Revivals and missions

Front matter

^VMLSandMISSIONS ^

1 J. 'V^LiUR Chapman nWi«i90KS FOR P^TICAL WORKERS

L'BRARYOr^RESS.

Preface

In 1879 while a student at Lake Forest University, associated with Rev. B. Fay Mills as a classmate, I received my first inspiration to do the work of an Evangelist.

In my early ministry and first pastorates I studied both men and methods that I might be able some day to do the work acceptably.

While preaching in Schuylerville, N. Y., I attended a series of meetings in Albany conducted by D. L. Moody. Here the conviction grew upon me that I ought to devote my entire time to the work, but the way did not open at this time. I was called to the First Reformed Church at Albany, and for five happy years served one of the most conservative and aristocratic churches in the state.

Evangelistic methods such as are described in this book were tried there, with the result that the old church was transformed ; and for three and a half years was crowded to the doors with an eager, anxious people, many of whom were converted.

This was another step in the school of preparation.

From this pastorate I was called to succeed Rev.

vii

Vlll PREFACE

A. T. Pierson, D. D., in the Bethany Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, probably one of the most Evangelistic Churches in the country.

For three years my ministry was Evangelistic in every way. During all this time the calls for help were coming to me from all parts of the country, and at last I yielded to the pressure and went forth after resigning my Church, to do the general work of an evangelist, and for three years I labored in most of the principal cities of our country. All this time my Church in Philadelphia was without a regular pastor. Repeated overtures were made to me to return, and at last with the understanding that I could if I wished have half my time for evangelistic work and half for my Church, I returned. After three years of labor in connection with my associate pastors I was called to the pastorate of the Fourth Presbyterian Church, of New York City, in which field I am now laboring. This extended explanation is made that my readers may know that I write both from the standpoint of an evangelist and pastor. Not a suggestion is here recorded but has been tried with some slight modification in all my fields of labor, not a method is suggested but what God has set His seal upon it in days past. There is nothing theoretical in the entire book, it is nothing if not practical. If the points indicated are adopted, with such modifications as each Church or community may demand, there is no reason why the result may not be a genuine revival of religion. The texts given at the close of the book have all been used in special services. They will reach all classes

PREFACE IX

and conditions of society. This book goes forth witli my earnest prayer that God may make it a blessing to many.

J. Wilbur Chapman,

New York City, 1900.

Chapter I Page

Revivals Defined i

CHAPTER n Revivals in American History 12

CHAPTER HI Revivals in American History (Continued) 24

CHAPTER IV The Prince of Modern Revivalists 39

CHAPTER V Objections to Revivals 59

CHAPTER VI Indications of a Revival (^y

CHAPTER VII Preparing for a Revival 80

CHAPTER VIII The Method of Work 83

CHAPTER IX Preaching in Revivals 107

CHAPTER X i

11 CONTENTS

CHAPTER XI

PAGE.

Revivals Helped 133

CHAPTER XH Revivals Hindered 139

CHAPTER Xni Revival Sermon Outline and Texts 144

CHAPTER XIV

History of the Parochial Mission in the Episcopal Church 158

CHAPTER XV The Preparation for the Mission 162

CHAPTER XVI Conduct of the Mission .* 173

CHAPTER XVII After Work of the Mission 183

CHAPTER XVIII Catholic Missions 188

CHAPTER XIX The Story of a Catholic Mission 194

CHAPTER I

In the minds of many people there is a very decided prejudice against what are termed " Revivals of Religion.'' This prejudice is not alone to be found in the pews, but in many cases extends to the pulpit, and ministers of the Gospel are found who express themselves as regarding revivals as producing abnormal and undesirable conditions of church life. They say that they are not infrequently attended with very serious evils ; that they are simply bursts of enthusiasm or excitement which last for a day and then pass away, leaving the last state of the Church worse than the first. They say that the only true way for a church to grow is by constant accessions from the world, and they affirm that God's people should always be in a revived condition.

There is much of truth to support this view, but the facts in many cases are against it ; for, as a rule.

the Church does not have a steady growth, and much of the history of the Church in past days has been along the hne of revival effort. That God's people are not always revived is true, to their shame: and whether we approve of revivals or not, we must certainly acknowledge that they have in the past been God's chosen method for directly quickening His people and indirectly leading the unsaved to an acknowledgment of Jesus Christ.

Much of the indifference to be fdund to-day arises from a confusion of terms. Strictly speaking, the word '' Revive '' means to bring again to life, or to reanimate, and while we may speak of Christians as being revived, the expression could never be used in connection with the unregenerate, for they are dead in trespasses and sins, according to the Scriptures, and a reviving presupposes life, which does not exist in the unsaved man.

