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souls in one day were brought under deep conviction of sin, and presently into the light and liberty of the Gospel. So, too, in 1638, on the occasion of signing the covenant, the whole country was stirred as by the mighty hand of God. Such was the preparation in Scotland, and in England, also, for the great reformation that issued in the commonwealth under Cromwell and the prevalence of Puritanism in the Church of England.

III. In America.-1. Revivals under Fdwards: The earliest period of New England history was a period of almost constant revival, for religion was the chief interest of the Pilgrim and Puritan churches, and revivals of a 1. Revival leas continuous type were not infre of 1734-36. quent in the later years of their first century and the beginning of the next. Increase Mather was a powerful revival preacher. Both the father and the grandfather (Solomon Stoddard, q.v.) of Jonathan Edwards had revivals in their parishes. But the history of American revivals, as a distinct element of the religious life, begins properly in 1734 with the preaching of a series of sermons by Edwards, at Northampton, upon justification by faith. There had at this date been no considerable additions to the village church for a long time. The religious condition of the church had become low, and that of the community around it worse. Interest began among the young and spread to the old. Five or six persons were converted; and then, all at once, the community as a whole began to manifest an absorbing interest in personal religion. Religious meetings became thronged. In half a year about 300 persons were converted, embracing nearly all the town above sixteen years of age. The revival was not limited to Northampton, but spread, partly with the active cooperation of Edwards, to most of the towns about, then into Connecticut, and even into New Jersey. The means taken to extend the revival were the simple and ordinary services of the house of God, special meetings for a lecture by the minister, followed by meetings for prayer, group meetings of young and of old, and private interviews by the pastor with persona specially concerned. The sermons upon justification were upon the traditional lines of Calvinistic theology, and great emphasis was laid upon what " justice " would demand in God's treatment of men, and upon the utter lack of claim that any sinner had upon God for favorable treatment. And the sovereignty of God was so emphasized as to give the impression that, even after the sinner has repented, it may be entirely uncertain whether God will forgive him or notl Still, Edwards took occasion to encourage the diffident with the assurance of the goodness of God, and that it is his " manner " to give success to diligence. The great motive employed was, however, fear. It was Edwards' purpose to produce conviction of sin and a sense of the great danger in which the

soul stood of suffering the torments of an eternal hell.

In the spring of 1740 the spirit of revival was again present. The same increasing seriousness as had ushered in the former revival was observed. Some conversions occurred. And in

$· Great October George Whitefield (q.v.), who Awskeniag,had come to New England from Geor-

1740' gia, and was preaching from place to place with great power, to immense assemblies of people, arrived in Northampton. While his coming does not seem to have had a revolutionary influence, he was largely instrumental in producing the general prevalence of a revival which was limited to no part of the country, and enlisted the active cooperation of a large number of effective preachers. Of these one of the most famous was Gilbert Tennent (q.v.). Edwards himself joined in the itinerant work in which Whitefield took the lead. In this revival, as in the former, the great appeal was to fear. It was at this time that the famous sermon of Edwards upon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God was preached at Enfield, Conn. " Before the sermon was ended, the assembly appeared deeply impressed and bowed down with an awful conviction of their sin and danger. There were such manifestations of distress and weeping that the preacher was obliged to speak to the people and desire silence that he might be heard. This was the beginning of the same great and prevailing concern in that place with which the colony in general was visited."

Had the revival been. confined to places under the influence of Edwards ad his more immediate associates, it may be that comparatively