19th Century Revivals

THE SECOND EVANGELICAL AWAKENING HELP was on the way. A few local revivals broke out in the early 1790s, but nothing extensive came until after the Concert of Prayer was launched. Isaac Backus, the great Massachusetts Baptist  and a score of other ministers called for the churches to engage in the Concert of Prayer for spiritual awakening, beginning on the first Tuesday in January, 1795, and continuing once a quarter thereafter. Denomination after denomination took up the challenge. Revivals began to break out everywhere around the turn of the century. The Second Evangelical Awakening was in progress (not only in America, but in Britain, on the Continent, and elsewhere). Revival fires burned over the entire nation, first in the East (especially Connecticut and Massachusetts) and then on the frontier. The revival was not characterized by evangelists going to and fro to incite churches to activity. There were few great names connected with it. For the most part, services were carried on by the pastors in their respective churches. In New England the revival was quiet, not accompanied by emotional manifestations as during the Great Awakening. The situation on the frontier was different, however. There the Presbyterians inaugurated the camp meeting, to which thousands came from far and near. Emotional outbreaks were common in these meetings, but they have been greatly misrepresented or overplayed; and they did not seem to hinder the effect of the revival. Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists all worked side by side in these great gatherings, and all three benefited tremendously from the effort. One of the greatest of these camp meetings took place at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in 1801, where it is said twenty-five thousand gathered in August. As many as five preachers addressed the crowds simultaneously in different places on the grounds. As elsewhere, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists cooperated in the venture. Reportedly the character of Kentucky and Tennessee was completely changed by these meetings. The effects of the Second Evangelical Awakening were tremendous: 1.The colleges of the land were largely reclaimed through the overthrow of infidelity. 2.There was a spiritual quickening in nearly all denominations, with tens of thousands being added to Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches. 3.Lines were more clearly drawn between rationalism and evangelicalism, and there was a split between the Unitarians and evangelicals in the Congregational church. 4.The midweek prayer meeting and Sunday schools became common features of church life. 5.Close to a score of new colleges and seminaries were founded. 6.Missionary endeavor was spurred. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions came into being in 1810; one of its first missionaries was Adoniram Judson. The American Bible Society was founded in 1816, the American Tract Society in 1825. THE FINNEY REVIVALS As the Second Evangelical Awakening began to lose some of its force, Charles G. Finney came on the scene with his revival efforts. Beginning in New York State in 1824, he conducted very effective meetings in several Eastern cities. The greatest took place in Rochester, New York, in the fall and winter of 1830–31, when he reported one thousand conversions in a city of 10,000. The revival affected adjacent towns as well, with over 1,500 making professions of faith and joining the churches in them (Hardman, 209). At the same time there were about one hundred thousand conversions in other parts of the country from New England to the Southwest. In 1835 Finney became president of Oberlin College in Ohio, where he continued to be an influential revivalist through personal campaigns and the wide distribution of his Lectures on Revival. The teachings of Finney and his associates Asa Mahan and Thomas Upham included entire consecration, sinless perfection in this life, and freedom of the will. Finney is given credit for introducing the anxious bench (the place to which inquirers went forward for conversion) and the cottage prayer meeting (at which non-Christians were prayed for by name in meetings in private homes). Out of the Oberlin School came the Holiness and Pentecostal churches. Not only did Finney’s work make a great impact on America, but he also made two trips to Europe, where he experienced extensive success. THE REVIVAL OF 1858 Another great revival spread across the country in 1858–1859. It was quite different from other revivals in that it not only did not have a series of great names attached to it, but those most responsible for its success were laymen. Moreover, it was enthusiastically supported by almost all Protestant denominations and was reported favorably by the press—which helped to make it the success it was. The usual view is that this revival began among the business people of New York City and that the bank panic had something to do with scaring people into a new dependence on God. J. Erwin Orr, in communication with me, presented evidence to show that this view is erroneous. The revival began in Canada in September 1857, and the first outbreaks in the United States occurred in Virginia and the Carolinas among slaves, who did not have any money at all. Ultimately over one hundred thousand blacks were converted in the 1858 revival. But it is true that the movement gained momentum through the efforts of Jeremiah Lanphier, a city missionary in New York, who distributed handbills calling for weekly noon prayer meetings at the North Dutch Church beginning September 23, 1857. People were invited to come for five or ten minutes or to stay the whole hour if they could. Soon it became necessary to schedule daily meetings at other churches, halls, and theaters; and the movement spread to Philadelphia, Albany, Boston, Chicago, and other cities North and South. It is estimated that there were at least one million conversions in the United States during 1858 and 1859, with proportionately as great a revival in the South as the North, in spite of the slavery agitation of the period. In 1859 the influence of the revival spread to the British Isles, where it is said that another million made professions of faith. The awakening also touched many European countries, South Africa, India, the East and West Indies, and Canada. The revival continued after the War Between the States and in its later stages was even more visible in the South than the North. During the war, in 1861, a revival broke out among Confederate forces around Richmond and became a general moving of the Spirit by 1863. Though estimates vary, probably fifty thousand or more were converted in this awakening among the troops. Higher figures given in some accounts of this revival seem to be too generous. D. L. MOODY’S EVANGELISTIC EFFORTS One of the greatest modern revivalists was D. L. Moody, whose preaching was of the old evangelical type: a middle-of-the-road Calvinism rather than the Arminian approach of Finney and the Holiness preaching of the century. He urged predominantly the love of God as the great reason for repentance. Starting out in the YMCA and army camps during the Civil War, he conducted mass evangelism campaigns with the assistance of Ira D. Sankey in the large cities during the last three decades of the century. Not only did he have remarkable success in this country, but he made several trips to England. One of the most notable of these was the 1873–1875 campaign, during which he preached to more than 2.5 million people in London alone. Before the London crusade, he had conducted successful evangelistic efforts in other major cities of England and Scotland. Moody’s ministry with the YMCA and his mass evangelism symbolized a new thrust of the church to reach the unchurched in great urban centers produced by the industrial revolution. Another indication of the new approach was Moody’s pitching a tent at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. One of Moody’s better-known accomplishments was the founding of the Moody Bible Institute (1886), which pioneered the concept of Bible institutes and led to the founding of hundreds of similar schools, especially in the United States and Canada. R. A. Torrey (first president of Moody Bible Institute), J. Wilbur Chapman, and other evangelists followed in his train. And revivalism has been a continuing characteristic of American Christianity. Not the least of the later revivals in the United States was the awakening of 1905. Part of a worldwide movement and apparently especially inspired by British revivals, it touched all parts of the country and made its impact in Canada as well. Northern Methodists reported an increase of over 200,000 in 1905–1906; Lutherans, 167,000; Baptists, 165,000; and Presbyterians, 67,000. Revivals hit college campuses in several parts of the country. Missionary effort was greatly stimulated. The story may be found in J. Edwin Orr’s The Flaming Tongue. Howard Frederic Vos, Exploring church history [computer file], electronic ed., Logos Library System, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson) 1997, c1994 by Howard F. Vos