The effects of evangelical awakening in America in the eighteenth century continued in the lives and homes of many, but by the end of the century there was, as far as the public profession of Christianity was concerned, an alarming decline. Partly on account of the War of Independence and partly on account of the spread of infidelity, a season of darkness had overtaken the land. Some went so far as to say that the Church was “too far gone” ever to be revived. Lawlessness and violence were rampant.
It was a time when the settlers were moving rapidly into the untilled and virgin lands of the West. A large part of the population was widely scattered. Then there was a movement of the Spirit of God, arousing many from their slumber. William and John McGee began to preach throughout Kentucky and Tennessee. Their words were accompanied with power, and crowds were drawn together from considerable distances to hear them.
In July 1800, in the woods of Logan County, a large number of families gathered together, camping with their horse teams, to enjoy Christian fellowship and preaching. This is said to have been the first of the American camp meetings. It arose out of the need felt by these scattered families to seek the fellowship and edification of which their isolation deprived them.
A Presbyterian minister named Stone, from Cane Ridge in Bourbon County, made a special journey to see for himself what was taking place. He was convinced, in spite of certain features of fanaticism, which he attributed to the enemy’s attempt to discredit the movement, that it was a real work of God. He told his own people about it and they were greatly impressed.
In August 1801, a similar and immense concourse met at Cane Ridge. The numbers were estimated at twenty to thirty thousand. Ministers of various denominations preached, and there seems to have been a remarkable unity. They sang the same hymns, united in prayer and preached the same gospel. Many were converted.
One who made special inquiry into the results reported:
“On my way, I was informed by settlers on the road that the character of Kentucky travelers was entirely changed and that they were as remarkable for sobriety as they had formerly been for dissoluteness and immorality. ... A profane expression was hardly ever heard. A religious awe seemed to pervade the country. Upon the whole, I think the revival in Kentucky the most extraordinary that has ever visited the Church of Christ. ... Infidelity was triumphant and religion on the point of expiring. Something extraordinary seemed necessary to arrest the attention of a giddy people who were ready to conclude Christianity was a fable and futurity a delusion. This revival has done it. It has confounded infidelity and brought numbers beyond calculation under serious impressions.”
Similar reports are recorded by others. Strange scenes were witnessed. People fell prostrate on the ground or showed symptoms of distress or lack of control. Such phenomena had sometimes accompanied Wesley’s preaching. It may have been due in some cases to acute distress of mind, as the sense of their lost condition was brought home to them. Other cases may have been due to the efforts of the enemy to counteract, imitate or discredit the work of God. Men who came to scoff and ridicule were sometimes affected by a sort of nervous convulsion which was beyond their power to control.
In the more populous East, a steady and less spectacular work began in the closing years of the eighteenth century. But there was no excitement. The growth of infidelity was checked and the labors of faithful preachers resulted in a slow but steady increase of believers.
About the year 1821, a young lawyer was led to deep soul exercise through reading the Bible. In great distress of soul, he was led to cry to God for mercy, and the way of salvation was made clear to him from Scripture. He had a very real sense that he had received the Holy Spirit. It became thenceforth his great desire to preach the gospel. “I found,” he said, “I was unwilling to do anything else. I had no longer any desire to practice law. ... I had no disposition to make money. I had no hungering and thirsting after worldly pleasures and amusements in any direction. My whole mind was taken up with Jesus and His salvation, and the world seemed to me of little consequence. Nothing, it seemed to me, could be put in competition with the worth of souls, and no labor I thought could be so sweet and no employment so exalted as that of holding up Christ to a dying world.”
With such impressions on his mind, he approached the first person he could find, a young man who believed in Universalism, whom he led to the Lord. “I spoke,” he records in his memoirs, “with many persons that day, and I believe the Spirit of God made lasting impressions on every one of them.” He became a powerful evangelist, which is not the same as an eloquent preacher. Many said he “just talked” to people, but there was power in his message, and for fifty years his labors were followed by much blessing. This was C. G. Finney, one of the most outstanding of American evangelists. In 1830, less than ten years after his conversion, his preaching in Rochester, New York, resulted in a large number of conversions. Many of the leading citizens were converted, and the moral state of the city was quite changed. He preached in many parts of America and twice visited England. It has been said that during the fifty years of his service, he was instrumental in leading 250,000 persons to the Saviour. He died in 1875, almost at the close of his eighty-third year.
The first half of the nineteenth century in America was marked by a great influx of immigrants. Coming largely from Europe, they brought with them their own ecclesiastical links, so that the religious complexion of America became largely a reflection of what existed in Europe. There were certain sects which are, so to speak, indigenous to America, such as the Disciples of Christ who originated with two men named Stone and Campbell, the latter having come from Ireland. They professed to take the Bible as their only guide and to be unsectarian, but in time they became another denomination, one which is still numerous.
In 1831 a farmer named Miller began to disseminate the view that the coming of Christ to judge the world was at hand. From certain calculations which he based on Daniel and Revelation, he fixed the date as April 23, 1843. Excitement and panic were widespread as the day approached. When the day passed uneventfully, scoffers mocked, the credulous were shaken by disappointment, but others were sobered and remembered the Lord’s words, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power” (Acts 1:77And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. (Acts 1:7)).