New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1858-05-01
AMERICAN REVIVALS AND EUROPEAN
TORPOR.
Corresponderce of The N. Y. Tribune.

| PARIS, April ~, 1853.
| The London Times a few days since, had letter
| from New-York about the revivals which are in
progress there. 1t differed 10 nothing from the
accounts had previously seen in your paper, and
The Indtpeadtn, and Obseroey, which were all very
interesting to HE, as showing the irresistible ten
dency Of the American mind toward radically iD-
proved religious life. Of course, there are great
many specific incidents reported these occasions,
which do not commend themselves to refined taste
which are calculated in fact to make lddeious peo-
pie greve. But such al air of life and cheerfuness
pervades all the narratives that he must be chur
who only finds cause to grumble. la fact there
SO much bubblHg jOllity and sparkle abent the Ell
tire phenOnenOu, that should not have been sur
prised to some of your less serious cOteupOra
res heading their narratives the nhgioaS ,cord on
a bender.
But this is not what chiefly engages the attention.
What chiefly gratties my intelligence III this Re
vval ia to discern there tie unmstakabA play OF
| those free and generous American instincts which
are gradually transforming the face OF theology, by
turning It from an OtOse and pedanxc orthodoxy
into most sympathetic aud fruitful human thing.
Freedom could not haze enjoyed the scope we have
given it for the last century, without leaving ls pro-
found impress upon re! giOus life Accordingly,
every close observer of reoioats Ierceives at
glance that they always mean the more ana more
complete extricatiOn OF Religion from llorallsn.
have frequently expatiated upon this subject with
my Unitarian friends, insisting that they can never
hope to make their docric palatable to the popular
heart, because they hOpelessly cOnfound Christianity
! with mere mOralisIn. For refined meu and women,
for persons of highly intellectual cast, for people,
in short, of somewhat tinid and European quality,
| like DR.. ChsnniDg, Edward Everett and our ex-
celent friend DR.. Dewey, UnitariaIsin is II capital
h.na cI. dol III
pass their days in cherishing and nursing the most
| exalted sentiments. BIT the masses prefer ii
stronger tap. They live, not in the realm of sentl
| meDt, but 10 that of sensaticn and accordingly
when they get religion w they aNfcey paint .the
process they want it, like the small p0x of sufficient
strength to knock them down at the very least, be-
ing sure to estimate the geuuineness of tke infection
by its ability, above all, t. iname and indent the
psrely exterior and cuticuar life of the subject
Certainly, there can be no more genial and oyable
| men than CDitariansIn produces; yet the movement
itself i'd lot progress-it is strictly reaction 1t
is honest and wel-intentioned effort to balk the
new life which is playing into humanity, because it
very clearly that the tendency OF that life
is Ia tOssil2e many OF our oldest maxims, or reduce
them to the condition Of WORKOUT memories. "
| But what Untaranlsm does not see, and what
cOrdngly battles her grasp upon the popular heart
is that these old traditions have never contemplated
| nor demanded for themselves. any other than n
spiritual fulflment; that is to say precisely such
fulflment as the evolution of Il perfectly free or
spontaneous life of man alone affords them. Give
my love to my friend DIR. B.. and say to him that this
is what explains the lack of the true Democratic
sOu69e in Unitarianism and its standing incapacIty
to originate, or even sympathze with, one OF these
robust Revivals
pity the man who can see no markso the d.
vine footsteps in our rcrirdis, because, as it ap-
| pears TO Inc, such can have very active
thV vi he nUtN gard mar nj lpuc.
And yet can hardly help feeling certain tender
ness for his Judgment too, inasmuch as 1t is " hon
estly come by" or proceeds from al habtual defer
| ence to the past, to established routine and prece
| dent. Ia old times, mans " conversion implied
his actual retirement from the word-hs taking holy
| orders priest or monk Of some sort. Catholl.
cism inherited this idea from Paganism, doubt;
| but so prevalent did it become, that even now, ia
the Catholic Church, only those persons who take
upon themselves vows of actual separation from tse
| world are denOminated religious The late
| Queen of France was exemplary IN every prlm-
NEST exercise of piey if she had been twin sister
| u Hannah More but she never presumed IL call
herself Il nliguusc. Whyl Because her church,
beng the 6ue old mldde-aee edifce it is, makes
hgion u consist III voluntary remuneration Of the
world IN pain, and poverty, and modification,
omrdrdty endured, for the Lords sake; and the
"he oi The prosperous and worldly LOUIS Philippe
ceuld hardly be supposed to keep those terms. Ia
| snoi'' me old idea was 10 draw line Of broad
sePafa.ion between God and the world, and 10 de-
T,aic tnein rreconclable enemies. The Protestant
| NEGOTIATION touched a candle 10 all this long-ac-
cuihuiated gas, exploding it with h yehemence Of
"hich Europe IL only now beginning 10 reap tue
trues' ana most logical effects But we Lays got
tar ahead OF Europe in this particular. The ever
lasting oo'her with European Protestantsm-.he
ceaseless OoSlecle u encounters to It's free expau-
sIon-s the existence here of the two authori,ato,
one toward another, or showing each other mercy
Soyot and VIII hrnceicr.h .et oureelyes 10 L.,l