AFTERMATH.
The effects of that great awakening which we have thus attempted
concisely, but fairly, to delineate, are with us still; the strength is
diffused, the tone and colour are modified. One chief purpose has guided
the pen of the writer throughout: it has been to show that the immense
regeneration effected in English manners and society during the later
years of the last century and the first of the present, was the result
of a secret, silent, most subtle spiritual force, awakening the minds
and hearts of men in most opposite parts of the nation, and in widely
different social circumstances. We would give all honour where honour is
due, remembering that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from
above.” There are writers whose special admiration is given to some
favourite sect, some effective movement, or some especially beloved
name; but a dispassionate view, an entrance—if we may be permitted so to
speak of it—into the camera, the chamber of the times, presents to the
eye a long succession of actors, and brings out into the clear light a
wonderful variety of influences all simultaneously at work to redeem
society from its darkness, and to give it a higher degree of spiritual
purity and mental and moral dignity.
The first great workers were passing away, most of them, as is usually
the case, dying on Pisgah, seeing most distinctly the future results of
their work, but scarcely permitted to enter upon the full realisation of
it. In 1791, in the eighty-fourth year of her age, died the revered
Countess of Huntingdon; her last words, “My work is done; I have nothing
to do but to go to my Father!” No chronicle of convent or of
canonisation, nor any story of biography, can record, a more simple,
saintly, and utterly unselfish life. To the last unwearied, she was
daily occupied in writing long letters, arranging for her many
ministers, disposing of her chapel trusts; sometimes feeling that her
rank, and certain suppositions as to the extent of her wealth, made her
an object upon which men were not indisposed to exercise their rapacity.
Still, as compared with the state of society when she commenced her
work, in this her closing year, she must have looked over a hopeful and
promising future, as sweet and enchanting as the ineffably lovely
scenery upon which her eyes opened at Castle Doddington, and the
neighbouring beauties of her first wedded home.
[Illustration:
JOHN WESLEY’S TOMB, CITY ROAD, LONDON.
]
In 1791, John Wesley, in his eighty-eighth year, entered into his rest,
faithfully murmuring, as well as weakness and stammering lips could
articulate, “The best of all is, God is with us!” Abel Stevens says,
“His life stands out in the history of the world, unquestionably
pre-eminent in religious labours above that of any other man since the
apostolic age.” It is not necessary, in order to do Wesley sufficient
honour, to indulge in such invidious comparisons. It is significant,
however, that the last straggling syllables which ever fell from the pen
in his beloved hand, were in a letter to William Wilberforce, cheering
him on in his efforts for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade.
Charles Wesley had preceded his brother to his rest in 1788, in the
eightieth year of his age.
[Illustration:
JOHN WESLEY. M.A.
BORN JUNE 17, 1703; DIED MARCH 2, 1791.
CHARLES WESLEY. M.A.
BORN DECEMBER 18, 1708; DIED MARCH 29, 1788.
“THE BEST OF ALL IS, GOD IS WITH US.”
“I LOOK UPON ALL THE WORLD AS MY PARISH.”
The Wesley Monument.
]
Thus the earlier labourers were passing away, and the work of the
Revival was passing into other forms, illustrating how not only “one
generation passeth away, and another cometh,” but also how, as the
workers pass, the work abides. It would be very pleasant to spend some
time in noticing the interior of many old halls, which were now opening,
at once for the entertainment of evangelists, and for Divine service;
prejudices were dying out, and so far from the new religious life
proving inimical to the repose of the country, it was found to be
probably its surest security and friend; and while the efforts were
growing for carrying to far-distant regions the truth which enlightens
and saves, anecdotes are not wanting to show that it was this very
spirit which created a tender interest in maintaining and devising means
to make more secure the minister’s happiness at home.
