II. The Great Revival Molds the Nation

1. FRONTIER REVIVAL “SAVES” THE WEST

What is known as the Great Revival of 1800, but continuing with greater or less constancy into the early forties, really began with local forerunners in Virginia as early as 1787. In 1794 a profound sense of dissatisfaction with the marked spiritual declension led to circular letters appealing for nationwide “Aaron and Hur Societies,” to uphold the ministers’ hands through intercession. And about 1800 there was a “simultaneous outbreak of revivalistic phenomena” among Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists. ^{9F. G. Beardsley, Religious Progress, p. 32; A. B. Strickland, op. cit., pp. 43-49; Elizabeth K. Nottingham, Methodism and the Frontier; Indiana Proving Ground, p. 186. For the forerunners of the revival, see Lacy, op. cit., pp. 67-73; W. W. Sweet, Revivalism in America, pp. 118-120.}PFF4 38.2

Following up the western emigrants, rode the itinerant Methodist circuit riders. And in 1796 James McGready, a “terribly earnest” Presbyterian preacher, moved into Logan County, Kentucky. Holding a modified form of Calvinism, he stressed the necessity of knowing where and when conversion took place—a new note in Presbyterianism. Preaching with unusual power, he drew large crowds. Soon two brothers, William and John McGee (or Magee), one a Presbyterian minister and the other a Methodist, came to the Cumberland country of Kentucky and Tennessee, likewise preaching with amazing results. ^{10Frederick M. Davenport, Primitive Traits in Religious Revivals, pp. 67, 69; W. A. CHandler, op. cit., p. 159; F. G. Neardsley, religious progress, p. 33.}PFF4 38.3

In July, 1800, in Logan County, thousands encamped in the woods for several days to hear the long-neglected gospel; this was evidently the beginning of the increasingly frequent and effective camp meetings. In August, 1801, the huge camp meeting at Cane Ridge, in Bourbon County, lasted nearly a week. An estimated twenty or thirty thousand people came, and four or five preachers, including Methodists and Baptists, had to speak simultaneously to different sections. All denominations benefited with accessions and quickened spiritual life. ^{11W. A. Candler, op. cit., pp. 159-162; L. W. Bacon op. cit., pp. 235, 236; F. G. Beardsley, religious progress, pp. 34, 35. Bacon W. Stone later associated with Alexander Campbell and the Disciples of “Christ,” tells not only strange physical accompaniments. Men fell, “slain” as in battle, sometimes remaining “smitten” for hours before obtaining “deliverance,” and then would testify with power to the surrounding multitudes. (W. A. Candler. op. fit., pp. 160, 161.)}PFF4 39.1

The narrative sounds almost like the accounts of White-field’s preaching back on Boston Common or at Blackheath, England, Candler declares. There was a startling awakening as an uncommon need was met in an uncommon way. The revival ran all through the Cumberland and Ohio country. The Presbyterians, however, soon dropped the camp meeting plan, whereas the Methodists took it over, under William McKendree (later bishop), who used it mightily for the “winning of the West.” The Cumberland Presbyterian Church was also the direct result of this revival, and others grew out of the movement. ^{12W. A. Candler, op. cit., pp. 162-167.}PFF4 39.2

Certain excesses and irregularities were to be expected under frontier conditions. But the whole face and tone of society was definitely changed in Kentucky and in other sections. Something extraordinary had happened that confounded infidelity. Soon these intensifying revival fires, which had been burning in various localities in the East, were fanned into a national conflagration. Religious leaders everywhere recognized it as the Great Revival.PFF4 39.3

2. EASTERN REVIVAL FOSTERS NEW ENTERPRISES

East of the Alleghenies the revival was scarcely less influential and beneficial, though less tumultuous. So a revival of national extent, in widely scattered centers, from north to south and east to west, came at the very time it was so greatly needed.PFF4 40.1

It deeply influenced the colleges of the East. Yale, for example, was shaken to its very heart as the result of President Timothy Dwight’s incessant warfare on skepticism. More than two hundred young men were converted, many of whom entered the ministry. Four distinct revivals occurred during his administration, and thirteen between 1812 and 1837-some of the converts coming to render distinguished service in the evangelization of the West and profoundly affecting the life of the nation. In addition, the Great Revival introduced a new era in the work of missions, at home and abroad, in the publication and circulation of religious literature and in philanthropy and reform. ^{13Ibid., pp. 169, 170; F. G. Beardsley, Religious Progress, p. 37. For other college revivals see D. Dorchester, op. cit., pp. 377, 378.}PFF4 40.2

Samuel J. Mills, of the famous Haystack Prayer Meeting, had been converted in the Revival of 1800. He was instrumental in making Williams College the virtual birthplace of American foreign missions. In a students’ secret missionary society Mills and his associates—including Gordon Hall, Luther Rice, and Adoniram Judson—were the means of founding the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions. ^{14K. S. Latourette, op. cit., vol. 4, pp. 79-81.} But that was not all. In 1813 and 1814 Mills and others went on missionary tours of the West, and found great spiritual poverty and destitution of Bibles in vast tracts of country. This resulted in the organization, on May 8, 1816, of the American Bible Society in New York City. This noteworthy enterprise is therefore also directly attributable to the Great. Revival of 1800. ^{15W. A. Candler. op. cit., pp. 172-175; L. W. Bacon, op. cit., p. 256; F. G. Beardsley, Religious Progress, pp. 84, 85.}PFF4 40.3

And from this period of the Great Revival came the American Tract Society (1814), likewise the American Education Society (1815), the American Home Missionary Society, the American Sunday School Union (1824), and the midweek prayer meeting as well. This period also marks the founding of the religious periodicals of America—from the Hartford Evangelical Magazine of 1800, on through the Presbyterian Religious Remembrancer (now the Christian Observer) in 1813, the Congregational Boston Recorder in 1816, the Baptist Watchman in 1819, the Methodist Zion’s Herald in 1822, and the Freewill Baptist Morning Star in 1826—to a total of thirty-seven by 1828. One of these, the Christian Advocate of New York, reported the largest circulation of any paper in the world except the London Times. ^{16F. G. Beardsley, Religious Progress, pp. 80-83, 99, 105, 106; W, A. Candler, op. cit., pp. 176, 177.}PFF4 41.1

In the Great Revival “there was no Wesley, no White-field, no Luther around whose personality the movement centered.” ^{17A. B. Strickland, op. cit., p. 43.} Perhaps the most conspicuous personalities were President Timothy Dwight, who drove back French infidelity and skepticism from the colleges, and Bishop Francis Asbury, who set in motion the army of itinerant Methodist evangelists from New England out to the Western frontiers. To these was later added the noted Charles G. Finney. As truly as the Great Awakening prepared the way for the new Republic, says Lacy, so the Great Revival “saved the new nation from French infidelity, crass materialism, rapacious greed, godlessness, and outbreaking violence on the frontiers. ^{18B. R. Lacy, op. cit., p. 87.} And it opened wide the door for the great modern advances of the church—including the earnest and conspicuous study of the prophecies.PFF4 41.2