The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1900-02-05
The DYING CENTURY
PASSED IN REVIEW
THE PROGRESS OF CHRISTIAN.
1TY IN 100 YEARS.
Great Change That Has Come in the
Theological View of the Deity.
The God of Vengeance Has Been
Deposed by the God of Love.
From the Chicago Timos-lIcraid.

From the Chicago Tmes-llcraid.
without question the Christian re-
igiou in the last 100 years has made its
greatest material progress I'm the ter
ritory of the United States. With the
phenomenal peoping of this great
country has come its ChristianizinS--
one of the most stupenduus tasks put
upon the mission spirit of the age.
For in the first years of the nine
teenth century in America the outlook
for Christianity was conceded by the
church as being the darkest in modern
hitsory. To.h Paine. with his Age of
Reason had awakened Il following.
Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jeffer"
son had left a kindred imprint upon
the new republic War and its eXcesses
had broken down many barriers that
had stood for retnements and for social
morality. In 1895 Timothy Dwight be.
came president of Yale college, and
writing of this period. Lyman Beecher
says:
Before he came college was In a
most unSodly state. Most of the stu
dents were skeptica! and rowdies were
plenty. Wines and liquors were kept
i'm many rooms; intemperance. profan-
ity, gambling and licentiousness were
common. That was the day of
the intidclity of the Tom Paine school,
and most of the class before me were
infdels."
Princeton, which had been closed dur
ing the revolutionary war, had only
two confessed Christians in the school
in 17S2. and in 179S the Presbyterian
general assembly for the middle states
expressed itself in the following de-
spondent utterance:
''Formidable innovations and convul-
sions in Europe threaten destruction to
morals and religion. Scenes of devas-
tation and bloodshed uneXampled in
the history of modern nations have
convulsed the world, and our country
is threatened with similar calamities.
We perceive with pain and fearful ap-
prehension general dereliction of re-
ligious principles and practice among
our fellow citizens, a visible and pre-
vailing impiety and contempt for the
laws and institutions of religion. and
an abounding infidelity which in many
instances tends to atheism ITSELF
THE FIRST CAMP MEETING.
But in the after-light of history all
darkness inevitably preceding a dawn.
This dawning began with the emigra-
ton from Virginia and Carolina to
Kentucky and Tennessee In July of
1S0o William and John McGee. broth
ers. one ii Presbyterian and the other
Methodist, penetrated to the woods
Of Logan county, Kentucky. They
gathered handful of settlers together
and held a meeting in the woods. They
wrestled with the ignorance and un-
belief of their hearers and several con-
verts were made. News of it sprea d
and wagons began to come i'm from a u
directions. until there the first camp
meeting in the United States was
evolved, and from it went out the spirit
that spread and grew until it became
the historic revival that shook nearly
every state in the Union. From it mos
mentum was gathered for the evangel-
izing movement upon the Louisiana
territory at home and upon the heather
shores of Asia and Africa.
AT the camp meetings os the great
revival period enthusiasts looked upon
results as those of a second Pentecost.
Out of them grew a strange, nervous
disorder called the Jerks" In the
main, il afflicted only the unbeleving
ana in the preparation of camp
grounds young saplings We're left
standing upright In order that victims
OF this malady might seize hold Of them
for support. AS meetings progressed
and the eXhortations of the evangel-
lists became more fervid. the converted
ones would be seized with an apparent
frenzy. sometimes falling upon the
ground, crying anu rolling over and
over for hours at Il time.
1t was in such time: as these that
some stubborn. half-rowdy onlookers
might be seen to begin the peculiar,
1erky movements that wcrn symptoms
of the malady. He would rush for the
nearest saplino, SEIZE it with both
hands and begin to revolve around It,
his head Swapping forward and back
until his long hair would snap like a
whipcracF When it was over the
ground around the tree would he
tramped as if by horses i'm ny-time,
while the bark would he peeled from
the tree where the victims hands had
encircled ii in his frenzied clasp.
WAVE Of FERVIp pIErY.
The whole country. so far rs it was
then settled. was swept by This tidal
wave of RELIGIOUS fcrv,r. one of its
hrst results was the movements toward
theological schools Timothy Dwight \
occupancy Of the presidents chair at
Yale was spur to thlS. Then. at
Princeton. the chair of theology had
been revived. .Andover seminary was
established IN 1NnS and within ten
years III" Baptist. Methodist, Plesby-
tTrian, Unitarian, Dutch Reformed
and German Reformed churches wen,
supporting Theological schools.
In this beginning uf IN" nineteenth,
century tie question of separation of
church and state had come IN The
Cons lilnti"n hal been silnrt upon the
question. but the first amendment to
II VAS 10 make Impossible. among
other things, the governmental estab-
lishnent Uf any church. MANY OF The
New England states were aiding
churches at the beginning Of the cen
tuiy, but in 1918 Connecticut brok ,