The Awakening of 1792 Onward - Part 2

Do you pray before you eat? That's ordinary prayer. Do you pray in church? That's ordinary prayer. But when people pray all night, or get up at six in the morning to pray, or give up their lunch time to pray, that is extraordinary prayer. And that's what John Edwards pleaded for. After he died, a Scottish minister called John Erskine published the two books, the Scottish one and the American one, together. He sent a copy to Mr. Baptist, Dr. John Ryland, editor of the Baptist Register in Bristol, in England. John Ryland didn't want to throw away a book on prayer, so he sent the two copies, one to Andrew Fuller and the other to John Sutcliffe. They were men of prayer. Fuller took leave of absence and traveled the length and breadth of Britain urging the Baptists to set aside one day a month to pray for revival. Sutcliffe, for domestic reasons, didn't travel, but he had a very lively layman in his congregation called William Carey, afterwards the great missionary. And between them they started what they called the Union of Prayer. They got every church to set aside one day a month to pray for a spiritual awakening. Then the Congregationalists joined them. Then the Methodist Societies. And then Evangelicals of the Church of England and the Church of Scotland until Britain was interlaced with a network of prayer meetings. This was seven years before the French Revolution. John Wesley, still preaching in his 80s, died in 1791 and the revival began in 1792. It started in Yorkshire in the industrial heart of Britain and it started in prayer meetings. Not so much in preaching services, but in prayer meetings. However, I don't want to wear you with details about the British aspect of the revival, but I've told you of the terrible conditions in this country at that time. The first sign of the coming movement was 1792 in Boston where First Baptist Church had a series of meetings in the midst of a very cold winter, amidst blizzards and the like. So many converts were added to First and Second Baptist Churches. Now you know, of course, Boston at that time was a congregational city. But the Congregationalists had been turning to Unitarianism. In fact, only one Congregational church in the whole of Boston remained untouched and that was the Old South Church. But this little touch of revival did something to encourage people. Then about 1794, Isaac Bacchus, a godly New England minister, sent out a letter addressed to every Christian denomination in the United States saying that they ought to set aside time to pray because their back was to the wall. It was well received. The Presbyterian synods of New Jersey and Pennsylvania adopted it. Bishop Asbury adopted it for the Methodists. The Baptist associations, the Congregational associations, all the other denominations, one after the other, adopted this until the United States was interlaced with a network of prayer meetings praying that God would intervene in national affairs. The revival began towards 1796. By 1798 it was general. Churches crowded out. Now, the young people had been alienated from the churches but so great was the power of God that young people would be convicted of sin on the dance floor in the tavern and then leave and go on to seek spiritual counsel. This happened all over New England and by the way, I noticed every report it says, without extravagant outcry or ranting. There was a reason for that. In the wake of the former revival there was a man called Davenport who simply tried to exploit all the emotionalism of the previous revival. And so these ministers were careful to say it was a deep, solemn work of grace without any extravagance of feeling. I told you that in Lenox, Massachusetts the pastor hadn't taken anyone in to membership for 16 years but he said the showers of blessing began to fall and then they took in five times as many people as any previous year in the history of the church. The revival spread to New York and Philadelphia and then smaller towns. The western part of New York among the settlers had the most startling displays of excitement. Now, the population of the United States was largely east of the Alleghenies at that time. Three quarters of the population. And this was a deep, deep movement. Some pastors in New Jersey hit on the idea of having Aaron and Hur societies. That's a novel idea. You remember the story of Moses praying and while he held up his hands Israel prevailed over Amalek? But when his arms got tired then Aaron and Hur came and propped up his arms. These pastors got the praying people of the congregation to pray for them while they preached. The result was multitudes of conversions. I forgot to mention to you that the worst conditions in the United States at that time were in Kentucky and Tennessee. A committee of Congress discovered that there hadn't been more than one court of justice held in five years in Kentucky. The decent people formed vigilante regiments and fought the outlaws in a pitched battle and lost. So that Kentucky and Tennessee were like Sodom and Gomorrah to the Christians. Peter Cartwright, the Methodist evangelist said that when his father settled in Logan County, Kentucky it was known as Rogue's Harbor. If anyone committed a murder in Massachusetts or a robbery in Rhode Island all he'd do is get across the mountains and nobody could lay a finger on him. Now there was a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian minister called James McGrady whose chief claim to fame seemed to be that he was so ugly he attracted attention. People would stop in the street and say did you see that face? What does he do? They'd say he's a preacher. Then they reacted. They said a man with a handicap like that really must have something to say. So they'd come to hear him preach. They said his voice was tremulous, his gestures were coarse and it was altogether unprepossessing. He followed the immigrants over the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky and settled in Rogue's Harbor. He had three little box-like Presbyterian churches. He said the winter of 1799 for the most part was weeping and mourning with the people of God. But he was such a man of prayer he not only promoted the concert of prayer one day a month that all the churches were doing but he asked his people will you pray for me when the sun sets on Saturday for half an hour and when the sun rises on Sunday for half an hour. It was heartbreaking work but in 1800 there came a deluge of blessing. 17,000 people showed up for a communion service. Lots of them were not converted. So they had preaching before that. Then they had meetings as large as 25,000. This was the beginning of the great camp meeting movement. I said that in the eastern parts of the states there were no extravagances when in the western parts there were. There were people for instance who would scream under conviction. Some who would faint. Some who would tremble. Some who tremble so much they jerked. I read about all these things but one thing I couldn't understand was the reports that I had heard of barking. Now I have seen people who trembled. I saw a schoolboy tremble when he thought he was going to be expelled. I saw a soldier faint when he thought he was going to be shot at a court martial. As far as Dancing for Joy is concerned just look at the giveaway programs on TV and you'll see people dancing for joy. These things you can understand. But why should anyone bark? I decided to try and research this. I read a book by F.M. Davenport which said it was called Primitive Traits in Religious Revivals. It said there was barking on the frontier but it was not too common. I looked for a footnote to see where he got this. He didn't have any footnote. He didn't say where it happened. Then, 40 years later Professor Alice Tyler of the University of Minnesota wrote a book called Freedom's Ferment in which he said there was barking on the frontier and it was altogether too common. I looked for a footnote. It cited Davenport but he didn't say that. Then a Catholic writer Francis Xavier Curran wrote a book I've forgotten the title in which he said there was barking on the frontier and it was disgraceful. I looked for footnotes. Davenport and Tyler. So I thought well, let's go back that's what a historian does go back to books written at the time to see what they said then.