p. 149 | The Coming Revival by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 11, 1875

The Coming Revival.

By Uriah Smith

MESSRS. MOODY AND SANKEY have commenced their labors in Brooklyn, and a general expectation is beginning to prevail of a wonderful revival work in this country, similar to that which so recently attended their efforts in Great Britain. But before allowing expectation to run too high as to permanent results, it would be well to look over the field which they have just left, and mark what results are now to be seen there. The Covenanter, published in Londonderry, Ireland, has the following article on this subject:—

“A very suggestive document is now before the public, which has been called ‘The Revival Balance Sheet.’ It is the financial account of the committees who had charge of the movement in London in which Messrs. Moody and Sankey were central figures. The receipts reached a total of £28,238, from 2,578 subscribers. One gave £550, seven gave £500 each, twelve £250 each, forty-six £100 each, thirty-six £10 10s each, two hundred and nine £10 each, sixty-nine £5 5s, and four hundred and sixty-nine £5 each. Only twenty-seven sent in half-a-crown each, and, stranger still, only fifteen contributed a shilling each. The significance of these figures cannot be exaggerated, and the feeling they are calculated to excite is deepened when we remember the daily advertisements of the committee, calling on those who had received benefit to contribute. We read of the thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands, who filled the places of assembly, of the multitudes who crowded the ‘inquiry rooms.’ If a hundred thousand had sent in a shilling each the balance sheet would have surprised us less. But what of the spiritual results? These can only be known by their effects. We have seen that the money raised came from a comparatively small number, and these among the wealthy classes. The prayer-meeting has dwindled down almost to nothing. Where thousands assembled when Moody, Sankey, and the American organ were present, only from ten to twenty are to be found. The requests for prayer, which took so long to read that they had to be classified, have all but ceased. A large increase of church membership was expected, particularly in the north of London, round the Agricultural Hall, where the meetings were so crowded. But, instead, the ministers report an actual decrease in the number of those seeking the membership of the church. During the past two years about a quarter of a million has been expended on the work of these Americans. We look for results in vain. If the same amount had been expended on the ordinary means of grace, some solid and lasting results would have been obtained. In four months, in London alone, a sum has been expended more than six times the income of the Home Missionary Society, and more than one-fourth of the entire revenue of the London Missionary Society. The worst of all this is that the money that used to be given to these most beneficial societies, and to others of the same class, has been lavished on this so-called revival.”

So it seems that after so brief a time scarcely a trace of the great movement is to be found. Contributions to the more permanent religious organizations have fallen off heavily, the membership of the churches has decreased, and the prayer-meeting has almost ceased to exist. Does not this show that there is a radical defect somewhere in the method or matter of the religious teaching of to-day. We claim that it leaves out the demands of the law, and the work of true conviction of sin, and repentance by godly sorrow for transgression, and forsaking of evil ways with brokenness of heart. God is calling upon the people to reform in their observance of his law, and this, too, in view of the soon-coming Judgment, evidences of which he is holding out before their eyes; and it is fast becoming evident that in this age of intense worldliness and irreligion, nothing short of these great truths, that God has an immutable law which holds under sentence of death every transgressor, and that the Judge standeth before the door, soon to reward every man as his work shall be, is sufficient to restrain men and hold them to an active religious life. Hence every movement which leaves out these elements is short-lived. And though a great excitement is created, and multitudes are moved, and thousands upon thousands profess to be converted, as the prophet says, Hos. 5: 6, 7, a moth devours them with their portions.

U. S.