The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1858-04-08
For the National Era.
T HE R { WV AL.

ent times, that even secular papers are noticing
it. For the most part, too, their notices are
not scofing or disrespectful, but tentative,
serious, and suggestive. They seem to say,
"There is need enough among US Of revival
of'reigion, Heaven knows-pray God only that
it be real, and of the right kind"
They say, We hope it will do some good to
men in political and business capacity-that
it will make them honest, and true, and upright,
and magnanimous. "No revival has ever
done anything for Wall street yet" says one
ave hope this may" "We hope" says
another, that prayer for the slave may not be
considered an instrusion in these frequent
prayer meetings, and that some penitence may
be felt and expressed for the share which
Northern churches have had in aiding and
abetiing system Of robbery and oppression"
So speaks the outside world, as she looks
gravely, sadly, not scofhngly, on the spectacle
of througing churches and opening prayer.
meetings-and her demand is Just.
There is something in right name. The
term revival seems by general consent TO
have been adopted into our language as expires.
eve of these seasons; but we should much
prefer term formerly much employed among
certain religious denominations =" reforma
ton" Instead of the great reviuel of 1885,
We should be happy to read the great reforma
Many worldly people, and come very Chris.
tan people, have a prejudice against anything
like periodicity in religious impulse. They
dislike revivaIs. Why should the Divine One
who is always love, say they, be considered as
operating impuisively and periodically on the
human seul, sometimes shining and sometimes
Withdrawing? II is urged, Furthermore, that
the expectation of such seasons becomes in the
end motive for sloth and inaction, and a neg
II <>f he
religious nature.
All this may have some truth in it; bat,
nevertheless, it is fact that religious impul-
ses, like all other impulses, have always come
over the world in waves. To begin with the
day of Pentecost, ia which three thousand
were converted in one day, we find all along
the line of the History of the Church that there
were seasons when religious impulses were
more than usually fervent, and religious labors
successful. III
There were revivals under the preaching of
Augustine and Chrysostom; and tho great
force of the Reformation was not merely polit
ical or intellectual, but it was the deep upheav-
ing of the religious element, bringing all other
reforms in its train. The reformation tcas a
rerioGI of religion. The REVEALS in England
under the Wesleys and Whitfield inaugurated
new era there, which ia felt to-day in the
power of the dissenting element aud the i'm
proved state of things in the Established
Church. The preaching of the Wesleys, the
Fletcbere. and of Whitfield, to the GOLFERS and
cotters of England, was the fret movement for
the general religious instruction of the masses,
and led the -sy to the multiplied labors of
that kind with which England now abounds.
1t is a noticeable fact in all these cases, that
they wee followed by political and moral re-
formr-the work proved itself divine by its
e. klT
mat is Of God, doeth the works of God !" and
by this test should every so-called revival be
Judged Revivals which make men better, and
bless society, have been and may be realities.
But the rule is without exception, that every
truly valuable thing has its counterfeit. When
we read of great REVEALS, where the Christian
converts claim as a sacred right the privilege
of selling the members of Christ for money /;
where they defend the breaking of the marriage
covenant at the will of the master, and take
away from the colored member the right of
testimony, and are 80 lost to all moral sense
as TO see no harm in any Of these things, we
hold that that revival has been spurious and
counterfeit. So also as to Northern churches,
which, for reasons of expediency, and to carry
ends Of ecclesiastical politics, have refused to
testify against these sins, we hold that revival
of religion that brings no repentance and ref
ormation is false and spurious.
We believe in no raptures, in no ecstacies
in no experiences, that do not bring the SOU
into communion with Him who declared he
came to set at liberty them that are bound and
bruised. Revivsls of religion have not beer
confined to Christian countries. Old heather
ism had them. Popish Rome has them. Mod
ern heathenism has them. One and all o.
these have had turns OF unnsual fervor in theil
way. One and all have had their frances
Nominations, and mysterious ecstacies. But
those only are Christian revivals which make
men like Christ; or, if they do not make them
like Him, at least set them on the road of try
ing to be like Him. We say, therefore, to ouI
friends, that the period of a great religious i'm
pulse has come; that there will be revivsls al
over the land, either false or true-either of q
Christian or heather type; and by their fruits
shall ye know them. We are glad to hear thai
some OF the most effective revival preacher
conhne their attention very much to preaching
TO the church. We are glad to hear that. II
Is quite necessary that those who profess to be
the opponents of religion before the community
should have some deeper and higher ideas o.
what religion is.
So that when they go forth with the Apostolic
message, "Repent and be converted, every
one of ycu," they need not be met with the
scornfal reply, Converted, sir, converted te
what? Converted into man who defends Sla
very-converted into one who dares not testify
against profitable ickedness-converted init
man whose religion never goes into his count
ng-house-converted into man who has L,
conscience in bis politics, and who SCOTS q
the higher law of God? No, sir; desire NJ