referred to as the Second War for
Independence and Mr.
Madison's War, but the western warhawks wanted to add Canada
to the USA. However
all those efforts failed. While the postwar period was called
the Era of Good Feeling,
sectional interests dominated the three regions. New England
wanted a protective tariff for
their industry. Slavery was the political cornerstone for the
South. Territorial expansion
and transportation to get there were the main western aims.
The sale of western lands eliminated the national debt and
statehood raced beyond
the Mississippi River. The pathfinder, who opened the trails
to California and Oregon, was
Jedediah Smith, a Bible-packing explorer with Puritan values.
The Erie Canal opened the
New England gates to the West. The great statesman John Quincy
Adams stabilized our
boundaries to the north and south and our relationship with
Europe with the Monroe
Doctrine. Finally, in the election of 1828 the first western
President Andrew Jackson was
elected. West was the only direction to go.
The state of affairs in the United States in 1831 was viewed
by a Frenchman
Alexis de Tocqueville. He spent 10-months touring the US and
wrote Democracy in
America. His strongest opinion was "There is no country
in the world where the Christian
religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men
than in America." He reasoned
that, "The greatest part of British America was peopled
by men who after having shaken
off the authority of the Pope, acknowledged no other religious
supremacy: they brought
with them into the New World a form of Christianity which I
cannot better describe than
by styling it a democratic and republican religion."
America was now distinctly different from Europe, although its
population was
mostly from western Europe or of African descent. It was now a
variety of Protestant
denominations, since the Roman Catholic immigration had not
yet begun. The Calvinist
doctrine of divine election had given way to the evangelical
position of conversion based
on the individual's decision. The depravity of man's sin had
also been replaced by the call
of God's love. The famous American question was the one posed
to John Wesley, "Do
you know He (Jesus Christ) saved you?" The preaching was
heart-stirring and the singing
was an emotional worship by the congregation. Baptism was by
immersion after
conversion, and not to infants in hopes of confirmation. The
believers were expected to do
something: good works, service, give, grow holier, and even
reform the society around
them. The colonial seed had now flowered into a uniquely
American tree and bringing
forth fruit in a new season.
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