The GOSPEL TRUTH A HISTORY OF AMERICAN REVIVALS
by
Frank G. Beardsley PH.D, S.T.D.
1912
Chapter 8
DENOMINATIONAL MOVEMENTS: THE CONGREGATIONALISTS AND PRESBYTERIANS CONCLUDED.
Edward Norris Kirk, the Chrysostom of American evangelists, was born in New York City, August 14, 1802. His father was a merchant in moderate circumstances, and Edward's boyhood alternated between his father's home in the city and the home of an aunt at Princeton, N. J. The early influences with which he was surrounded were decidedly religious, but the temptations of a great city were attractive, and although he was by no means vicious, the boy was inclined to be wayward and intractable. In later years the memory of his youthful follies was invariably accompanied with the pangs of remorse. At the age of fifteen he entered the sophomore class of Princeton College. As a student he was distinguished neither for his scholarly attainments nor for his devotion to the pursuit of knowledge, but in due time he graduated at the early age of eighteen.
On his return to New York he entered the office of Raddiffe and Mason, where for two years he engaged in the study of law. During this period he was a member of a debating club, the purpose of which was the cultivation of public speaking, and which numbered among its members William H. Seward, Richard V. Dey, and others who subsequently attained to prominence in public life.
This debating club was the only incident in his life as a law student which seemed to give any promise of the future. Otherwise his life was wasted in dissipation and sin. He said: "Creed, political, social, religious, I had none; whatever I had might be thus expressed -- 'Man's chief end is to have a good time;' and I carried out my creed with great consistency." If anything he seemed to have an aversion to religion and was displeased at the mere mention of it. The conversion of some of his college friends, however, affected him profoundly, but it was not until the commencement of the year 1822 that his mind was seriously drawn to the things of God. A copy of John Foster's "Essay on Decision of Character" placed in his hands by a friend, led to serious contemplation, and a few months later, through the influence of some young men's meetings conducted by Jared Waterbury, he was led to give his heart to God.
His conversion became the turning point of his career. The following fall he entered Princeton Theological Seminary, where for four years he gave himself to earnest work in preparation for the Christian ministry. In June, 1826, he was licensed by the Presbytery to preach the gospel, and the next two years were spent as an agent of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. In the prosecution of his duties he visited the Southern and Middle States, meeting with considerable opposition, because the real value of missions was not yet appreciated and they were often looked upon as needless and useless. The experience was a valuable one, however, although he afterwards had occasion to regret the lack of settled habits which this work fostered.
In May, 1828, Mr. Kirk accepted an invitation to supply the pulpit of the Second Presbyterian Church at Albany, N. Y., for the summer while its pastor. Dr. Chester, was seeking the recovery of his health. Large and interested congregations flocked to listen to the eloquent young preacher. A few weeks later, when he was obliged to discontinue his labors, because his fidelity to the truth and searching presentations of the gospel were not acceptable to certain unconverted members of the congregation, a colony of the spiritually minded withdrew from the membership of the church and formed the Fourth Presbyterian Church, to the pastorate of which Mr. Kirk was at once called. Revivals crowned his ministry and he became noted far and wide as a revival preacher, so that his services were frequently called into requisition by neighboring pastors to assist them in protracted efforts. In 1837, after a ministry of more than eight years, Mr. Kirk resigned his pastorate. During these years there had been more than a thousand accessions to his church, while he had found time also to assist other churches in sustaining more than thirty revivals, during the progress of which multitudes were converted.
In 1839, after an absence of two years abroad, Mr. Kirk entered the evangelistic field. During the succeeding months he labored at many of the principal cities of the Eastern and New England States, including Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia, New Haven, Hartford, and Boston. In the latter place he conducted three different revivals during the two years in which he labored as an evangelist. In this work he was eminently successful, and many were converted under his labors.
Early in 1842 Mr. Kirk accepted a call to the newly formed Mt. Vernon Church of Boston and commenced an evangelistic ministry which continued for more than thirty years. Not a year passed during all that time but what additions were made to the church on confession of faith, amounting in the aggregate to nearly seven hundred persons. Among those who united on confession of faith was one destined in after years to lead multitudes in this and other lands to a knowledge of salvation -- Dwight Lyman Moody -- who was won to Christ through the faithful efforts of his Sunday School teacher, and who after a period of probation was admitted to the membership of the church.
Dr. Kirk never lost his interest in revivals and revival movements. During the winter of 1868 he delivered a series of lectures upon revivals before the students of Andover Theological Seminary. These lectures were afterwards published in book form and received a wide circulation.
On March 27, 1874, Dr. Kirk passed on to his reward, in the seventy-second year of his life and after a ministry of nearly fifty years. Dr. Kirk was an ideal evangelist for a cultured community. His sermons, while scholarly and polished, were searching in their analysis and powerful in their appeal to the human heart. Early in life he preached extemporaneously and with great fervor, but on assuming the duties of his Boston pastorate, he adopted the written style, which he continued to the last. But whether his language was formed in the glow of delivery or in the quiet of his study, he was the same man of power, the same man of prayer.
