CANDID UTTERANCES ON REVIVALS.
By James M. Buckley
[In the New York Christian Advocate of January 31, the editor, Dr. James M. Buckley, gives some “candid utterances on revivals” that we think so valuable that we give his article entire, with the exception of one paragraph, that we considered relevant only to his own constituents.] JUDGED by the effect of such utterances in the past, confident predictions of a general revival of religion, especially when it is asserted that it is certain to come within a few weeks or months, are obstacles in the way of their fulfilment. The “booming” of new towns, of any branch of business, or of general prosperity, may sometimes be effectual in promoting financial success, but are not so when there is no solid foundation for it. A spurious success follows, which is the harbinger of a speedy collapse. For many years such predictions have been made, and no marked revival has occurred. In 1892, when the panic struck the country, it was declared that “in hard times” revivals always occur. The reiteration of the prediction seemed to cause people to feel that a revival was going to come by the mystical force of “hard times.” But it came not. As “the times” grew more stringent, the prophets grew more numerous; but still it came not, tho the depression continued four years. Another impediment is the prophecy that no revival can come “under present conditions.” Croakers and cynics are always in the way of a revival. Every church has them. The true rule is to say nothing about the coming of a revival, but to be devoted entirely to preparing the King’s highway. The world can not be saved in masses. Epidemics of superficial excitement are freshets in a desert. Pastors and people should be busy in their own work in front of their own door. Men must be convicted and converted one by one. As the number of such increases a genuine awakening spreads. The attitude of a part of the secular press, the manner in which “revivals and revivalism” are spoken of in the cities and towns which they dominate, is a real obstruction to this form of religious work. Editorials that speak of religious emotion as belonging to “an undeveloped age,” that “such great revivals as occurred in the early part of the century can never be repeated,” are obstructive. So is the publication of a few peculiar remarks, exhortations, or ejaculations as types of movements which, on the whole, are as worthy of respect as those reported by the apostles. Some of the undenominational, semi-religious papers throw their whole influence against the chief means by which by far the largest part of the Protestant world exists. One of them recently said that the passage, “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation,” would make many good people doubtful of this method of promoting it. The quotation must have been selected simply because of its words. He who uttered it said, “Go preach the Gospel to every creature.” He sent seventy, two by two, to every place where He Himself would go. There was nothing in His life or course that gives countenance to the theory of waiting until the people come. The kingdom of God as an inward spiritual experience “cometh not with observation,” but the spirit of the Gospel justifies the most extraordinary means compatible with reverence and reason to bring a knowledge of the Gospel to the people. “How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach, except they be sent?” The charge made against Christ by the formalists of His time was, “He stirreth up the people;” so He did, and only those who stir up the people to think and feel on truth, duty, opportunity, responsibility, and the future life can add in any considerable185number to the church “of those that are being saved.” While it still remains true that, with the larger part of its accessions from other churches, its pomp, its pride, and its wealth in the great cities, only one in twenty of the Protestant communicants of the country are within its denominational limits, some Episcopal bishops and clergymen lose no opportunity to disparage revivals. Among the churches that have been built up and maintained by revivals are the Methodist, the Baptist, and to a considerable extent the Presbyterian. The Congregational collection of churches is far from being homogeneous. There are fewer churches in that denomination which promote revivals than there were for the first twenty years following 1858. There are many at present that would scarcely know what to do should adults, with every appearance of deep religious feeling, begin to ask what they must do to be saved. Lest this should be thought incorrect and uncharitable, we have to say that it is the utterance of one of the most distinguished ministers of that body, confirmed by several others that heard it. Among the Baptists are not a few churches and ministers who take no special interest in such work, but, as members are added only on profession of faith and public immersion, the necessities of the situation tend to perpetuate the use of the means whereby such persons are made willing and able honestly to make such a profession. The Methodist Episcopal Church also has some ministers who, supported by some of the leading minds in their societies, act as tho they do not wish any religious movement which will attract public attention to the society as in any way reproducing the methods of the militant days of Methodism; and some printed and spoken discussions seem to show that a few are positively opposed to any method which would be in harmony with the apostolic exhortation, “Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.” Among these are some who are very enterprising in everything that does not relate to the conviction and conversion of sinners. It must be confessed that the extravagances of some evangelists and a few revival pastors account for such feelings in sincere and conscientious minds. When widespread genuine religious excitement exists, under the best circumstances, there will be occasional ebullitions, effervescences, and excrescences, which are only redeemed by the gravity and depth of the whole work. But some evangelists cultivate these and regard them as evidences of “power.” As well might the meaningless gyrations of St. Vitus’ dance be supposed evidences of muscular and nervous strength. The preoccupation of the churches and pastors by a great variety of enterprises, and the division of the year into social seasons, one of which is spent away from home, and the other absorbed in matters sometimes harmful, at other times harmless in themselves, but harmful by reason of preoccupying the time and exhausting the energies necessary to promote the primary work of the church, increase the difficulty of concentrating upon revival work. A variety of circumstances has greatly changed the spiritual character of a large part of the membership, so that some of the older members are like sailors that have not been to sea for thirty years, but are called upon suddenly to resume their forgotten functions; others have merely been cabin passengers from the beginning. Notwithstanding this and all the legitimate enterprises of the church, the necessity for raising money to pay debts, build churches, “hold our young people,” keep up to the times, endow colleges, hospitals, schools, and sustain missionary enterprises, a genuine revival can be had in any church where the pastor and a few members of intelligence and piety are thoroughly in accord in desiring it, and ready to work for it in ways both reasonable and spiritual. The pastor must give himself to prayer and to earnest, brotherly (not scolding) preaching to the church. He must suspend general courses of reading, exclude the daily paper, and be a man of one work in the study and in the pulpit. Those who desire a revival must give themselves to prayer, and if not to fasting from food, to fasting from things that distract their minds. Union meetings, in our judgment, are of doubtful utility. They enable the indolent pastor to shelter himself behind a large movement, and they prevent the devoted, earnest pastor from exhibiting spontaneously and authoritatively his earnestness. Often, if not usually, they lower the tone of the most earnest church in the combination toward the tone of the least earnest; and if there be a slight elevation of the lowest, the highest has been brought below the effective point, and the lowest has not reached it. In the foregoing suggestions we are as far from the spirit of criticism as is compatible with a survey of the situation. For a short time the writer was under the hallucination that God had called him to preach to the brain and the more intellectual part of the church. There came a time, however, when he discerned that no genuine power can be exerted without the symmetrical use of the whole mind and heart of man under an influence superior to himself. From that hour he found that no conceivable condition in civilized society can be so obstructive as to prevent a revival where the pastor desires it more than anything else, and where even a few are like minded, single in aim, and intelligent enough not to mistake animal excitement for profound religious conviction, sense of responsibility, and reverent dependence upon God.