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from the government. Since 1842 the Finnish Church has had a widows' or pension fund from which widows and orphans of preachers and teachers receive annual pensions. On the whole, the Fin nish people are= to the Church. The in crease of merely external education among the common people has to a certain degree loosened their attachment, and some school teachers are hostile to the Church. Moreover, the antieccle siastical press has tried to sow discord and estrange people from the Church, but so far without success. See SWEDEN. (J. A. CEDERBERG.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY: The literature, mostly in Finnish and Swedish, is given in Hauck-Herzog, RE, vi. 68. Sources are: M. P. Juusten, Chronieon evisco~orum Pinlanden sium, ed. H. G. Porthan, Abo, 1784-1800; H. G. Porthan, Opera selects, 5 vols., Helsingfors, 1859-73; Regw trum ecclesio: Aboensis, ib. 1890. Consult, M. J. Alopsrus, Borga gymnasia historia, Borga, 1804; Finnland and die eoangeliach-lutheriache %irehe, Berlin, 1888; Finland in Ode Nineteenth Century, Helsingfors. 1894; J. R. Fisher, Finland and the Tsars, 1809-99, London, 1899; Dwight, Tupper and Bliss, Encyclopedia of Missions, pp. 230-237, New York, 1904.
FINLEY, SAMUEL: American Presbyterian, fifth president of the College of New Jersey (Princeton); b. in County Armagh, Ireland, 1715; d. in Philadelphia, Pa., July 17,1766. Having received a good education from his parents, who were of Scottish descent, he came to Philadelphia in 1734, and studied for the ministry. He was ordained by the New Brunswick presbytery in 1742 and sent to Milford, Conn., in 1843, but for preaching to the Second Society at New Haven, in violation of the statute forbidding itinerant ministers to preach in any parish without the consent of the pastor, he was expelled from the colony as a vagrant a few months later. In 1744 he accepted a call to Nottingham, Md., where he established an academy which acquired considerable fame. He remained at Nottingham till 1761, when he succeeded Samuel Davies as president of the College of New Jersey. Though he never published anything but occasional sermons he enjoyed a great reputation as a scholar, and in 1763 received the degree of D.D. from the University of Glasgow. Among his sermons may be mentioned, Christ Triumphing and Satan Raging (1741), The Curse of Meroz (1757), and On the Death o/ President Datries (1761).
FINNEY, CHARLES GRANDISON: Congregationalist, revivalist, theologian and president of Oberlin College; b. at Warren, Litchfield County, Conn., Aug. 29, 1792; d. at Oberlin, 0., Aug. 16, 1875. When he was two years old his parents removed to Oneida County, N. Y., thus placing him beyond the reach of more than a common school education. When about twenty he went to New Jersey, where he attended a high school and taught. In later years he acquired some knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. In 1818 he entered a law office in Adams, N. Y. At that time, he says, he was " almost as ignorant of religion as a heathen " (Autobiography, p. 7). His curiosity was excited by quotations from the Bible in his law books, and he purchased the first copy he had ever owned, and began to attend prayer-meeting and church.
His conversion in 1821 was remarkable for its THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOGsuddenness, thoroughness, and the definitely marked stages of his experience. After great mental agony, in which he prayed long and fervently, suddenly, he says, " the Holy Spirit descended upon me in a manner that seemed to go through me, body and soul. I could feel the impression like a wave of electricity going through and through me " (Autobiography, p. 20). Feeling an immediate call to preach, he forsook the law, was Conversion received under care of nresbyteFy
and Ac- (1822), and licensed to preach (1824). five Life. He at once turned his attention to revival labors, which were continued, with few interruptions until 1860, when he was forged to give up the work of an itinerant evangelist on account of age. These labors, beginning in western and central New York, were extended to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and other cities of the East, and reached to England in 1849 and 1858. In 1832 he accepted a call to the pastorate of the Second Free Church of New York City, and in 1834 another to the recently organised Congregational Church in the same city, known as the Broadway Tabernacle. In 1835 he went to Oberlin as professor of theology, and he continued to labor till the time of his death as instructor, pastor, and college president (1852). During his residence at Oberlin he continued, as before, to hold revival meetings.
As preacher Finney had rare gifts. Wherever he went extensive revivals prevailed. His manner was dramatic, direct, and personal. He used simple language and illustrations. His presentation was clear and strictly logical. He directed his appeals to the conscience, rather than to the emotions, and made it tremble and quake by his searching analysis of the motives of action. As Revival- He chose for themes passages which ist, Preach- delineate the sinner's condition as
er, and one of conscious alienation from God, Teacher. and sinning against him. He dwelt upon the enmity of the carnal mind, the want of holiness, and the certain destruction of the impenitent. He called upon his hearers to come to an immediate decision and submit to God. " Instead of telling sinners," he says, " to use the means of grace, and pray for a new heart, I called on them to make themselves a new heart and spirit, and pressed the duty of immediate surrender to God " (Autobiography, p. 189). These meetings were often accompanied by violent bodily manifestations; and Finney was in the habit of calling upon the audiences to go forward to the anxious-bench, or to rise in attestation of new resolutions. These methods, his directness and calls to repentance, his departure from the -doctrine of imputation and other features of the Calvinist theology early evoked criticism and strong opposition from religious associations and such church leaders as Asahel Nettleton and Lyman Beecher (qq.v.). In 1827 a convention was held at New Lebanon attended by Dr. Hawes of Hartford, Justin Edwards of Andover, Lyman Beecher of Boston, Dr. Beman of Troy, and others, to consider the matter. In course of time the opposition decreased (Autobiography, pp. 210-226).