But another genius soon after arose, of a very different order; a mighty mind of the giant race; a Boanerges—a very 'son of thunder;' the blaze of whose career eclipsed the twinkling light of his predecessor, and the noise of whose artillery silenced all former noises of the same denomination. 'He went not up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before him;' but he 'went down into Arabia.' None can boast of having been his teachers. His genealogy is not reckoned. He was a priest of his own order, of his own making, and after his own model.
The system of more gentle measures had begun to decline and to lose its force; the arts of the machinery were getting to be understood. Something more startling and more astounding was demanded for the exigencies of the time:
'That proud honor claimed
Azarel as his right, a cherub tall;
Who forthwith from the glittering staff unfurl'd
The imperial ensign; which, full high advanced,
Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind.
At which the universal host up sent
A shout that tore Hell's concave, and beyond
Frighted the reign of chaos and old night.'
Now we solemnly protest, that we intend to subject no being, or beings, to the disadvantage of this comparison. By the whisperings of some spirit, good or evil, it came buzzing in our ear just as the previous sentence of sober prose was finished. Or rather, it was a contiguous phrase, which first intruded on our attention, and which readeth as follows:
'All in a moment through the gloom were seen
Ten thousand banners rise into the air,
With orient colors waving. With them rose
A forest huge of spears; and thronging helms
Appeared, and serried shields in thick array,
Of depth immeasurable. Anon they move
In perfect phalanx,' etc.
Nay, far be it from us so much to depreciate that individual, and the hosts which rose so soon at his bidding. Yet it cannot be denied, that, setting aside the place where this other scene was laid, and the class of beings engaged in it, there is some striking likeness between the two. In either case, there was a tremendous show of fight. Never, probably, were so many sinners driven from the error of their ways in so short a time, by mere dint of the impression of terror on their nerves. It is to be hoped they will stay driven; though we confess we want confidence in conversions effected in this rude way. Honestly, most conscientiously, we do not think it good for society, or for the church of God, in the long run, but positively bad. It cannot be long endured, before men see through it all, and the rëaction is sure, great, and fearful.
Thenceforward, after the introduction of these 'new measures,' very extraordinary indeed, the old way could no longer prosper. A new taste was formed, and forming, in the public mind. The appetite for excitement, which had been over-fed, became diseased, and its cravings unnatural. The theory of revivals had been greatly extended, or pushed to an extreme, which we hardly know how to describe; and the application of it overran the country in this new form. The religious pastors of the land, who have not been sent adrift by this flood, have maintained their ground with no little difficulty and peril. Through a very great portion of the leading sects this spirit has been rife; and probably not a single society could be found, that has not some sympathy with it.
As might have been expected, the end was not yet. Such an impetus of change must be followed with change. Although a prophecy of the stage we have just had under consideration, if it had been uttered ten years before it came upon us, as destined so soon, or ever, to transpire, would have been regarded as the effusion of a madman's brain, and utterly incredible, yet it speedily became stale; and the appetite which it created palled for something still more extravagant and outrageous. And lo! another genius appeared, out-Heroding Herod! The last extravagance assumed the aspect of sobriety in such comparison; and the very man who had introduced the former, if we have been rightly informed, and which we can easily believe, was shocked at the anomalies of the latter! Certainly the two great apostles have never worked in company, but have seemed to be looking at each other rather awry, as they have swept to and fro over the wide range of their several itinerancies. Not to follow the last, in the long and devious line of his labors, and over the far-reaching scope of his influence, the whole of which exhibits one uniform scene of devastation, as to all we are accustomed to regard most desirable and hopeful in religious society, it is enough that we point to the public enactments of Chatham-street Chapel, New-York, from day to day, and from week to week, in the winter and spring of 1837. Verily, if it be possible to render religion and all its sacred things more ridiculous; more the laughing stock of the vulgar and profane; more the contempt and scorn of infidelity, itself sowing and nourishing infidelity, it can only be some other equally unexpected and inconceivable development of the same class, which, if it must come, we pray heaven may be the last curse and blighting of our religious prospects.
Both these methods of procedure, which indeed are of the same class, differing only in degree, have been cried over the land by their leaders and advocates, who are not a few, as the way, and the only way, to convert the world. They are two other species of the religious charlatanry of our age and country.
God send prosperity to the Missionary cause, and establish it on the foundation of Christ and his Apostles! It is a part of our creed, that the Church of Christ is, ex se, a missionary institution; that this character is a radical and essential element of its organization; that it is a fundamental law; and that the appropriate motto of her banner is, 'Go ye, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.' And it is no ungrateful thought, that at least one branch of the Christian Church of this country, has, by her own public and solemn acts, recognised this principle. We believe, moreover, that the missionary character of the Church, under the divine commission, is so comprehensive as to embrace every mode of action in the world for moral and religious reform, which is in any case a duty to undertake, at home or abroad, on the land or on the sea. The Church knows no home but heaven, and has no narrower field of earthly enterprise than the world. The only question of duty, at any given time, is: 'Where, by what means, in what forms, and by what measures, in specific directions, she can most economically distribute her efforts for the speediest attainment of the grand and ultimate designs of Christianity?' What we call 'home,' in the narrowness of our feelings, is nothing to her, except that she commands and nourishes all the virtues that are appropriate to our limited capacities. Thus much for the declaration of our theory of the missionary work; and the deduction is obvious, that it belongs to the Church to supervise it in all its forms.