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18 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Revivals of Religion
But as the new century drew near, isolated revivals occurred in a number of places. In 1781
Dwight. college church to a point to which it had never before attained. Twelve years later, however, its visible effects had departed. Princeton College was in a condition quite similar to Yale. From 1778 to 1787 there had been a revival, under the lead of a layman, Joseph Patterson, in western Pennsylvania, and more than 1,000 persons professed conversion. In the winter of 1798 there was a great revival in western New York, and in 17961798 in western Connecticut and Massachusetts. But in eastern Massachusetts there was no revival from 1745 till long after 1800. The most important center of this revival was Yale College under Timothy Dwight. When he came to the presidency in 1795 he found infidelity very prevalent among the students, while the college church was almost extinct. Dwight began by discussing the fundamentals of theology with the senior students, and soon open infidelity passed away. But the " revival " proper did not break out in Yale College till 1802. A student destined to play a large part in later revivals, Lyman Beecher, was converted in 1795-96, but it was a case of solitary religious interest, beginning at home in consequence of a chance remark of his mother, but kept in progress largely by the sermons of Dwight in the college pulpit, and gradually developing into fixity of purpose to serve God. There were other solitary cases, but the college for some time went backward rather than forward. In 1799 only four or five undergraduates were members of the college church. But in 1801 desire for a revival began to be manifested, and in the spring of 1802 the work developed until seventy-five out of 230 students had been converted, of whom about one-half became ministers. There were later revivals in 1808, in 1812-13 with twenty converts; in 1815 with eighty; in 1831, and so on, so that up to 1837 there were seventeen distinct revivals in Yale College.
What Dwight was as a revivalist may be still more clearly seen from the work of his pupil, Lyman Beecher (q.v.). Settled in Easthampton in
spring, and in 1800 a marked revival, continuing six weeks, resulted in the conversion of eighty and the addition of fifty to the church. But the revival of 1807-08 brought out the principles upon which Beecher always conducted such work and showed what manner of man he was. From the general assembly at Newark he returned with "fire in his heart," and began with the young people; but when nothing " would take hold," he planned a series of sermons on election. He preached " cut and thrust, hip and thigh," but it was a new doctrine of election that he taught, under the influence of Dwight and Taylor, by which its eminent reasonableness was emphasized. The doctrine of eternal punishment was also so preached as to present " the kingdom of darkness . -
. as nothingbut the prison of the universe . . . and small compared to the realms of light and glory." It was the emancipation of the congregation from the domination of the instinctive emotion of overpowering fear.
While this early revival at Yale was proceeding quietly, avoiding excesses of every kind, in Kentucky in the year 1800 there was proceeding a revival which illustrated the dangers 3. $entuckywhich attend the supreme appeal to
Revival. fear in a population of a low grade of intellectual life. The Scotch-Irish im migration into America had brought into the moun tains of Kentucky and Tennessee a population which had degenerated in the seclusion of these re mote regions. Religion had lost its hold upon them. The " inhibitions " of both the intellectual and the moral natures were largely removed, and at the same time a condition of unstable equilibrium had been set up in the nervous system. They had to be ever upon the alert against the savages. Thus they lived in an environment of apprehension, the power of " latent fear " was therefore very great, and ex cessive emotional manifestations might be counted upon. This mountain population sent out num bers of emigrants as time went on, and about the year 1800 there had gathered in Logan County, in southwestern Kentucky, on the Tennessee border, a large population of this people, intermixed with numbers of violent and hardened criminals. An irregular government had been established in the interest of law and order, and a miniature civil war had been waged till finally the better elements had got the upper hand. The ministry of James Mc Gready, who came to this region in 1796, was from the first attended with great power. His preaching seems to have resembled that of Edwards. " He would so array hell before the wicked," it was said, " that they would tremble and quake, imagining a lake of fire and brimstone yawning to overwhelm them and the hand of the Almighty thrusting them down the horrible abyss.;' In 1799 he was holding a meeting at Red River for the purpose of observ ing the sacrament when violent physical demonstra tions began in the audience so that people fell from their seats to the floor. This was the beginning of a great epoch of nervous excitement in connection with revivals. The work spread to Pennsylvania and Ohio, and violent physical phenomena called " the jerks " prevailed. Great camp-meetings were gathered, and, like a contagion, excitement would run through the crowds assembled. People would continue for hours in an apparently breathless and motionless state; about one in every six would fall helpless to the earth, and one man jerked so vio lently as to snap his neck and die. It was not till the summer of 1803 that an end came to such mani festations.3. Theology of these Revivals: Theology had passed through a regular development since the time of Edwards. The treatise upon the freedom of the will, in which the great leader had pronounced for determinism, had led to a constant discussion of the whole psychology of revivals, and while this was conducted upon the universal plan of that day, the consultation of the individual consciousness, it had led to a gradual modification of determinism