In popular use, however, the word '' Revival " embraces not only the idea of the quickening of the saints, but the conversion of sinners: and we feel very sure that under existing circumstances no better word could be used. Indeed, it naturally follows that wdiere Christians are quickened there will always be conversions ; and so, as we use the word in this book, the thought shall always be the arousing of the Church and the saving of the lost.

* Dr. Hetherington, of Scotland, gives the following very just criticism upon the term revival: " The word itself (in some of its forms) is often used in

* Handbook of revivals.

Scripture ; and, as so used, it generally implies the reproduction of a spiritual life which had almost died away. It is not, however, synonymous with the term conversion; for while revival implies the renewal of a life which had almost died away, conversion strictly means the conferring of a spiritual life not before existing. In truth, it so happens that revivals and conversions commonly accompany each other: so that, where conversions are frequent and striking, many will be re-quickened or revived.''

The word revival is used because God has set His seal upon it in the Bible. It is a word a good deal older than the Church. For revivals in Old Testament times the Prophets prayed, and the word is associated with some of the grandest scenes of Bible history.

'' It presents to our vision a tender, loving quickened Church, pleading with God and men, while new-born souls are praising and honoring Jesus. Saints of old wrought for revivals. Angels exult over them. Jesus infinitely loved them, and Jehovah is glorified by them. True Christians may rightly object to fanaticism and wildfire: but they cannot object to the outpouring of God's Spirit. And wherever Christians may be, they should always labor for the lost, with entire dependence on this divine influence/'

With a strong belief in the desirableness of a revival, it is easy enough, if we put ourselves in right relations with God, to experience the joy of such work at any time. God is not to be limited to special seasons of the year. His blessings are not confined to any particular set of men, and we believe that any Church could speedily enter upon a blessed experience in revival work if God were simply taken at His word.

* '' During Mr. Moody's meetings in the City of New York a number of years ago, the Rev. R, R. Booth, D. D., of the University Place Church, was deeply impressed with the value of that revival. He said to a convention of ministers : ' Look at this assembly. The simple Gospel has been preached here to sinners, not as a plea against infidelity, but as a proclamation. We thought we were all dead, frozen, and crystallized. But this work has held New York for a month. I believe if this could go on for six months our police might be disbanded, and we could hold New York for God.'

" The Doctor carried this spirit into his own Church work, for he added : ' Such a thing as an inquiry meeting had never taken place under my sober ministry in my staid church : but I resolved that I would appoint one. On Sabbath morning I preached from the text, " Come, for all things are now ready.'' I said to them : '' This sermon presupposes and involves an invitation, nozv and here. It does not imply that you are to go away after the sermon and spend two or three hours exposed to the influence of the world, the flesh and the devil, but that now and here you are to have an opportunity of accepting Christ." The inquiry meeting was appointed, and ten persons came in and accepted

* Revivals, how and when.

Christ ; and one of them was a dear young man for whom I had long been yearning.'

" Dr. Booth continued : ' Brethren, have we not to revolutionize the whole system of preaching, and change somewhat our mode of operations? The trouble is our sermons do not mount to the climax. If they are mere orations and theories of Christianity, an invitation at such a meeting is incongruous and absurd. But when the sermon says Come, from beginning to end. When it is appended to the cross, when it is bleeding with tears and sobs all the way through, then we can say, '' Come to Jesus." ' This action and testimony showed a hearty belief in revivals. How, indeed, can their worth be questioned?"

It would seem to us that every thoughtful student of the word of God must come to a hearty belief in this most important subject. The Old Testament is filled with its references to times of humiliation and corresponding times of exultation. The earthly life of Jesus was one constant experience of revival. After He had risen from the dead the early history of the Church was a history of revival : and he who would say a word against the subject would really strike at what has been the chosen plan of God for the advancement of His kingdom, always and every- ,where.

/ In the life of Mrs. Catherine Booth a story is told of a certain English family who reared in their household a pet tiger. They had treated it as we would treat a domestic animal. One morning the mother of the house, looking out over the spacious

O REVIVALS AND MISSIONS

lawn, saw her little child playing under the trees with the tiger. A little later she heard a shriek and a scream, and the tiger came bounding into the house with blood upon its mouth and feet. Quick as a flash it occurred to the mother that the old tiger nature had asserted itself and that the child was slain. She rushed into her husband's presence, told him of her fears, and he, quickly raising above his head a piece of marble used to keep the door in place, hurled it at the tiger and killed it instantly, and with clasped hands the father and mother made their way out from the house, expecting to find the mangled body of their child ; but instead they saw the little one under the trees, with its face pale as death, and not far away the body of a wild beast slain. It had escaped from a menagerie not far away, had made an attack upon the child, and the tiger had saved the life of the little one. The father had taken the life of that which had protected their child and meant the real joy of their home.

