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testimony of God’s word they could not regard as constituting the
church of Christ, “the pillar and ground of the truth.” Hence they felt
themselves justified in separating from their former connection. In the
summer of 1844 about fifty thousand withdrew from the churches.
About this time a marked change was apparent in most of the
churches throughout the United States. There had been for many years
a gradual but steadily increasing conformity to worldly practices and
customs, and a corresponding decline in real spiritual life; but in that
year there were evidences of a sudden and marked declension in nearly
all the churches of the land. While none seemed able to suggest the
cause, the fact itself was widely noted and commented upon by both
the press and the pulpit.
At a meeting of the presbytery of Philadelphia, Mr. Barnes, au-
thor 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 bright-
[377]
ening prospects of commerce and manufacture, there is an increase
of worldly-mindedness. Thus it is with all the denominations.”—
Congregational Journal, May 23, 1844.
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.”