The Churches and Modern Thought An inquiry into the...

An examination of religious experiences, however brief, cannot well omit all mention of the question of revivalism. Has it an ethical value? Has it a spiritual meaning? To the latter question the answer of the Church is for the most part in the affirmative. In his Pentecostal message for Whitsuntide, 1905, the Archbishop of Canterbury refers, without directly naming them, to the extraordinary movement of which the young Evan Roberts has been the leader, and to the preaching of Messrs. Torrey and Alexander in London. “To whatever cause or combination of causes we may attribute it,” he says, “the fact appears to be certain that expression has this year been given in an unusual degree to a desire for increased spiritual earnestness in the Christian life.” I shall not embark upon the question of the spiritual signification of revivalism. My remarks on other religious experiences may be taken to apply here also. Regarding its ethical value, I fancy most thoughtful onlookers will be with me when I say that it is unadvisable to stir up hysteria in hysterical people just for the sake of effects, the usefulness of which is extremely problematical—effects which, if they benefit a few, are harmful to the majority, and, in any case, are unlikely to be of a permanent nature. We have it on excellent authority that “emotional appeals and revivals do not destroy carnal sin in schools, and it is well known how often they seem to stimulate, to increase, immorality.”51