Thus it is with the one who makes an attack upon Revivals of Religion. They are not always free from criticism as they are conducted, but if we follow the Scriptural method and wait upon God for direction there can be no better experience for the individual or the Church.

Revivals are seasons when Christians are aroused to a more spiritual frame of mind; when special revelations of divine things are made to them ; when they seem to understand better how to pray ; when it is certainly more easy to put forth efforts to save the unsaved.

^ Mr. Finney says: " Look back at the history of the Jews, and you will see that God used to maintain religion among them by special occasions, when there would be a great excitement, and people would turn to the Lord. And after they had been thus revived, it would be but a short time before there would be so many counteracting influences brought to bear upon them, that religion w^ould decline and keep on declining till God could have time — so to speak — to shape the course of events so as to produce another excitement, and then pour out His spirit again to convert sinners. Then the counteracting causes would again operate, and religion would decline, and the nation would be swept away in the vortex of luxury, idolatry and pride.

'' There is so little principle in the Church, so little firmness and stability of purpose, that unless they are greatly excited, they will not obey God. They have so little knowledge, and their principles are so weak, that unless they are excited, they will go back from the path of duty, and do nothing to promote the glory o^God. The state of the world is still such, and probably will be till the millennium is fully come, that religion must be mainly promoted by these excitements. How long and how often has the experiment been tried to bring the Church to act steadily for God, without these periodical excitements? Many good men have supposed, and still suppose, that the best way to promote religion is to go along uniformly, and gather in the ungodly

* Revivals of religion.

gradually and without excitement. But however such reasoning may appear in the abstract, facts demonstrate its futihty. If the Church were far enough advanced in knowledge, and had stability of principle enough to keep awake, such a course would do ; but the Church is so little enlightened, and there are so many counteracting causes, that the Church will not go steadily to work without a special excitement."

According to this most wonderful man and the Prince of Evangelists, a revival means, first of all, the conviction of sin on the part of the Church ; backslidden professors aroused and set to work ; the renewing of faith on the part of Christians; the breaking of the power of the world and of sin over the children of God ; and when the churches are thus awakened the salvation of sinners will follow, going through the same stages of conviction, repentance and regeneration. Their wills will be broken down and their lives changed. Very often the most abandoned profligates are among the subjects. Harlots and drunkards and infidels and all sorts of abandoned characters are softened and reclaimed and made to appear as lovely specimens of the beauty of holiness.

Revivals may be either false or genuine. If they are false, they are the result of human agency. They are simply a time of excitement, followed by reaction ; and that is in no sense a revival.

Genuine revivals are the fruit of the Spirit. Until the Spirit be poured out from on high Christians cannot be quickened and sinners cannot be saved.

" The eiTective cause in all true revivals is the lifegiving, light-imparting, quickening, regenerating and sanctifying energy of the Holy Spirit, converting the hardened sinner and reclaiming the backslidden and dormant believer/'

The quaint old Thomas Adams says : '' No means on earth can soften the heart ; whether you anoint it with the supple balms of entreaties or thunder against it the bolts of menaces or beat it with the hammer of mortal blows. Behold, God showers His rain from heaven, and it is suddenly softened. One sermon may prick to the heart. One drop of a Saviour's blood, distilled on it by the Spirit, in the preaching of the word, melts it like wax. The drunkard is made sober, the adulterer chaste, Zaccheus merciful, and raging Paul as tame as a lamb."

Revivals differ in their beginnings. Sometimes the preaching of a sermon ; not infrequently a Providence of God ; very often the tidings of an awakening in some near-by church or community ; many times the visit of a pastor or evangelist upon whose ministry God has set some special seal — any or all of these may be the apparent cause of a real revival ; but sometimes there is no accounting for it from the human standpoint. There has apparently been no especial interest. There has been no particular appeal from the pulpit. There has been no marked concern on the part of the Church. But suddenly blessings come, and by the hundreds people are saved.

However, this principle is always true, that revivals are the result of some special concern on the part of the Church for the unsaved and come as the answer to prayers that have gone up from burdened souls in behalf of the lost.