From many points of view William Wilberforce maybe regarded as the
central man of the Revival in its new and crowning aspect; as he bore
the standard of England at that great funeral which did honour to all
that was mortal of his friend William Pitt, on its way to the vaults of
the old Abbey, so, as his predecessors departed, it devolved on him to
bear the standard of those truths and principles which had effected the
great change, and which were to effect, if possible, yet greater
changes. By his sweet, winning, and if silvery, yet enchaining and
overwhelming eloquence, by his conversation, which cannot have been,
from the traditions which are preserved of it, less than wonderful, and
by his lucid and practical pen, he continued to give eminent effect to
the Revival, and to procure for its doctrines acceptance in the highest
circles of society. It is perhaps difficult now to understand the cause
of the wonderful influence produced by his _Practical View of
Christianity_; that book itself illustrates how the seeds of things are
transmitted through many generations. It is a long way to look back to
the poor pedlar who called at the farm door of Richard Baxter’s father
in Eaton-Constantine, and sold there Richard Sibbs’s _Bruised Reed_, but
that was the birth-hour of that great and transcendently glorious book,
_The Saint’s Everlasting Rest_. _The Saint’s Everlasting Rest_ was the
inspiration of Philip Doddridge, and to it we owe his _Rise and Progress
of Religion in the Soul_. Wilberforce read that book, and it moved him
to the desire to speak out its earnestness, pathos, and solemnity in
tones suitable to the spirit of the Great Revival which had been going
on around him. A young clergyman read the result of Wilberforce’s wish
in his _Practical View of Christianity_, and he testifies, “To that book
I owe a debt of gratitude; to my unsought and unexpected introduction to
it, I owe the first sacred impressions which I ever received as to the
spiritual nature of the Gospel system, the vital character of personal
religion, the corruption of the human heart, and the way of salvation by
Jesus Christ.” And all this was very shortly given to the world in those
beautiful pieces, which it surely must be ever a pleasure to read,
whether, for their tender delineation of the most important truths, or
the exquisite language, and the delightful charm of natural scenery and
pathetic reflection in which the experiences of _The Young Cottager_,
_The Dairyman’s Daughter_, and other “short and simple annals of the
poor,” are conveyed through the fascinating pen of Legh Richmond.
In this eminently lovely and lovable life we meet with one on whom,
assuredly, the mantle of the old clerical fathers of the Revival had
fallen. He was a Churchman and a clergyman, he loved and honoured his
Church and its services exceedingly; but it seems impossible to detect,
in any single act of his life or word of his writings, a tinge of
acerbity or bitterness. The quiet and mellowed charm of his tracts—which
are certainly among the finest pieces of writing in that way which we
possess—appear to have pervaded his whole life. Brading, in the Isle of
Wight, has been marvellously transformed since he was the vicar of its
simple little church; the old parsonage, where little Jane talked with
her pastor, is now only a memory, and no longer, as we saw it first many
years since, a feature in the charming landscape; and the little
epitaphs which the vicar himself wrote for the stones, or wooden
memorials over the graves of his parishioners, are all obliterated by
time. Several years since we sought in vain for the sweet verse on his
own infant daughter, although about thirty-five years since we read it
there:
“This early bud, so young and fair,
Called hence by early doom,
Just came to show how sweet a flower
In Paradise should bloom.”
But these little papers of this excellent man circulated wherever the
English language was spoken or read, and the spirit of their pages
penetrated farther than the pages themselves; while they seem to present
in a more pleasant, winning and portable form the spirit of the Revival,
divested of much of the ruggedness which had, naturally, characterized
its earlier pens.
Indeed, if some generalisation were needed to express the phase into
which the Revival was passing, at this, the earlier part of the present
century, it should be called the “literary.” Eminent names were
appearing, and eminent pens, to gather up the elements of faith which
had moved the minds and tongues of men in past years, and to arrest the
conscience through the eye. This opens up a field so large that we
cannot do justice to it in these brief sketches. To name here only one
other writer;—Thomas Scott, the commentator on the Bible, and author of
_The Force of Truth_, is acknowledged to have exerted an influence the
greatness of which has been described in glowing terms by men such as
Sir. James Stephen and John Henry Newman.
[Illustration:
CHARLES SIMEON.
