The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1901-01-23
MURPHY 70 YEARS AGO.
ANOTHER CORRESPONDENT
WRITES ON THE SUBJECT
Points out the Causes Which Made the
Early Years of His Work a Revival


EDITOR STAR: In Tuesdays issue
of your paper a correspondent signing
himself observer" makes some COM
parsons between the present series of
Murphy meetings and others he attend
ed two decades ago. He thinks the
present one is less effective than the
former ones and asks if the reason is
due to a change in the times.
| think his solution is the correct one
if by changed times he includes
changed conditions.
The most severe. long continued and
far reaching financial and industrial
panic the American people ever expert
enced broke in 1873 The country did
not fully recover from ii for more than
seven years. Its effects on the Ameri-
can people were profound. To the reli-
4 gious and moral sentiments of the peo-
pie it appealed as the wrathful vista
| ton of Providence for the pride and
| prohigacy of the nation following the
| civil war. This humbled sentiment of
| a whole people was the natural oppOr-
| tunity for great religious and moral
| movements. 1t was a time of REVEALS.
| Religious revivals swept the country
| from one end to the other. 1t was dur
| ink this time that Moody and Sankey
came to the front, and with them scores
! of lesser reViValists, forgotten now but
| widely known then. 1t was during this
time that the Blue Ribbon" movement
and the Red Ribbon" movement and
the Purple Ribbon movement had
free course, ran and were glorified."
| The WOman's Christian Temperance
| Union was another outgrowth of the
fervor of this time. 1t was the period
! TOO. which gave birth to that whole
hymnology which became, and is known
now as Gospel Hymns" observer
may have taken note of the fact that
at Murphy's Sunday night meeting
there was not a hymn used, the words
or music or both. of which were not
written prior to 1880 and most of them
between 1873 and 1880 Though Gospel
Hymns" have passed through many
editions with many additions since then
it is only those of it's hymns which We're
come widely and popularity familiar.
And perhaps the hymnOlogy OF no
period unless it be that of the Wesleys,
ever became as widely known, as this
of the panic period of 1880.
1t was such a time and such a state
of public mind that made Francis Muir
phys early work possible. No genius
could have done the work he did at
that or any time except aided by such
conditions as aided him.
But with the return Of prosperity
there was a decadence of the revival
spirit. Even Moody, although there had
been in him a steady intellectual
growth without loss of that directness
and sincerity which was his chief
source of power, could never inaugurate
a revival after 1880 at all commensurate
with those carried on even by lesser
men during the preceding seven years
of humiliation and revival spirit. Moody
carried on a great work after 1880, but
it was a different kind of work. After
1885 he scarcely attempted the revival
work of the day which gave him fame
and reputation. And Sankey, grown
rich from the copyright of his hymns
and the largesse paid him by admirers
was lost sight of altogether.
Murphy is y "holdover'' from that
period of revival spirit, attempting TO
reincarnate a spirit whose temple was
destroyed with the passing away of
the conditions which built it. He may
still do much rood, but he can never
duplicate his former successes, because
the conditions which made those sue
cesses possible, have passed away.
ANOTHER OBSERVER.