The Reformation was a revival.
The Salvation Army movement is a revival. But the greatest revival of
all times is even now upon us: it is a revival in the scientific
circles of the race. Time was when science and religion were supposed to
be at odds; to-day the intellectual phalanxes are sweeping Christward
with an impetus that is sublime! Thinkers are finding in the large life
of religion a motive power for their thought, their growth--a reason for
their existence--a forecast of their destiny. We are beginning to
realize the dynamic value of Belief. This revival is coming, not with
shouts and noise, but with the quiet insistence of new ideas, of new
facts--with the still voice of scientific announcement. The atheist is
being overcome, not by emotion, but by evidence; the scoffer is being
put down by cool logic.
Hence the evangelist of to-day is more than a man who can popularly
address a public audience, and by tales and tears arouse a weeping
commotion. The evangelist is a man of intellect and prayer, who can
preach the gospel to a scientific age, and to a thinking coterie--a
coterie of college men and mechanics, of society women and
servant-girls, of poets and of mine-diggers, of convicts and of
reformers.
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