Let us hear also the testimony of our late lamented Dr. Krauth. He says, as quoted by Rev. Trabert: "How often are the urging that we are all one, the holding of union meetings, the effusive rapture of all-forgiving, all-forgetting, all-embracing love, the preliminary to the meanest sectarian tricks, dividing congregations, tearing families to pieces, and luring away the unstable. The short millennium of such love is followed by the fresh loosing of the Satan of malevolence out of his prison, and the clashing in battle of the Gog
and Magog of sectarian rivalry. There is no surer preparation for bitter strife, heart-burnings, and hatred, than these pseudo unionistic combinations. One union revival has torn religious communities into hateful divisions which have never been healed.... And none have suffered so much, by these arts, as our Lutheran people, who, free from guile themselves, did not suspect it in others. Well might we ask with the 'Apology:' 'Are they not ashamed to talk in such terms of love, and preach love, and cry love, and do everything but practice love?'"
In conclusion we wish to present the testimony of some of the most eminent divines of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Of all others they will certainly not be accused of being prejudiced against modern revivals. And of all modern revivals, those conducted by the Evangelists, Moody and Sankey, are probably the least objectionable.
At the close of the celebrated "Hippodrome revival," in New York City, conducted by Messrs Moody and Sankey, in the spring of 1876, the Methodist Episcopal ministers, at a stated meeting, reviewed the revival and its results. The New York Herald gave the following account of their meeting, which we copy from Rev. Trabert's tract: "The Methodist ministers had under consideration the question of the
value of special evangelistic efforts in regular Church work, with particular reference to the number of Hippodrome converts who may have united with their churches. For two weeks a member of the Hippodrome committee had distributed cards to the preachers with the names of persons who declared themselves converts of Mr. Moody's meetings. Four thousand had been reported as the fruits of the ten weeks special effort. Ten thousand inquirers had been reported.
"Dr. Robert Crook took the ground that special evangelistic agencies are not necessary, and that the work is more permanent and successful when performed through the regular church channels. Rev. J. Selleck, of Lexington avenue church, had sent about sixty of his members as singers and ushers, and had not only received not a single convert from that place into his church, but had been unable to gather in the members he gave them, who were still running here and there after sensations! Rev. J.F. Richmond had received a number of cards, and could report two or three converts who would unite with his church, but in connection with Hope Chapel he had not much success. He had gone to five places indicated on the cards as residences of converts, but could find none of them. This was his experience also with
many others whom he had sought out. Rev. John Jones had received many cards, and had found out some direct frauds, and many others nearly so. He did discover eight persons converted at Mr. Moody's meetings, six of whom would unite with his church. Rev. C.G. Goss did not think any one effort or kind of effort was going to convert the world. We could not measure religious efforts by financial or numerical measurements. As to the general question, he had the history of ten city churches always known as revival churches. In 1869 they had reported one hundred probationers each. In 1870 they reported a net loss of five hundred, making, with the probationers reported, a loss of fifteen hundred in one year, in ten churches.
"Bedford street church was an example of a revival church: St. Paul's the opposite. The former reported, in twenty years, twenty-five hundred probationers. But the increase of her membership for that period was only one hundred and twenty-eight. He could not account for this. On the other hand, St. Paul's reported four hundred and forty-eight probationers, for twenty-five years, and her increase in membership has been two hundred and eighty-six. This was to him an argument in favor of regular church work."