"My country, 'tis of thee!": Or, the United States of America; past, present and future. A philosophic view of American history and of our present status, to be seen in the Columbian exhibition.Johnson, Willis Fletcher
History
"My country, 'tis of thee!": Or, the United States of America; past, present and future. A philosophic view of American history and of our present status, to be seen in the Columbian exhibition.
Johnson, Willis Fletcher
United States -- Description and travel; United States -- History
In a number of country towns this fraternal feeling has been largely
stimulated and strengthened by what are called “union meetings,” in
which all the members of all the congregations in the town unite at
appointed dates in general services of prayer and worship. Occasionally
the pastor of some church in the vicinity may object to taking part in
such services, but pastors in congregations are frequently like
Congressmen and the people--the followers are ahead of the leader. Only
a little while ago a Catholic priest of high repute in his own
denomination, and held in high esteem by the entire community in which
he was known, ascended the platform at a western camp-meeting, in which
denominations differing from his own had united, and made a most earnest
undenominational and spiritual address to the entire audience before
him.
Revival meetings, however they may be laughed at by the more refined and
fastidious of church people, have had the effect in late years of
attracting a great many thousands of people toward religious life. The
most noted of these were conducted, as every one knows, by Messrs.
Moody and Sankey, two men who were never regularly ordained as clergymen
by any authority whatever--they are simple laymen and undenominational
workers. Yet these men never went to any city or town to begin their
peculiar system of work until all, or nearly all, the pastors of
churches had united in calling them and had promised to assist to the
best of their ability. No effort was made by these men to make converts
for any denomination whatever. Their sole purpose was to cause men and
women to change their manner of life from that of the ordinary every-day
selfishness of the unregenerate man and to compel him to recognize an
over-ruling Providence who should also be the guide of his daily life in
every respect. Mr. Moody, however “shaky” he may have been according to
any theological test, was earnest and sincere enough to say to all the
clerical fraternity of any town in which he worked, that he came only to
sow seed and that it was the business of others to reap the harvest, and
that he cared not into whose flock the lambs were led, so long as they
were rescued from the wilderness. The Moody and Sankey movement is open
to a great deal of criticism, and probably no one has regarded it with
more jealous eye than newspaper editors, yet the editorial fraternity
throughout the country has been compelled to admit that the agitation
begun by these men had a marked influence for good on whatever community
it was exerted.
Such a movement would have been utterly impossible fifty years ago,
perhaps twenty-five years ago. To attempt to lead men to God without
outlining a road which traversed a great many other roads said to lead
in the same direction would have united against the leader all the
churches in the vicinity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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