At a meeting of the presbytery of Philadelphia, Mr. Barnes, author of a commentary widely used, and pastor of one of the leading churches in that city, “stated that he had been in the ministry for twenty years, and never, till the last communion, had he administered the ordinance without receiving more or less into the church. But now there are _no awakenings, no conversions_, not much apparent growth in grace in professors, and none come to his study to converse about the salvation of their souls. With the increase of business, and the brightening prospects of commerce and manufacture, there is an increase of worldly-mindedness. _Thus it is with all the denominations._”(620) In the month of February of the same year, Professor Finney, of Oberlin College, said: “We have had the fact before our minds, that, in general, the Protestant churches of our country, as such, were either apathetic or hostile to nearly all the moral reforms of the age. There are partial exceptions, yet not enough to render the fact otherwise than general. We have also another corroborated fact: the almost universal absence of revival influence in the churches. The spiritual apathy is almost all-pervading, and is fearfully deep; so the religious press of the whole land testifies.... Very extensively, church-members are becoming devotees of fashion,—join hands with the ungodly in parties of pleasure, in dancing, in festivities, etc.... But we need not expand this painful subject. Suffice it that the evidence thickens and rolls heavily upon us, to show that the _churches generally are becoming sadly degenerate_. They have gone very far from the Lord, and He has withdrawn Himself from them.” And a writer in the _Religious Telescope_ testified: “We have never witnessed such a general declension of religion as at the present. Truly, the church should awake, and search into the cause of this affliction; for as an affliction every one that loves Zion must view it. When we call to mind how ‘few and far between’ cases of true conversion are, and the almost unparalleled impertinence and hardness of sinners, we almost involuntarily exclaim, ‘Has God forgotten to be gracious? or, Is the door of mercy closed?’ ”