Читать книгу The Great Revival of the Eighteenth Century: with a supplemental chapter on the revival in America онлайн

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But the present aim is to gather up some of the facts and impressions, and briefly to recite some of the influences of the third great evangelical revival in the Eighteenth Century. We are guilty of no exaggeration in saying that these have been equally deserving historic fame with either of the preceding. The story has less, perhaps, to excite some of our most passionate human interests; it had not to make its way through stakes and scaffolds, although it could recite many tales of persecution; it unsheathed no sword, the weapons of its warfare were not carnal; and on the whole, it may be said its doctrine distilled “as the dew;” yet it is not too much to say that from the revival of the last century came forth that wonderfully manifold reticulation and holy machinery of piety and benevolence, we find in such active operation around us to-day.

All impartial historians of the period place this most remarkable religious impulse in the rank of the very foremost phenomena of the times. The calm and able historian, Earl Stanhope, speaking of it, as “despised at its commencement,” continues, “with less immediate importance than wars or political changes, it endures long after not only the result but the memory of these has passed away, and thousands” (his lordship ought to have said millions) “who never heard of Fontenoy or Walpole, continue to follow the precepts, and venerate the name of John Wesley.” While the latest, a still more able and equally impartial and quiet historian, Mr. Lecky, says, “Our splendid victories by land and sea must yield in real importance to this religious revolution; it exercised a profound and lasting influence upon the spirit of the Established Church of England, upon the amount and distribution of the moral forces of that nation, and even upon the course of its political history.”