Religious Revivals

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 1, 1863

Religious Revivals.

[THE following pertinent remarks are from The Chronicle, a journal of high order in the Baptist persuasion.]

“Those who follow the profession of revival-making are prone to take the work into their own hands, and to get up a sensation by foul means, if they cannot do it by fair. Oddity, noise, denunciation, attacks on private character, and everything to kindle the passions and set tongues in motion, are resorted to, to accomplish their object. If the people will not pray, they must be made to curse; if they will not acquiesce, they must be excited to malignant opposition; if they cannot be persuaded, they must be repelled, and thus in some way the social elements must be raised to a tempest to ensure notoriety to those who assume to be leaders on the occasion. The most deplorable results have followed from attempting such a policy as this in revivals, and thousands have been added to the churches by its means who have no possible conception of the nature of Christianity.

“Genuine revivals begin by a process like that of seeding from which our harvest comes. The soil must be first broken up or reduced to a state of mellowness, before it can take in the seed or absorb the dews and rains of heaven. And to this purpose the prophet speaks: ‘Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.’ That is, by the practice of what is right, break up all your evil habits and designs, and by exercising mercy, prepare to enjoy its fruits upon your own souls. ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.’”