St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1905-08-23
shall lead and not lag in Fastening the


greater revival which is yet to be!
But the personal question still waits
for an answer. How is the new revival
to come? What more shall we do than
we are doing to bring it?
Fervent feeling among the leaders in
| council or conference or association
assembled, campaign of meetings the
land over, whether for six months or two
years or continuously, whether we have
the help ofone spiritual Briton or ten of his
kind, or utilize our own American born
and trained genius Of the new evangelism,
or learn better our personal selves to
preach the gospel with directness and
power to the common man and the
cultured man, to rich and poor alike, are
not the final solution of the problem. We
shall make mistake if we identify an ex-
pectant attitude and enthusiastic hopes
and spiritual temper set in flame by
special occasion and any method OF
organization, however finely conceived,
to move on the inertia and doubt and sin
of the masses, which things are simply
phases of vaster preparation nurtnr1ode
by the zeit. geist, with the revival ITSELF
That must hive a principle winch IS the
focusing OF forces that have been at work
for long time, which is the outcome of
deeper and wider movement than is
easily read by surface signs, and which
points to no small immediate future but
to time stretched out in a world greatly
changed.
Some OF us believe-it is my own deep
conviction-that the great awakening,
following the law so plainly illustrated
in the history Of epoch-making REVEALS,
will be in response to message in new
| form and after method as was invarl-
ably the message of each new time before,
exactly adapted to the requirement of
the age. And that new message we
understand to be something old but for
gotten, which must needs be recovered
in the gospel from the beginning, but de-
handing fresh proclamation and a con-
sstent fitting to the modern world.
You anticipate my word. We believed it
to be the social ideal of Jesus. n n
Therefore we look for a revival not emo
tional or sentimental, but fundamentally
and profoundly moral. And
we see in the ralying of the forces of civic
virtue and personal probity about a
Governor Folk, Mayor Weaver, and an
Attorney Jerome, and in the response OF
multitude of people Of whatever politi.
cal faith to the oft preached family and
governmental ideals of President koose-
welt, and in the new sensitiveness of the
church's conscience in respect to gifts and
givers, quite as suspicious signs of the
day of the Lord for America as in the
count of converts after meetings by a
Torrey, a Chapman, a Dawson.
There are others of our fellowship who
place the emphasis differently. tits said
the next spiritual awakening cannot sc
far depart from the norm of the great
t REVEALS of the past. We have lost thu
true evangelistic spirit in our commune
r propaganda. If a mighty going is to b.
s heard in the tops of the mulberry trees
t instead of spending our main strength
n for the rectihcation of the social con
If science, we should seek chiefly to recove
= the individual that is lost. Saving soul
n antedates saving society. 1t is well tt
clean up the hell in the east end of grea
k cities. but it will come back somewher
n in concentrated plague spot or in diffuset
virulence to poison the whole body socia
8 unless first is banished the hell in eacl
t. mans heart. Jesus saves-He saves mel
d one by one, else there is no salvation 70
,r the mass of mankind, only palIiatives
" superficial healings, with corruption ant
IT death as sure at the last.
1t 1t is not my purpose to attempt an ad
y justment of these view points, which ar
i'd not so opposing as the disputants for tn
N one or the other faith in the new revivs
10 would sometimes persuade us. 1t is m
ne purpose before our parting, in thi
ID moment of longing for the vision of Co.
es and of will to dedicate ourselves anew t
IN the service of his Christ, to speak to you
of hearts and to my own heart of that whic
in we all do know, but in the heat of tn
as conflict of our opinions and with GU
ly somewhat differing experiences do nov
k and again forget. Sympathetic toward
that emphasis as primary for our tim
be which is placed upon the social ideal {
o, Jesus, still would remind such as thin
ls- with me that the supreme need of IL
es hour is an applied Christianity, when'
hit after all the deepest motive and sanctio
OF and inspiration for this service and a
BY our holy service must come. And here
be the consideration of the sources OF pow,
We we are perfectly at one with all WI