Litchfield enquirer., 1878-05-09
Revivalism.

 PrOpriety calls it impertinent; and refinement, coarse intelligence detects much ignorance in it and charity, much harshness. Yet Revi- valism is simply rapid form of Progress-the rapidest form of Progress known to nature. It is faith at a white heat, melting down social barriers, and separating the dross of national antiquities and of religious prejudice from the pure metal of earnest belief and practice. At great intervals all society becomes volcanic !; it melts and runs into new moulds, as it were, where it hardens into new religious beliefs, new modes of life and even into new national characteristics.
 Chief among these volcanic formations, since the Christian era, are Mahemmedanism, Prot estism, Puritanism, French .Republicanism Throughout the regions where these great Re- vivals prevailed society was not only thor Oughly fused; it was greatly and permanently changed. No one even slightly acquainted with their history can doubt this. We refer specially to the permanent results of these great Revivals of faith, because people are so apt to attribute no permanent results to Revi- valism. The fact is, that, Oftener perhaps than otherwise great moral movements go forward by sudden and astonishing leaps, after years of patient and apparently hopeless waiting. Reform is a sort of Century Plant that blossoms so sell dom that people get to believe that it never blossoms.
 A little consideration will show why these tides of moral reform flow with such violence for days, only to ebb slowly for years to be followed at long intervals with successive revi- vals of activity at the very time when hope of any such revival,had almost turned into de- spair. There.can be no better illustration of of this natural tendency than the history of the Total Abstinence movement. The social con- diliOn of our people, in respect to drunkenness, half century since, was infinitely worse, we are led to believe, than the worst known to our time Men of eminence in all the professions, even ministers. were what would now be con- sidered common drunkards. Mems social gatherings were too often what would now be stigmatized as drunken sprees. At the militia ry training the officer must ''treat" his men the merchant must treat his customers; the farmer, his laborers. The best men of will liage met in it's chief bar-room and tippled and sang songs, and told stories and becameintox icated. 1.-The idea of enjoyment unenhanced by alcoholic excitement had entered no mans brain. The farmer would put fifty barrels of cider in his cellar, every year, besides what he carried to the distillery.
 Under such stimulation the crop of drunk ards was frightful. Alcohol tithed ministry a' we'll as laity. Had that generation been as la zy and luxurious as ours, it seems as if no mar could have escaped the pestilence; but Indus try took the place, then, which Abstinence has done since, and saved many from the destruc tion that seemed inevitable. Finally our fath CTS began to count the cost of this their chief source of enjoyment. They knew all the pleasure it could bring; they knew how dearly that pleasure was bought; and they resolved to abandon the use of alcoholic liquors as { beverage. The total abstinence faith rose to { white heat it melted down old social usages and it remolded them with the habits of alec holic indulgence omitted. A few years of tota abstinence completely changed the face of NeV England society. The cider barrels and the q der stills had nearly disappeared, and popu lation who were mainly of abstinenthabit hat succeeded population of habitual drinkers Then followed generation who had neve seen the terrible effects of general indulgence Slowly the vice began to rear it's head again There was much temperance talk; and man. attempts to abolish drinking by statute; but to tai abstinence faith and practice were plainl declining. As the vice became more threaten ing, however, society began to be aware Of it danger Now, at last-no one could predit when; no one knows exactly why-the fir great Temperance Revival has begun. Th old faith warns the public breast, and peopl are renewing the vowsof total abstinence take by the generation which fought the first gre' campaign against alcohol.
 Is there any reasont to fear that the goo cause is in danger from it's very vehemenc and its phenomenal, temporary success Wh cannot Temperance have it's revivals as we as religion We have seen the lasting resui of Professionalism, of Puritanism, of Methodisn of the old Temperance excitement. WI should not Temperance revival show it's pc manent results as we'll ? If, as we believe, u principle at bottom is a sound one, those pc manent results will surely follow?
 We are perfectly we'll aware that the fal as we'll as the true faiths have their revival that enthusiasm and earnestness are no su test of the genuineness of a creed. Neverth less, the self-sacrifce even of mis-dlrected e thusiasm is not wholly lost. MahOmmedanis was an improvement on the dead formalism Eastern Christianity. The Crusades. absu enterprise as they now seem started who some current in the stagnant European thoug of the middle ages. Any movement that tur mems thoughts even temporarily from the selfish struggles for wealth, for position or f existence, ,ennobles the men who learn to maj sacrifices of time of money, or of social e ioyment for such a movement. Americs society, of all others, stands in need of freque upheaveals of that description. Our hearts a so preoccupied with the pursuit of the almigh dollar that there is little room left in them f an unselfish enthusiasm. We need constant to remember that faith without revival so becomes fossil; and that the descendants
 the prophets and martyrs of one era beco
 mere formalists- Pharisees and Sadducee of succeeding times.
 See ne@ advertisements of Hartford C Price Clothing Store and of G. w. Barker Co.,, Bridgeport.
 Hembold, remembered by newspaper pl