The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1877-05-09

reaching ran mainly IN The Puritan
blood. The lecture ships IN the citv
onurThes We're filled chiefly bv men of
me url'an school, and they became n
great power, and did much 90 pourisb
lh"t spirit OF civil aud religion. indepar-
dence winch made London the backbone
81 the parliamentary party In a. struggls
win the Grown. Laud saw how t6.y
were working, and conceived from Them
"A distaste ot sermons Again after
the Restoration, the preachers ON both
sides Of the pale told powerfully ON their
times. But the men who could stir and
shake the souls of the masses must be
looked for, on the whole, in the ranks of
the NoncOniormists. And naturally
enough, for the pulpit WAS the citadel of
their strength. They, too, were Gin Op-
position They had 20 do with that
class of the people which is the core of
strength in every State and they stirred
their hearers 10 an energy and interest
IN public questions which made them
kind Of vanguard IN the army of progress.
The battle of our liberties has been large
ly fought by the religious element In the
community, greatly helped, no doubt, by
the thinkers. Neither the polish of
Erasmus nor the b6nignitv of Melanc-
thon,' Heine says, could have carried
the Reformation, but it needed 'dic
gottliche brutaluat of Brother Martin
80, in our history, the hand that has
struck and conquered has been mostly
strung by religious enthusiasm, though
the nervous currents have no doubt been
reinforced from serener springs Nobly
on the whole, during those generations.
Z lt.aV ia t..l a.
strenuously they wrought by il ON and
for their fellow-men. That great out
burst of evangelical zeal which marked
the last half OF the eighteenth century i'm
England was truly a form, and q very
blessed angelic form, Of that movement
toward the poor aud wretched, the tor.
mented and oppressed, which iu France
took the form OF the fury of revolution
We have yet 10 measure the magnitude
OF the work Of those indomitnble preachers
in saving England from a dread baptism
of blood in that fierce revolutionary time.
by kndliug some belief i'm d God who
cared for men, aud some loving trust I'm
men who cared for men, in the heart OF
those vast classes who are verify tho
dangerous classes in such CRISES as these.
| The danger lies i'm their misery and de-
spair. Those who can bring solace to
| their misery and preach hope TO their
despair save them and save society Ii
was thus that Christianity saved q world
which was literally perishing OF despair
and Indebtedness, and il was thus that
| the evangelical revival in the AGE of
revolution helped greatly tA save our
State. The hope which ill., preachers
kindled, the charity which they quicken
ed, the hrotherly rotations which they
established with the poorest OF the poor,
| the schools and the ministries Of all sorts
which grew out of their labors, have
sweetened unspeakably the bitter waters
Of our social and political life, and havo
left room and time for those large meas
ures Of wise and righteous legislation which
have marked this century, and have made
rs on the whole the heaviest, the wealth.
lest, and-the happiast OF people, What
ever the evangelical school may have
come to-and it is benignly appointed 10
all schools in time TO decay-it will be
written Of it in history that in two great
ages of revolution il brought mn influence
of lncalculab!e magnitude to bear on the
moral ideas, the social relations, and the
spiritual hopes Of the poorest of the
people and it helped thereby, beyond all
other agencies, to render possible that
orderly, peaceful, but large aud rapid
development Of our nat,cn which finds
no parallel in the political history OF
mankind, Nineteenth Century.