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The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 4

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    IV. Primitive Camp Meetings and Primitive Emotions

    The frontiersmen, shrewd but generally untutored, led a rigorous life in a wild country, with few social contacts and little constraint of either law or convention. Those who hungered for spiritual food, and rarely ever saw a preacher for months on end, found in the camp meeting an answer to these social needs of human nature. But along with the religious came a motley crowd of godless listeners. Here they were suddenly aroused by intense and prolonged exhortation, convicted by an overwhelming sense of their own wickedness and apostasy, and terrified by graphic portrayals of hell. They were urged to “contend in prayer,” and so to find salvation. Invariably, emotional tension and fear lurked in the background as the impelling motive to action. 32E. K. Nottingham, op. ctt., pp. 62, 188; F. M. Davenport, op. cit., pp. 224, 225.PFF4 45.1

    The extravagances that brought deserved criticism had no connection with real religion and saving grace, and afforded no valid evidence of salvation. 33A. G. Strickland, op. cit., p. 112. But as Strickland wisely says, “This froth on the top of the wave should not blind us from seeing the deep significance and power of the movement beneath the physical and accidental.” 34Ibid., p. 76. It has also been well said that a newly kindled fire will often smoke annoyingly at first, and an attempt simply to smother it only makes matters worse. 35W. A. Candler, op. cit., p. 163. Better is it for the fire to burn itself quickly into a clear smokeless flame. And this was what happened as these interdenominational revivals, becoming increasingly sound and sane in these pioneer regions, truly transformed Kentucky and the West. The pendulum swung away from the widespread Deism of the day. Between 1800 and 1830 not far from a million converts were added to the Congregational, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist churches, and the quickening of religious life led to numerous missionary and reform movements. 36For the permanent results see A. B. Strickland, op. cit., chap. 11; W. W. Sweet, Revivalism, chap. 7; Robert Baird, The Christian Retrospect and Register, pp. 218 ff.; Delavan L. Leonard, The Story of Oberlin, pp. 59, 60. Within the years 1826-1830, about two hundred thousand were added to the leading denominations, including sixty thousand young men. There were powerful revivalists and evangelists such as Peter Cartwright, and later Charles G. Finney. In five months in 1831, fifteen hundred towns were profoundly stirred, also leading colleges and seminaries. Thousands were converted and many became Christian workers.PFF4 45.2

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