The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-04-18
REVEALS AND THE CHURCH.

of San FRANCISCO, young Ht''l
! fourished there. whose name VAS JOIN
Butts. His peculiar forte in petit
larceny was the stealing of books, es-
peciaIly from lawyers Offices. Eut he
illustrated the adage that there is
honor among thieves If any lawyer
or legal firm paid him the paltry sum
to steal no book from that office, and,
while the subsidy lasted, he invaria bly,
kept his word.
One Sunday evening, John Butts,
who was a white man, strayed into an
African church near the northern end
of the city. Inspired by the appeals
! addressed TO him and others, he took
his seat on the anxious bench ana
was Immediately surrounded by devout
men and women. He was patted hard
on the back. His arms We're moved up
ejacuIa tfons were poured into his ears.
At last an eventfuI moment arrived
and he announced himself converted
The next day he stole the greater part
of the minister's small library.
| Since those days. revivals, which, it
may be said with becoming reverence,
were occasionally attended by ludicrous
incidents, of which one has been de-
scribed, have greatly and benefcially
changed in character and in methods.
They have been regularly organized.
Men of high intelligence and of intense
simplicity and earnestness, of whom
Moody was a striking example, have
developed special aptitudes for reach
ing the souls of men, not by grotesque
alton, but by probing the undeveloped
spirituality of human nature. The
present revival in Wales is transform
ing masses of men and women. and its
zeal and success have spread their in
fiuence throughout the civilized world
Here. in Honolulu. and on some of the
other Islands. the suspicious beginning
of an important spiritual movement has
become prominent.
1t has been said before in thee col
umns that no man who discerns the
signs of the times can fail to realize
that Christianity is the motive power
of civilization and that, as the years
and the centuries roll on, it is not
waning but waxing. This conclusion is
forced on real observers and thinkers,
by the upward movement in business.
in society and in individual lives. 1t
is emphasized, apart from these silent
advances in standards and in conduct,
by the vast spread of the revival spirit,
which is so conspicuous that it COM
mands attention and leaves permanent
and deep impressions upon humanity.
Principles-in Christianity fundamen-
tai and essential doctrines and laws
are Interchangeable and incapable of
or enlargement. But the
and alters with the times The
religious machinery of the sixteenth or
seventeenth century would be as in
effective in the twentieth, as Stephen
sons model of the locomotive would be
on the Rapid Transit or the Oahu rail-
road. The place where REVEALS work
out their legitimate and durable conse-
quences is within the church, in all it's
various branches, more and more
ignoring superf1uous differences, en-
phasizing essentials and tending in the
direction of ultimate unity. /
That the church, with all its concen-
trated influence upon the hearts, the
minds and the souls of men, constantly
augmenting, needs within itself the in
of the revival spirit, is a
fact evident to its best representatives.
It's ministrations are often too formal
preachers who cannot read discriminat-
ingly and so as to bring out the full
of their selections or of the
prayers and declarations selected for
them. Many are pressed by the con-
seriousness that they must relieve their
without delay and hurry
their services until they become unin-
telligible. AS ST. Paul said in the
fourteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians:
So likewise We, except We utter by the
tongue words easy to be understood,
how shall it be known what is spoken?
for We shall speak unto the air.
OF the millions of worshippers dis
persing from the church edifices of
on any particular Sun
Day, what percentage, if called upon
within an hour to tell what chapter of
the Bible was read, what printed
prayers were said and what omitted.
where there is a prescribed ritual, or
even what the text of the sermon was,
pOIl1d