Rev. Daniel Baker, D.D., an eminent evangelist of the Old School Presbyterians, was born of Congregational parentage at Midway, Ga., August 17, 1791. His mother dying in his infancy, he was left an orphan at the age of eight by the death of his father. As a child he was subject to profound religious impressions and at an early age was converted. Soon afterwards he found employment at Savannah, but under the stress of temptations which he there met, for a time his religious experience underwent a cloud, although he often suffered from the stings of conscience and the pangs of bitter remorse. Learning that provision had been made at Hampden Sydney College for the support of young men having the ministry in view, he determined to avail himself of its privileges and prepare himself for that high calling. In the summer of 1811 he matriculated and soon after united with the college church. Owing to the distractions of the War of 1812, he remained at Hampden Sydney but a short time, going thence with other students to Princeton, where he entered the junior class in the winter session of 1813.
For a period of forty years Nassau Hall had been without a revival. Young Baker with three pious companions, thinking that something ought to be done for their unconverted fellow-students, established a weekly prayer-meeting to offer up special prayer for a revival of religion in the college. This was kept up for some time without results. Finally upon a fast day. Baker proposed to his room-mate that they go from room to room and endeavor to "break the bands of wickedness," which at length was agreed upon. That very day some six or eight of the students thus visited were converted and a revival of religion was inaugurated, which in the course of a few weeks resulted in the conversion of nearly half of the students then at Princeton. When the report of this quickening was noised abroad it gave a powerful impulse to revivals elsewhere.
In 1815, having graduated from Princeton with honors, he decided to study theology privately at Winchester, Va., assisting in a Female Academy at the same time. The next few years thereafter were spent in the pastorate at Harrisonburg, Va., Washington, D. C, and at Savannah, Ga., in all of which there were fruitful revivals under his ministry.
During a great revival at Beaufort, which he conducted while pastor at Savannah, and during the progress of which more than three hundred persons were converted, he decided to enter the evangelistic field and was accordingly appointed a missionary by the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia. He entered upon his new duties in 1831, conducting protracted meetings at various places in the States mentioned and also in North Carolina and Florida. The year following was spent in similar work in Virginia, after which he took up his residence in Ohio, where he expected to find a permanent home. Although he was not a pro-slavery man, nor at the same time an abolitionist, the distractions over the slavery question were so irritating to him that he abandoned his purpose and removed to Kentucky.
After spending some time in the pastorate at Frankfort, Ky., and Tuscaloosa, Ala., in the autumn of 1839 he accepted an appointment as missionary to the Republic of Texas. Along the line of his journey he conducted protracted meetings at several places with happy results. Reaching Texas early in 1840 he spent several months in missionary labors, which while of a pioneer character were not unproductive of good.
Later that same year he accepted a call to the church at Holly Springs, Miss., where he remained until June, 1848, when he again went to Texas, for the spiritual upbuilding of which he devoted the remainder of his life. While traveling as general missionary he visited Huntsville in August, 1849. So favorably was he impressed with the location that he broached to the citizens the propriety of establishing there a Presbyterian College. Eight thousand dollars were at once subscribed and the enterprise was inaugurated. The institution was named Austin College in honor of the great Texan pioneer. During the balance of his life, until his death, December 10, 1857, Dr. Baker was identified with Austin College, either as its president or financial agent. He visited various portions of the country in its behalf, soliciting funds for its maintenance and endowment. In the midst of these arduous labors he always had the salvation of men at heart, and in his visits to various communities, it was no infrequent thing for him to tarry a few days and engage in revivalistic labors, which invariably were productive of good.
Although Dr. Baker's distinctively evangelistic work was confined to but a short period of his life, his energies at all times were devoted to the conversion of men. Whether laboring as pastor, revivalist, missionary, college agent or president. Dr. Baker was a soul winner. During his long public life it was estimated that twenty thousand persons were influenced through his instrumentality to embrace the Christian faith, including many who afterwards became ministers of the gospel in various religious denominations.
Doctrinally Dr. Baker was an Old School Presbyterian and emphasized the distinctive doctrines of the Calvinistic theology, such as the divine sovereignty, gracious election, total depravity, man's absolute inability, vicarious atonement, efficacious grace, and the final perseverance of the saints.
In his revivalistic labors, Dr. Baker was never obtrusive, never sought to take the pastor's place, or to set him aside. He always labored under the pastor's direction and with his co-operation. It was said of him that he endeavored to follow but not to outrun the indications pf the Spirit of God. In his efforts he made use of the customary methods of the time, such as the anxious seat, inquiry meetings, etc., and strongly insisted upon the prayer of faith.
Of others who labored in Congregational and Presbyterian circles mention must be made of Jedediah Burchard, an eccentric evangelist, who was popular for some years in New York and New England, and Orson Parker, a wise and discriminating evangelist, who did a pioneer work throughout the newer States of the Middle West, besides numerous evangelistic pastors, such as Lyman Beecher, Albert Barnes, Edward Payson, Joel Parker and a host of others, who labored diligently to promote revivals in their respective fields of labor.
As a result, during the first half of the nineteenth century revivals were numerous, especially after the War of 1812. In 1831 through the influence of the great revival conducted at Rochester, N. Y., by Charles G. Finney, a revival swept over the United States, in which more than fifteen hundred towns were blessed with showers of refreshing grace and as many more felt the impulse of the movement. The great cities especially were moved, and during the first five months of the revival more than fifty thousand persons were converted. Before the movement had spent its force it was estimated that over one hundred thousand members had been added to the churches.
During the closing years of the half century revivals were less numerous and a period of spiritual stagnation followed, which continued until the Great Revival of 1857.