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of enthusiastic feeling and pomantia incident ; t * B wearied , with excessive excitement , they sink down fo ? a season into a natdral declension , which they bewail as a departure of the spirit of > God and * the hiding of God ' s countenance , ' and from which condition they continually sigh and pray to be delivered by another extraordinary outpouring of the Holy Spirit . Thus
do they live in a continual undulation of feeling , emphatically termed experience ; to-day elevated with a sense of the sovereign and eternal love of God , to-morrow depressed with dark and gloomy fears . " The following shews much good sense : " All popular excitement connected with reli g ion ought to be very carefully analysed . Such an excitement might , without much difficulty , be effected by design among a certain class and in
particular localities ; it js favoured by wild , secluded , mountainous scenery ; igno- > ranee , superstition , conscious guilt , curiosity , sympathy , melancholy , enthusiasm , all minister to it . Towns and cities , therefore , as well as remote places , may become a theatre for the display of such popular feeling ; nay , there can be no doubt of the fact that in certain connexions in our own country , individuals have been shunned and disowned by the body to which they are attached , solely on account of the disrepute which their attempts to effect a religious revival , so called , have brought upon them . "
A common practice at conference and prayer meetings in America has been to mention individuals by name in prayer , and to call down fire from heaven upon them and their families if they continued their opposition to the great work : for instance— " O God , send trouble , anguish , and affliction , into his bed-chamber this night ; shake his house over him , and cause him to tremble ; God Almighty , shake him over hell . " As another means
of effecting their object , the fomenters of these excitements have relied much on what are called " inquiry meetings" and " anxious meetings , " In the latter part of these meetings the question is put generall y * ** Who wishes to be prayed for to-night , or who is willing to give up his soul to God * fl In one of these meetings , after getting several small girls on their knees to be prayed for , Mr . Finney told them that if they got up without giving up their hearts to God , their doom would be sealed for ever . The " anxious
meetings" have been generally held in the night . The room is darkened . The leaders tread softly as they proceed whispering to each person a question , such as , " Do you love God ? " * ' Have you got a hope ? " " Don't you feel awful ? " One was asked , " Well , Mr . P ., what do you think ?" ** God knows ray thoughts , " said Mr . P . " I know that , " replied the minister , " and so do L" " No , Sir , " said Mr , P . ; " you cannot know
my thoughts . " "It will not do , Mr . P ., " was the reply , "to tell a minister of the gospel that he does not know your thoughts . " In such scenes the whole night has sometimes been spent . There is also what is called " particular * ity" in prayer , effective , we suppose , for the objects of the Revivalists , but thoroughly offensive and shocking . The first thing is to introduce the individual by name . The next is to tell what God knows of the person . If perchance the subject be a female , her sex must first be noticed , followed
with , « O Lord , thou seest this hardened enemy of thine . Thou seest how she has raised her female hands against thee , and how she is stretching out her puny female hands to lay hold of thee and pull thee from thy throne . See , Lord , how full her hands are of sharp arrows to fight thee . Thou seest how she is hurling her defiance at thee * Thou knowest how black her heart is , and how her enmity to Jthee rankles and burns with all the malice of a demon . " And if she be present it is added , " Thou seest how she has come in here with thy little ones , too proud to kneel before thee . Thou
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The Wat&hman . 569
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1829, page 559, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2575/page/39/
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