]
No idea can be formed by those of the present generation of the immense
influence Charles Simeon exercised over the mind of the Church of
England. He was the leader of the growing evangelical party in the
Church; his doctrines were exactly those which had been the favourite on
the lips of Whitefield, Berridge, Grimshaw, and Newton. His family was
ancient and respectable, he was the son of a Berkshire squire. He had
been educated at Eton, and afterwards at King’s College, Cambridge; he
became very wealthy. His accession to the life of the Revival seemed
like an immense addition of natural influence: he was faithful and
earnest, and, in the habits of his mind and character, exactly what we
understand by the thorough English gentleman; almost may it be said that
he made the Revival “gentlemanly” in clergymen. He opened the course of
his fifty-six years’ ministry in Cambridge amidst a storm of
persecution; the church wardens attempted to crush him, the pews of his
church were locked up, and he was even locked out of the building.
Through all this he passed, and he became, for the greater part of the
long period we have mentioned, the most noted preacher of his town and
university; and he published, certainly, in his _Horæ Homileticæ_ a
greater number of attempts at opening texts in the form of sermons, than
had ever been given to the world. Simeon devoted his own fortune and
means for the purchase of advowsons, in order that the pulpits of
churches might be filled by the representatives of his own opinions. No
history of the Revival can be complete without noticing this phase,
which scattered over England, far more extensively than can be here
described, a new order of clergyman, who have maintained in their
circles evangelical truth, and have held no inconsiderable sway over the
mind of the country.
We only know history through men; events are only possible through men,
of whose mind and activity they are the manifestation. This brief
succession of sketches has been very greatly a series of portraits
standing out prominently from the scenery to which the character gave
effect; but of this singular, almost simultaneous movement, how much has
been left unrecorded! It remains unquestionably true that no adequate
and perfectly impartial review of the Revival has ever yet been written.
[Illustration:
Boston Elm.
]
The story of the Revival in Wales, what it found there, and what it
effected, is one of its most interesting chapters. How deep was the
slumber when, about 1735-37, Howell Harris began to traverse the
Principality, exhorting his neighbours concerning the interests of their
souls! another illustration that it was not from one single spring that
the streams of the Revival poured over the land. It was rather like some
great mountain, such as Plinlimmon, from whose high centre, elevated
among the clouds, leap forth five rivers, meandering among the rocks in
their brook-like way, until at last they pour themselves along the
lowlands in broad and even magnificent streams, either uniting as the
Severn and the Wye, or finding their separate way to the ocean.
Whitefield found his way to Wales, but Howell Harris was already pouring
out his consecrated life there; to his assistance came the voice of
Rowlands, “the thunderer,” as he was called. Scientific sermon-makers
would say that Harris was no great preacher; but he has been described
as the most successful and wonderful one who ever ascended pulpit or
platform in the Principality. By the mingling of his tears and his
terrors, in seven years he roused the whole country from one end to the
other, north and south; communicating the impulse of his zeal to many
like-minded men, by whose impassioned words and indefatigable labours
the work was continued with signal and lasting results.[20]
Footnote 20:
See a series of papers on “Welsh Preaching and Preachers” in the
_Sunday at Home_, for 1876.
If the first throbbings of the coming Revival were felt in Northampton,
in America, in 1734, beneath the truly awful words of the great Jonathan
Edwards, it was from England it derived its sustenance, and assumed
organisation and shape. The Boston Elm, a venerable tree near the centre
of Boston Park, or common, whose decayed limbs are still held together
by clamps or rivets of iron, while a railing defends it from rude hands,
is an object as sacred to the traditions of Methodism in the United
States, as is Gwennap Pit to those of Methodism in Western England.
There Jesse Lee, the first founder of Methodism in New England,
commenced the work in 1790, which has issued in an organisation even
more extensive and gigantic than that which is associated with the
Conference in England. As the United States have inherited from the
mother country their language, their literature, and their principles of
law, so also those great agitations of spiritual life to which we have
concisely referred, crossed the Atlantic, and spread themselves with
power there.[21]
Footnote 21:
See Chapter XIV., The Revival in the New World.
