THE GREAT WESTERN REVIVAL

OF 1800.

WHOEVER has carefully examined the history of Israel, as detailed in the sacred oracles, may have remarked, that very often the prophets endeavored to recall to the minds of that people the period and the scenes of their first espousal to God. Indeed, there is no narrative more calculated to wake up in our own heart the living emotions of religion, than the story of our first saving acquaintance with Christ. It is profitable to the individual, to the family, and to the church at large, that these manifestations of God's power and mercy should be told to children, and to children's children.

In relation to this matter, I have often thought that the church of God in the west has reason to adopt the language of the Psalmist, "Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul." "He brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it and fear, and shall trust in the Lord."

It is now my purpose to sketch some of the scenes in the early history of the church of God in the west. Before the close of the revolutionary war, large bodies of emigrants had settled in Tennessee and in Kentucky.

Many of them were from Virginia, many were from Pennsylvania, and many also were from North and South Carolina. Quite a large number of these were religious men. Extensive and powerful revivals of religion had been granted to the American churches, while we were yet colonies of Great Britain. In New England, Edwards, Bellamy, and their fellows, were the favored instruments. In New Jersey, Gilbert and William Tennant, and their contemporaries, were greatly blessed. In Virginia, Samuel Davies, whose sermons have since been so widely circulated, and James Waddell, labored with immense success. Among my earliest recollections are the glowing descriptions which old persons, then living in my father's neighborhood, would give of the preaching of this James Waddell. There was a kindling animation in the aged countenance, and their eyes would fill with tears, at the mention of his He is the Blind Preacher so eloquently described by Hon. William Wirt in his "British Spy." When Wirt saw him, he was old, and frail, and. blind; yet evidently the wreck of a superior man. Long before this period, he had been a messenger of mercy to multitudes of the perishing; and the gospel, through his instrumentality, had been to many glad tidings of great joy. It should be mentioned further, that in the Carolinas also, and in Georgia, the gospel, at this time, had made great progress. Georgia was one of the first points in America where George Whitefield preached; and from thence to the most northern colony he found the fields white to the harvest. Indeed, there were such religious prospects in our country before the revolution, that Jonathan Edwards entertained and published the opinion that the millennium, or latter

name.

day glory, would first shed its light on the souls of men in America.

Now, such was the condition of the American church, when that wave of population, which had risen on the sea-shore, and rolled abroad over the Atlantic regions, began to ripple over the comb of the Alleghany, and rush down and spread itself over the fertile plains of the west. Many of the first emigrants from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas, carried their religion with them. And it seems that, at that early period, religion could better "bear transportation," than at a later day.

War has almost invariably a demoralizing tendency; and the war of our revolution, however necessary and important in its connection, was not exempt from this unhappy concomitant. But, perhaps, in no other part of our country were the sad results of war realized, at that time, to the same extent as in the new settlements of the west. There the supply of Bibles and pastors was limited. Religious privileges were few. And many of the population were as sheep having no shepherd. There was less, therefore, to counteract the evils incident to war than in other sections of our land.

Above all this, it must be observed, that when peace was concluded with Great Britain in the year 1783, and other citizens could return to the pursuits of peaceful life, and the enjoyment of gospel ordinances, the frontier population of the west were embroiled with hostile Indians for the space of half a generation. During this period of fierce conflict between the white and the red man, those Indian tribes that hung around our western border produced not a few "men of renown."

Headed by some of these daring chiefs, a strong band of Indians would make a sudden incursion into the white settlements, and murder, burn, rob, and perpetrate cruelty in the most frightful and barbarous forms. The scalping-knife was red with the blood of the mother, the tomahawk was buried in the brain of the helpless child! Until, terrified with the apprehension of the vengeance they had provoked, the Indians would fly with the utmost precipitation. Then, for ten or fifteen miles around, the white population was aroused, and the Indians were pursued not only with retaliating, but with exterminating vengeance. Who will wonder, that, when seventeen years of such life as this came right in after the seven years of the revolutionary war, the Sabbath and sacred things were in a great measure forgotten or trodden down? A generation sprang up, in which dexterity and prowess in Indian warfare were the great objects of ambition, and, indeed, the high road to fame. And in the mean while, the light of religion, carried to the west at the time of its first settlement, surrounded long by adverse influences, shone but faintly, while iniquity abounded and waxed bold.

It is necessary here to pause and notice the state of things in Europe at this period. Our country, when young, was far more influenced by Europe than she is now. The year 1728 is memorable as the great era of infidelity in Europe. Voltaire formed, about this period, his great plan for destroying the Christian religion. I quote the language of Dr. Dwight, of Yale College. This eminent writer observes that Voltaire, for the purpose of blotting out Christianity, "engaged, at several succeeding periods, a number of men, distinguished for power, talents, reputation, and influence

all deadly enemies to the gospel, atheists, men of profligate principles and profligate lives. This design he pursued with unabated zeal fifty years; and was seconded by his associates with an ardor and industry scarcely inferior to his own. In consequence of their united labors, and of the labors of others, from time to time combined with them, they ultimately spread the design throughout a great part of Europe; and embarked in it individuals, at little distances, over almost the whole of that continent. Their adherents inserted themselves into every place, office, and employment, in which their agency might become efficacious, and which furnished an opportunity of spreading their corruptions. They were found in every literary institution, from the abecedarian school to the academy of sciences; and in every civil office, from that of the bailiff to that of the monarch. They swarmed in the palace; they haunted the church. Wherever mischief could be done, they were found; and wherever they were found, mischief was extensively done. Of books they controlled the publication, the sale, and the character. An immense number they formed; an immense number they forged; prefixed to them the names of reputable writers, and sent them into the world, to be sold for a song; and when that could not be done, to be given away. Within a period shorter than could have been imagined, they possessed themselves, to a great extent, of a control, nearly absolute, of the literary, religious, and political state of Europe.

"With these advantages in their hands, it will easily be believed, that they left no instrument unemployed, and no measure untried, to accomplish their own malignant purposes. With a diligence, courage, constancy,