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The Great Awakening

The eighteenth century opened for England in deep spiritual gloom. The Puritan fire was almost extinct, and a cold Deism, that hardly troubled to disguise itself, reigned in the Church. A gross darkness covered the people. The court was foul. Vice walked naked and unashamed. In the high circles of Government bribery had become a fine art. It was a day of cynical time servers. In many parts of the country the people had relapsed into simple barbarism. England, indeed, was not far from the abyss when she was suddenly rescued, uplifted, and launched upon a career of glorious victory and expansion by the Great Evangelical Awakening. In the judgment of even the rationalist historian she was saved and, as it were, reborn by this great movement of the Divine Spirit.

It was in Oxford University that the new life first appeared, but if we search deeply we shall find its hidden spring in the heart of a praying mother. In truth, revival is largely the story of praying mothers. Susannah Wesley, wife of the Rector of Epworth, is one of the great women of the Church, and her devoted indomitable spirit had deep and abiding influence upon the founder of Methodism. In 1730 we find John Wesley the leader of a little band of earnest young men who gave themselves to prayer, the Bible, and works of charity. Men called them in derision the Holy Club, Bible moths, then, observing that they were very exact and methodical in their habits, dubbed them Methodists.

Wesley himself was yet a seeker, and weary years passed before he found the peace of God. The real beginning of days came for him on May 24th, 1738, when he went, rather reluctantly, to a little company of Christians gathered in Aldersgate Street. One of the brethren read Luther' s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans, and, as he listened, he found himself strangely stirred. The Spirit of Christ, like a fragrant wind, breathed through his being. He ceased from weary, hopeless struggling, and cast himself, as a little child, upon the arms of Jesus. Then John Wesley knew the deep unutterable peace of God.

He at once began to preach with whole-hearted conviction, expounding the great master-texts of the Gospel, making Christ the Alpha and Omega of every discourse. But the more earnestly he preached, the more firmly were the churches closed against him. Often, when he descended the pulpit stairs, an irate clergyman would meet him with the words, "Sir, you cannot preach here again." But the common people heard him gladly, and gradually there gathered about him a band of men whose hearts God had touched. They formed themselves into little companies for prayer and conference, making a chapel in Fetter Lane their headquarters. Increasing opposition drove them, with intense earnestness, to the Throne of Grace, and then, in the wonderful providence of God, drove them out into the fields.

In this great emancipation George Whitefield led the way. The son of an innkeeper, he was drawn into the godly fellowship of the Holy Club by the influence of Charles Wesley, and when he began to preach, a great gift of eloquence was revealed in him. Soon the complaint was rife that he was driving people mad, and the churches began to close upon him also. One day, as he declared the Gospel in a building filled to the uttermost, he cast his eyes outside and saw a thousand yearning and disappointed faces. The thought seized him, Why not go out and preach in the open? But this was a thing unheard of. When he consulted his brethren they condemned it as a fanatical notion.

While thus exercised, he went to Bristol, and preached with such fervency that, in a fortnight, every church in the place shut its doors against him, in emphatic protest. There remained the prison. He preached to the poor prisoners the Gospel which the Church refused. But soon that door, too, was closed by order of the Mayor. Thousands were hungering for the bread of life, but neither in church nor in prison was there room for Whitefield to dispense it. He now recognised the clear hand of God. Turning from these barred doors he saw, far out in the fields, the beckoning hand of the Master who had found his pulpit on the green hillsides of Galilee. He obeyed.

Near Bristol was a wild region known as Kings-wood, once a royal chase, but now a miner's country, without a church, inhabited by a rough and lawless people. Driven from Bristol, Whitefield went .out to this neglected spot. On Saturday afternoon, February 17th, 1739 (is it not the supreme date of that century?) he took his stand on a little green hill and began to preach the Gospel. In vast amazement some 200 colliers gathered about him. Such a sight had never been seen. A minister, a minister in gown and bands, preaching on a hillside!

As he continued, day after day, his audience soon grew to twenty thousand, who pressed upon him eagerly to hear the Word of Life. They filled the hedges. They climbed the trees. Nature itself seemed hushed to hear. A sweet summer stillness prevailed. The sun shone from a blue sky, and the strong, clear voice of the young man, eloquent with the very love of God, reached to the utmost bounds of the great assembly. Then Whitefield saw a moving sight.

He saw white channels forming in the black faces of the miners. The whole multitude was drenched in penitential tears. Ere he ended black faces were washed white, and black hearts, too! He at once wrote to Wesley in London:

"Come, the fire is kindled in the country." The summons was obeyed, and when John Wesley came and saw the grace of God, he was glad. Whitefield, called to other parts, left him to continue the work, and Wesley entered upon his great career as a field preacher, that career which may be studied in his diary. Henceforth the world was his parish. As he passed from place to place, the fire of God followed him; yet it travelled to the remotest parts of the country, and, crossing the sea, quickened the life of the Universal Church.