Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1852-1859, 1858-04-14


the most extraordinary phenomena ever before
occurring in the shape of the current wide
spread religious awakening among all sorts,
classes and conditions of people, both in this
country aud Europe. We call it aphenonenon
because it is customary SO to style all things
which apparently defy known formula for ascer-
tainiug their orbits, entrances or exits into or
out Eof the physical moral world. This
great wonder of our day has been all the more
remarkable, because, that without any pre-con-
cert among the Swans of morals or religion, or
among any of the accredited directors of public
opinion, it has, the offspring Of an hour, hurst
forth like a smothered flame from the popular
heart. 1t has been voluntary uprising of the
people, for the most part unassisted and unen-
couraged by the doctrines and polemics of the
schools. 1t has burst and overIeapt the bars and
boundaries which Evolutionary ccclesiasticism
had staked out as the yerges of saving grace
as the shiboleths Of distinction between the
sheep and the goats. 1t has so happened, that
while the hair splitting and dogmatizing thcOlo-
gans have been nodding and mapping in their
rcctories over the tones and folioS of the Faith
ers, or wasting whole reams of precious fools
cap in opinionizing about the saving force of an
aspirate or a syncope in the original-the peo-
pie, the aity, in the quiet of the leisure of these
unemployed times, or in the affection of COM
mercial adversely, or in the dependency of So
cial bereavement, have turned their faces to the
wall, and in one spontaneous outburst have said
like the Publican: 'Lord! be merciful TO me, a
sinner"
One Of the most remarkable and instructive
features about this movement has been the ex-
cceding simplicity with which it has been con-
Quoted. The laity, for the most part, headed
the uprising and haYe played the prominent
parts in its denouement; and they, happily,
ignorant of all the tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee
vngaries with which the brains of the people
have been beclouded and their hearts indurated,
have confined themselves to such exercises as
have readily been apprenended and impressed
upon their fellows. We might, to speak in plain
terms, say that the uprising has not been by
hut almost in spite of the clergy. The laity
leaders and laity hearers and participants, hive
many of them made most important discoveries
within little while past. During all their lives
before, (many of them have reIated,) they had
given their spiritual welfare into the safe
keeping of the theologians, pretty much after
the same matter ofcourse manner in which long
ago, they had handed over to their better halves
the keys of their wardrobes md larders. They
were content to have the whole duty of man do
scd out to them every Sunday-second-han
just as they were accustomed to take their clean
clothes or their coffee and beefsteaks, as
they were accustomed to learn ''the way,
the truth and the life" through mystifcd
manuscripts-the opinions of which might be
healthy or Neutrality-suspicious. or UNDERGONE
just as the preachers stomach had been in OF
out Of order during the week. The condition
of the people by such a custom came to be that
not one in ten of church goers and pew renters
could give an Ineligible reason for the faith
that was in them. II ever they took thought
upon the matter at all it was to remember, like
Lemuel, the words (which his mother taught
him." a man generally subscribed to the West
minister the Douay catechisms, or judged o
the orthodoxy of High and Low Episcopacy
was Ana-baptist or Pedo. baptist-C alvanist OIL
Armenian, or was anything else of the innu
merable divisions of the church militant-ius
because he was born and bred under its auspices
The direct force of great part of minister ia
functionizing aud sermonizing, had the eff
feet to impress upon mans mind, a narrow
minded and selfish complacency, in that it Ina.
bostered him up in the idea that through thu
sheer accident of orthodox parentage, he Ina!
narrowly and fortunately escaped eternal repro
baton. Had he been born or educated out o
the pale fhis present belief, there had been hu
little chance for him. These have been the fan
ces and the dogmas with which thousands ant
tens of thousands of the good, easy people o
Christendom, have been solacing themselves fo
a long time. So that they had but paid regula
tithes of mint-anise and cumin-in the shap
offat salaries to preacher, for pitching into tn
other sects, and so that they came regularly I,
their pews-sung and kneeled and stood up a
the proper times, why, then, they were beyon,
all question, part and parcel of the elect Blu
lately, however, as we have said, the people seen
to have made some discoveries They have du
ring just upon the heels of the retreatine
monetary panic, took down their Bibles duste'
tlem-and opened them, (as a matter Ofcuriosi
ty. perhaps, with good many,) and in des
ponding mood, perhaps, in many other cases