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Page 56
Dr. Weiser proceeds: "Many of our churches that fostered this
system were in the end injured by it.... Under the revival system it
was very natural for the people to become dissatisfied with the
ordinary means of Grace. There was a constant longing for excitement,
and when the ebullition of feeling abated, many thought they had 'lost
their religion.' The next move was that as the preacher was so dead
and lifeless they must get another who had more fire, and thus the old
pastor was sent adrift."
Elsewhere Dr. Weiser has clearly expressed himself as having
become firmly convinced that the old churchly method of careful and
systematic instruction of the young, is the only sure and safe way of
building up the Church. He also quotes Dr. Morris as saying: "The
mourners' bench was introduced into Lutheran churches in imitation of
the Methodists, and disorders, such as shouting, clapping of hands,
groaning, and singing of choruses of doggerel verses to the most
frivolous tunes, whilst ministers or members, and sometimes women,
were engaged in speaking to the mourners. Feelings were aroused, as
usual, by portraying the horrors of hell, reciting affecting stories,
alluding to deaths in families, violent vociferation, and other means.
At prayer often all would pray as loud as the leader. These exercises
would continue night after night, until the physical energies were
exhausted."
Dr. H.E. Jacobs, in his preface to Rev. G.H. Trabert's tract on
Genuine versus Spurious Revivals, writes thus of the system: "This
system, if system it may be called, is in many of its elements simply
a reproduction of the Romish errors against which our fathers bore
testimony in the days of the Reformation. Wide as is the apparent
difference, we find in both the same corruption of the doctrine of
justification by faith alone without works, the same ignoring of the
depths of natural depravity, the same exaltation of human strength and
merit, the same figment of human preparation for God's Grace, the same
confounding of the fruits of faith with the conditions of faith, the
same aversion to the careful study of God's Word, the same
indifference to sound doctrine, and the same substitution of
subjective frames of mind and forms of experience for the great
objective facts of Christianity, as the grounds of God's favor.
"In both cases, all spiritual strength, which is inseparable from
complete dependence solely upon the Word and promise of God, and not
in any way upon human sensations and preparations, is either withheld,
destroyed, or greatly hindered; and uncertainty and vacillation,
despair, infidelity and ruin, often end the sad story of those who are
thus left without any firm support amidst the trials of life, and
under the strokes of God's judgments.
"The same Church which in the days of the Reformation raised her
voice against these errors, when she found the entire life of
Christianity endangered by them, can be silent in the present hour,
when the same errors appear all around her, only by betraying her
trust, and incurring the guilt of the faithless watchman who fails to
give alarm."
Let us hear also the testimony of our late lamented Dr. Krauth.
He says, as quoted by Rev. Trabert: "How often are the urging that we
are all one, the holding of union meetings, the effusive rapture of
all-forgiving, all-forgetting, all-embracing love, the preliminary to
the meanest sectarian tricks, dividing congregations, tearing families
to pieces, and luring away the unstable. The short millennium of such
love is followed by the fresh loosing of the Satan of malevolence out
of his prison, and the clashing in battle of the Gog and Magog of
sectarian rivalry. There is no surer preparation for bitter strife,
heart-burnings, and hatred, than these pseudo unionistic combinations.
One union revival has torn religious communities into hateful
divisions which have never been healed.... And none have suffered so
much, by these arts, as our Lutheran people, who, free from guile
themselves, did not suspect it in others. Well might we ask with the
'Apology:' 'Are they not ashamed to talk in such terms of love, and
preach love, and cry love, and do everything but practice love?'"
In conclusion we wish to present the testimony of some of the
most eminent divines of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Of all others
they will certainly not be accused of being prejudiced against modern
revivals. And of all modern revivals, those conducted by the
Evangelists, Moody and Sankey, are probably the least objectionable.
At the close of the celebrated "Hippodrome revival," in New York
City, conducted by Messrs Moody and Sankey, in the spring of 1876, the
Methodist Episcopal ministers, at a stated meeting, reviewed the
revival and its results. The New York _Herald_ gave the following
account of their meeting, which we copy from Rev. Trabert's tract:
"The Methodist ministers had under consideration the question of the
value of special evangelistic efforts in regular Church work, with
particular reference to the number of Hippodrome converts who may have
united with their churches. For two weeks a member of the Hippodrome
committee had distributed cards to the preachers with the names of
persons who declared themselves converts of Mr. Moody's meetings. Four
thousand had been reported as the fruits of the ten weeks special
effort. Ten thousand inquirers had been reported.
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