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people . There never was a P e e m the world who had less true religious freedom , less true freedom of thought aW feeling thaft > a congregation over whom this b / ooding incubus of a revival has settled itself he&vily down , Th « public mind not only must be , but ought to be ^ enslaved ^ if the pretensions of this system can be maintained . If miracles are passing about me I have nothing to do but to yield my mind up to them . The legitimate
consequence is mental servitude . We have already seen that licentiousness often succeeds the excesses of these revivals . And it would be strange if , in that total unhinging of the mind which is often produced by these extravagancies , the flood-gates of morality should not be borne away in the torrent of excitement . Excitement of itself is always dangerous ; and some of the circumstances of this are particularly so . Being constantl y abroad and in a crowd , and the evening meetings especially , which , night
after night , draw servants and young people from their homes , must haye a tendency to unsettle the mind , and to give it a distaste for the strictness and sobriety of every-day duties . But there is a higher morality , a morality touching all the relations of men one to another—the morality of kind thoughts , and forbearing words , and charitable judgments , and well-governed passions—the morality that requires modesty in the youngs sobriety and
self-restra int in the ardent and zealous , gentleness and peace among neighbours—this is scarcely to be found among Revivals . From such commonplace matters the public mind is turned to convictions and conversions , to glooms and raptures , to frames and experiences , to metaphysical processes of feeling , and mysterious dogmas of faith . The Revival conscience is a very different thing from the Christian conscience . Under extraordinary workings it affects extraordinary deeds ; and the exigency which a Revival presents is thought to justify otherwise questionable proceedings . There
are plans and combinations for getting possession of the public mind ; there is management for operating on individuals ; there are secret plottingsand whisperings , or bold iriuendoes , or rumours circulated on slight evidence , or easy inferences that in secret stab the fairest reputation , and there are cruel and shocking liberties taken with private feeling , from which a man , with any high tone of moral delicacy , would revolt , if his moral discrimination were not whelmed in this flood of excitement . These Revivals set aside all
means of improvement . Those who yield to their influence can thirik of nothing else . They cannot read history , they cannot attend the Mechanics ' Institute , they cannot do any thing for the improvement of the mind . Even schools are sometimes broken up for a season by these excitements . An eye-witness of the condition of things in the western part of the state of New
York , reports , that all social improvement is at end when oae of these Revivals comes—the people lose their interest in all intellectual pursuitsthe courtesies of life decline apace—the rudest liberties are taken with private character and feeling . If this system should be extended and consolidated , it would overshadow the moral and social prosperity of the whole country .
O for that warning voice , which he who saw TV Apocalypse , heard cry in heaven aloud , IVoe to the inhabitants on earth ! With such a voice we would warn our country . That gome good may attend on Revivals we do not question ; but except they are better conducted in England than they have been in America , the evil will be found so to preponderate as to render them a curse instead of a blessing . Let our
Untitled Article
564 The Watchman .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1829, page 564, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2575/page/44/
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