We have known of cases where for vears the prayers have seemed to be unanswered and the concern to be of no avail ; but God is always true to his word, and sooner or later the answer will come.

Revivals greatly differ in their phenomena. Sometimes they progress with great excitement and enthusiasm ; they are not for this reason to be under suspicion. At other times the movement of God's Spirit brings a hush upon the waiting assembly, and the solemnity of the judgment is on the people. Sometimes He seems to use the singing of the Gospel, and again He exalts far above all other methods the simple presentation of His truth from the Book. Sometimes the lay element is more prominent ; again the minister of the Gospel is the leader of the hosts.

It is well for us to learn that we cannot very well bind the Holy Ghost with rules, and it is always true that where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.

The conclusion of the whole matter from our standpoint is this, that revivals are to be encouraged because God has ordained them. History has proven them valuable to the Church. Our human experience has set the seal of approval upon such a method of work, and there can be no doubt but that not only w^ould our own beloved land be greatly stirred by a widespread revival of religion, but the heathen lands, which to-day seem strangely moved by the Spirit of

REVIVALS DEFINED II

God, would respond quickly to the awakening inaugurated here, and it is within the range of possibilities that speedily the knowledge of God would cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

Chapter II

* " A LITTLE before the middle of the eighteenth century began what may be called the First Era of Revivals in this country, part of a religious movement that affected and moulded in a most remarkable manner the entire English-speaking world for threequarters of a century. It followed what may be called the skeptical age of English history, the age of Deism. England was just emerging from the licentious age brought in by the Restoration, which the influence of William of Orange had not been able wholly to stay, and which the accession of the House of Brunswick — with its German tastes and customs and its hatred of literature, art and refinement, as well as its practical godlessness — helped to continue.

" This desperate moral and religious condition brought about in due time the great reaction, which took on a two- fold character : that of the reconstruction of religious philosophy and the advance of Christian faith, and that of a religious and spiritual awakening and return to vital piety on the part of the Church and people.

'' The reconstruction of the religious life of the Church followed the reconstruction of religious

The Church in America and its baptisms of Hre.

thought. The Great Awakening began and soon spread over the whole English world. It took shape in England (i) in the Wesleyan movement, ultimately leading its adherents out of the Church of England and resulting in the formation of the Methodist Church in its various branches, characterized by Arminian theology and aiming at a return to primitive piety and religious simplicity; and (2) in that eternal gospel movement, the adherents of which remained in the Church of England, and which was represented by many eminently pious and godly men, and resulted in the formation and work of the Great Church Missionary Society that has done so much toward evangelizing the world."

'' The Great Awakening in New England in the eighteenth century, under Jonathan Edwards, was one of the most remarkable religious movements of modern times. It came at the close of the great logical battle with skepticism, the aim of which had been -the re-establishment of the authority of the Bible as the supreme revelation from God. It was contemporary with the Wesleyan movement in Great Britain. The skeptical influences that had been so long at work abroad had reached and permeated New England and had resulted in shaken faith in the word of God and in general religious stupor. Jonathan Edwards gives testimony to the strange stupor, the marked insensibility to the greatness and excellence of divine things, and the general worldliness of the Church of that day, in his " Revival of Religion in New England.''

"Jonathan Edwards, the leader in this religious reaction, was equally eminent for logical acumen, theological learning, and spiritual piety and devotion. It is natural, therefore, that when his eyes were opened by the grace of God to see the condition of things, his efforts to bring about the needed changes, by rousing men to a sense of the danger and sin of their worldliness and stupor, should have been put forth with intense energy and directness. There was need to emphasize the law of God in its divine authority and its sacred sanctions, in order to ' break up the fallow ground ' and prepare a way for the proper and effective presentation of the gospel of salvation."

'' Edwards' great theme, accordingly, was the sovereignty of God's grace in the salvation of sinners through justification by faith in Jesus Christ. In presenting this theme he gave some of the most powerful exhibitions of man's depraved condition, of the terrors of the divine law, and of the lost condition of sinners that have ever been made in the history of the Christian Church. Under the first of these subjects may be instanced such sermons as those entitled '' Men's Natural Blindness, in the Things of Religion ; " — '' Men Naturally God's Enemies ; " — '' The Self- Flattery of the Sinners ; " — '' Hypocrites Deficient in the Duty of Prayer." Under the others^ such as : '' The Final Judgment ; or, the World Judged Righteously by Jesus Christ ; " — '' The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners ; " — " The Eternity of Hell Torments ; " '' Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God ; " — '' Wicked Men Useful in their Destruction only."

