Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1858-04-17
The Religious Revival.

We are not among those who look with much
favor upon the daily trumpeting by the secular
press of the progress of " the religious awaken
ing" with all its attendant manifestations and
incidents Ii seems to us that the tenden-
cy of all this newspaper notorlety is to MATER
ialize and yulgarize work, which if it has any
worth at all, is essentially solemn and sacred
to make it the occasion of a morbid curiosity,
and false injurious excitement. A fire that Is
really heaven kindled needs no reporter to fan
it, or editor to set it off, The" still small voice
which We are told is the mode of divine COM
municaton, requires no public: erer to let the
the souls of men. There is quite to much of
this 10 hero and 10 there For all time is it
true that 60 The Kingdom of God cometh not
with observation"
But though We have not initiated some of our
neighbors in parading the daily Developments
of this world, yet it is a scene of solemn inter
est. and no thoughtful man can gaze upon il
without hope that it may be fraught with an en-
during influence upon the condition of our peo-
pie. Ii is no more certain that Christianity is
true, than that there are periods in its history
when 1t seems to press its claims upon the soul
of man with peculiar power, and make great
and sudden conquests. 1t matters not what
you denominate those epochs or how YOU ac-
count for them they exist. and have existed
from the earliest DAYS of the Apostles to the
present time, and have left lasting effects be-
hind them. There are times when an altogether
new set of spiritual activities are evolved in So
ciety. and the old are immcasurably quickened
and strengthed-when the veriest infidel can
hardly help recognizing that divine spirit is
being poured out, bringing the human spirit in
TO subsection We are now, to all appearance.
III the midst OF one of those seasons, and every
true lover of his country and his race ought to
feel like thanking God for it.
The degeneracy of the times has long been
the burden of universal complaint. Everybody
admits that crime, and vice, and corruption
have for years been gaining strength all over
the country. Our wonderful material progress
in all the elements of physical and intellectual
civilization, has been attended with no CORES
pondent moral improvement, but entirely the
reverse. The surface of our society has all the
while been growing more polished, but only to
gloss over and more completely conceal the
selhshness and sensuality fostering beneath
Our luxurious, ambitious, rushing, care-worn
age, has never renowned the theory of Chris
tan morality-on the contrary it still Processes
great respect for it-but it has been more and
more departing from its practice. 1t has be-
come an almost universally accepted maxim
that men are to be guided only by their sef-in-
terests, and public disinterestedness and self
sacrifice are terms that have become almost OBJ
solete. Dishonesty in high official places is
fast becoming the rule than the exception. Ii
was declared by Dean Swift in his day, one of
the corruptest periods of English history, that,
of six millions of pounds raised every wear for
the service of the public, onc-third, at least was
sunk and intercepted through the peculations
and jobberies of artful men in office before the
remainder was applied to the proper uses and
he cites this fact as a proof of the imperative
necessity of doing something to advance relie-
ION. In many parts of our own country, public |
officers have already reached that proportion in |
peculating and misapplying public funds. On
this point our own community, surely, are hav-
ing sufficiently deplorable experience.
Looking at the selfish extravagancies, the |
heartless dlsslpations, the vicious refnements,
the low material aims, the INSCRIPTIONS perf. |
dies and the towering frauds of the timesEtok.
ing thought that our civilization is polishing hut
10 corrupt, and that our wealth has ministered
10 desire but to give strength to temptation,
that in spite of all our intelligence and riches
pauperlsm, vice and crime flourish fearfullv
that our national prosperity has only contributed
to spiritual decay, and victory over nature to
forgetfulness of Providence-considerin ali
TINS; who shall say that there is any redeeminp
quality IN a mere material civilization that shall
purge us OF this corruption, the evil which is
eatlhg away the very life tissues of our republi-
can government Lamartine has declared that
the republic of ls4S proved failure, because
Frenchmen are without conscience. How long
can we expect our own republic to stand when
Americans cease to have conscencep And how
can there be an efficient conscience without re'
hgious faith, evolving itself into correspon-
dent religious lifeP The only rational hope of
the salvation and perpetuation of our instit,-
TONS lies in the revival of this religious faith
and life among the people,
There is not passion of the human heart
that genuine Christianity cannot tame. nor n
meanness that it cannot purge away. nor an oh
n,quity that we cannot rectify and the fact that
this celestial influence is reyisiting our land with