It is not within our province to attempt to enumerate all the sects,
each with its larger or lesser proportion of spiritual power, religious
activity, and general acceptance among the people, to which the Revival
gave birth;—such as the large body of the Bible Christians of the West
of England; the Primitive Methodists of the North, those who called
themselves the New Connection Methodists, or the United Free Church
Association. All these, and others, are branches from the great central
stem. Neither is it in our province to notice how the same universal
agitation of religious feeling, at exactly the same time, gave birth to
other forms, not regarded with so much complacency;—such as the rugged
and faulty faith and following of that curious creature, William
Huntington, who, singular to say, found also his best biographer in
Robert Southey; or the strangely multifarious works and rationalistic
development of Baron Swedenborg, which have, at least, the merit of
giving a more spiritual rendering to the Christian system than that
which was found in the prevalent Arianism of the period of their
publication. Turn wherever we may, it is the same. There was a deeper
upheaving of the religious life, and far more widely spread, than
perhaps any age of the world since the time of the apostles had known
before.
A change passed over the whole of English society. That social state
which we find described in the pages of Fielding and Smollett, and less
respectable writers, passed away, and passed away, we trust, for ever.
The language of impurity indulged with freedom by the dramatists of the
period when the Revival arose, and read, and read aloud, by ladies and
young girls in drawing-rooms, or by parlour firesides, became shameful
and dishonoured. In the course of fifty years, society, if not entirely
purged—for when may we hope for that blessedness?—was purified. A sense
of religious decorum, and some idea of religious duty, took possession
of homes and minds which were not at all impressed, either by the
doctrines or the discipline of Methodism. All this arose from the new
life which had been created.
It was a fruitful soil upon which the revivalists worked. There was a
reverence for the Bible as the word of God, a faith often held very
ignorantly, but it pervaded the land. The Book was there in every parish
church, and in every hamlet; it became a kind of nexus of union for true
minds when they felt the power of Divine principles. Thus, when, as the
Revival strengthened itself, the great Evangelic party—a term which
seems to us less open to exception than “the Methodist party,” because
far more inclusive—met with the members of the Society of Friends, they
found that, with some substantial differences, they had principles in
common. The Quakers had been long in the land, but excepting in their
own persons—and they were few in number—they had not given much effect
to their principles. Methodism roused the country; Quakerism, with its
more quiet thought, gave suggestions, plans, largely supplied money. The
great works which these two have since unitedly accomplished of
educating the nation, and shaking off the chain of the slave abroad,
neither could have accomplished singly; the conscience of the country
was prepared by Evangelic sentiment. In taking up and working out the
great ideas of the Revival, we have never been indifferent to the share
due to members of the Society of Friends. We have already spoken of
Elizabeth Fry, to whom many of the princes of Europe in turn paid
honour, to whom with singular simplicity they listened as they heard her
preach. There are many names on which we should like a little to dwell;
missionaries as arduous and earnest as any we have mentioned, such as
Stephen Grellet, Thomas Shillitoe, and Thomas Chalkley. But this would
enter into a larger plan than we dare to entertain. Our object now is
only to say, how greatly other nations, and the world at large, have
benefited by the awakening the conscience, the setting free the mind,
the education of the character, by bringing all into immediate contact
with the Word of God and the truth which it unveils.
Situated as we are now, amidst the movements and agitations of uncertain
seas of thought, wondering as to the future, with strong adjurations on
every hand to renounce the Word of Life, and to trust ourselves to the
filmy rationalism of modern speculation; while we feel that for the
future, and for those seas over which we look there are no tide-tables,
we may, at least, safely affirm this, that the Bible carries us beyond
the highest water-mark; that, as societies have constructed themselves
out of its principles they have built safely, not only for eternal hope,
but for human and social happiness also; and we may safely ask human
thought—which, unaided and unenlightened by revelation, has had a pretty
fair field for the exercise and display of its power in the history of
the world—to show to us a single chapter in all the ages of its history,
which has effected so much for human, spiritual, intellectual, and
social well-being, as that which records the results of the Great
Revival of the Last Century.
------------------------------------------------------------------------