An American Religious Movement : A Brief History of the Disciples of ChristGarrison, Winfred Ernest
History
An American Religious Movement : A Brief History of the Disciples of Christ
Garrison, Winfred Ernest
Disciples of Christ -- History
The Great Western Revival, with which the names of Stone and Cane Ridge
are closely associated, resulted from transplanting to Tennessee and
Kentucky the methods of evangelistic appeal which had been used by “New
Light” Presbyterians, Methodists, and “Christians” in the Southern
states east of the mountains. Under frontier conditions it developed
some bizarre and sensational features which have drawn attention away
from its real values. It began gradually with the preaching of four or
five men—especially James McGready and the brothers William and John
McGee—who had come west about the time Stone came, and who itinerated in
Tennessee, near and north of Nashville, and the adjacent part of
Kentucky. For three or four years the revival spirit grew and spread
until the countryside was in a fever of excitement. Fantastic
manifestations began to appear among persons who experienced “conviction
of sin,” and even among those who came to scoff—jerking and barking,
hysterical laughter, falling and lying rigid like dead men. These were
taken for manifestations of the power of the Holy Spirit.
Stone, who was concerned about religious apathy in his own parishes,
traveled the nearly two hundred miles from Cane Ridge to Logan County in
southwestern Kentucky, in the early spring of 1801, to see the revival
in progress under the preaching of McGready. He was impressed with the
genuineness of the revival. The physical demonstrations seemed to be
“the work of God,” but inexplicable and not wholly desirable. Stone was,
in a sense, the advance agent of the revival as it moved north and east
through Kentucky. By late spring it had reached the Bluegrass. On the
Sundays of May and June, there were great meetings at churches in the
area around Lexington, with attendance at the last three running to
4,000, then 8,000, then 10,000, according to contemporary estimates.
The climax came in the Cane Ridge camp meeting, which lasted from Friday
to Wednesday, August 7-12, 1801. The crowd was estimated at 20,000. Many
Presbyterian, several Methodist, and a few Baptist ministers preached,
often simultaneously at different stations through the woods. The
excitement was intense. The fantastic “exercises” occurred in great
profusion. This meeting was held at Stone’s church, and he had much to
do with bringing it about, but it was not in any sense his meeting. It
does not appear that he was the most prominent among the preachers.
Richard McNemar, for example, was more conspicuous, and so was McNemar’s
nine-year-old daughter, who became a child prophetess and poured forth a
torrent of exhortation from a perch on his shoulder. Stone rejoiced in
the awakened interest in religion and in the salvation of many sinners,
but the records do not show that he gave encouragement to the
spectacular “exercises.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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