But equally intense and powerful was Edwards' presentation of the grace of God in salvation. This may be seen in such sermons as those entitled: *' Justification by Faith alone ; " — '' The Wisdom of God Displayed in the Way of Salvation ; '' — " Great Guilt no Obstacle to the Pardon of the Returning Sinner;" — ''The Peace which Christ gives His True Followers ; '' — '' God the Best Portion of the Christian/'

Such sermons as these naturally stirred the souls of men to their very depths, and sometimes resulted in remarkable outward manifestations of feeling, as when, during the preaching at Enfield, of the sermon entitled '' Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," the audience rose up in agony to cry out for mercy."

" The great religious awakening in New England, of more than a century and a half ago, commenced in 1734, in Northampton, Mass., under the ministry of Rev. Jonathan Edwards, so well known as a writer and the last year of his life as President of Princeton College. Edwards has been, and is still, regarded as one of the greatest and best men that this country or the world has produced. He was a child-prodigy, commencing the study of Latin when but six years old, and when but ten years old composing an essay in which he ridiculed the idea then recently put forth of the materiality of the human soul. In 1716, when thirteen years old, he entered Yale College, graduating in 1720. He was religiously impressed in his early childhood. He was a most godly and devout man, with all his greatjaess posi6 sessing a sweet, childlike disposition. After his graduation he was tutor in Yale College for two years, and dates his conversion at about his seventeenth year, after which all nature seemed changed."

'' The revival, as has already been said, began at Northampton, but spread very soon into other towns. Many, hearing of what was taking place in Northampton, came into the town to see for themselves what was going on. Many of these, not knowing what to make of it, ridiculed the revival, and said that the efifects of it were from a '' distemper."

In his '' Narrative of Surprising Conversions," Edwards writes :

'' This work of God, as it was carried on and the number of true saints multiplied, soon made a glorious alteration in the town ; so that in the spring and summer following anno 1735, the town seemed to be full of the presence of God : it never was so full of love nor so full of joy ; and yet so full of distress as it was then. There were remarkable tokens of God's presence in almost every house. It was a time of joy in families on the account of salvation's being brought unto them ; parents rejoicing over their children as newborn, and husbands over their wives, and wives over their husbands. The goings of God were then seen in his sanctuary, God's day was a delight, and his tabernacles were amiable. Our public assemblies were then beautiful ; the congregation was alive in God's service, every one earnestly intent on the public worship, every hearer eager to drink in the words of the minister as they came from his mouth ; the assembly in general were, from time to time, in tears while the word was preached ; some weeping with sorrow and distress, others with love and joy, others with pity and concern for the souls of their neighbors.''

'' President Edwards estimated that more than three hundred were converted in six months in Northampton, including persons of all ages from the child four years old to the man of seventy. Eighty were received into the church at one time, and their appearance deeply affected the congrega-' tion. Sixty more were received at the next communion."

^ '' But the great exponent of the awakening in the eighteenth century, its chosen mouthpiece in the American colonies and among those of the Calvinistic faith in the British Islands, was George Whitefield, one of the most remarkable preachers and evangelists of the modern ages. He received his training under the same influences as John Wesley, and was in perfect sympathy with him in the general spiritual movement of that day. In the early portions of their ministry they co-operated in the work in Great Britain. Later, however, there came an alienation and a separation that greatly limited the usefulness of Whitefield in England, and doubtless had much to do providentially with his making the American colonies the chief scene of his permanent work. The separation from Wesley was mainly on the lines of doctrinal belief, while in the case of the

* Memoirs of George Whitefield, by John Gillies, D. D, i8 evangelical workers who followed the Wesleys the separation from those who remained loyal to the Church of England was on the ground of church polity. Whitejfield was not possessed of Wesley's organizing and administrative ability, but was greatly his superior in eloquence and fervor. Indeed, many of those who heard Whitefield regarded him as the most eloquent of men, and the traditions of the remarkable effects produced, not only by his sermons but by the very tones of his voice, are still handed down. A curious instance, illustrating this feature, occurred many years since. The forearm bone of Whitefield's right arm disappeared from its casket under the pulpit in the old Federal Street Church in Newburyport, Mass., where he was buried. Many months after a box was sent by express to the authorities of the church by some one living in Great Britain. On opening the box it was found to contain the missing forearm bone of Whitefield, accompanied by a note from the man who had sent the box. In this note he said that he had an intense desire to possess this right arm of the most eloquent nian that ever lived, and so had taken it from its receptacle and carried it with him to England ; but conscience had compelled him to restore it to the church and to its original place."