Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1919-09-23
BY RIsHop w, A. cANDLER
Conditions prevalent in Ameri

BIZ BISHOP w. A. GAMBLER
Conditions prevalent in America at
tions in England during the latter
half of the eighteenth century.
Then industrial inventions had in
! creased wealth of Great Britain and
| unrest, SkepticaI theories at the
same moment weakened the hold of
| morality and religion on the minds
| of the people.
In 1857 Bridley joined Manchester
| and Liverpool with canal which
was SO successful that Great Britain
of navigable waterways. This meant
| much in a land which heretofore
| had been almost roadleSS, and where,
| for lack of transportation, people
| in London might famish for bread
| while farmers a hundred miles away
boarded or wasted a surplus of grain
for which they had no accessible
market.
Two years before Brindley's canal
was built Watt changed the steam
thereby + one invention revolu-
tionized the industarial world.
About the same time a new i'm
portance was i parted to the coal
which under!!ay he surface of Eng
land. The immense stores of iron
ores in the northern counties had
remained unworked because it was
thought that they could be smelted
with wood only. and wood was very
scarce. Now a process to smelt iron
iron indu try was changed as by
magic.
Immediately, in rapid succession,
came the spinning-genny. invented
ming machine of Arkwright, the bar
Der; the spinning mule of Compton;
the weaver, and finally the power
loom. 1t was as if all the hidden
forces of nature leaped together and
The Wealth h Of the he nation increa sStM
by leaps and bounds. Great manu-
featuring centers sprang instantly
into being and capital became ad-
venturous and aggressive while labor
became restless and irritable.
Into the peri US Inflammation of
the industrial world poured the
sqeptical tenets and radical influ-
ences of the French revolution across
the. English channel.
Never had a prosperous nation
been in greater danger than was
Great Britain at that time. The warn
ings of Edmund Burke nd the states
men associated with him availed'
nothing against the threatening
storm. y What turned it aside and
Lecky, the historian, shows what
! saved England in that critical pc
riod. Speaking of the French revo-
luton he says:
Its chief characteristics were
a hatred of all constituted au=
thority, an Unsuitable appetite
i for change, a habit of regarding
rebellion as the normal as well
as the noblest form of political
self-sacrifice, disdain for all
compromise, contempt for all
tradition, a desire to level all
ranks and subvert all establish
mentS, determination to seek
progress not by the slow and
cautious amelioration by existing
, institutions, but by sudden, vio-
lent and revolutionary change
Religion property, civil authority
and domestic life were all asSail-
ed, and doctrines incompatible
with the very existence of gov
eminent were embraced by null
tltudes with the fervor of a re-
ligion. England on the whole,
escaped sS;a the contagion. Many
causes conSplred to save her, but
among the II ~ eminent place
must, L believe, be given to the
new and vehement religious en-
thusiasm which Was at that very
time passing through The MIDDLE
and lower classes OF TIE people.
which had enlisted in it's service
large proportion Of the wilder
and more lnpeIuouS Pr 'o1mers
and which reCoileI with horror
from the 2nti-CkrlsTian tenets
that were associated with the
revolution in France"
TO the same effect speaks w.
H. Fitchett, in his interesting
treatise, entitled How England
Saved Europe" He says, Great
Britain was invigorated by the
great religious movement OF
which Wesley and Whitefield
were the leaders That move
ment was practically a new birth
of Puritanism, spiritualized and
ennobled, purged of its gloom, of
It's fierce political leaven, of it's
narroWness. 1t is not easy to
realize how it might have af-
fected English history, if in the
middle of the eighteenth CEN
fury, with its drowsy church. it's
enervated morals, it's laxitv of
public life, there had arisen in
stead of a reformer like Wesley.
an English Voltaire, distilling
|. the gall of his skepticism, the
acid of his bitter wit into the
lie OF England. In that case the
reign of terror in Paris might
nave been rivaled by one as
Ilerce and bloody in London.
wesley, to the zeal of an apostle
ana the spiritual ardor of a saint
added the patriotism of an Eng
IlShman and something at least
OF statesman. And he did
something more than crystallize
into happy and enduring form
the great religious body that
n