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more; in 1823-24, about thirty converts; in 1827, thirty more, and still another in 1828. The spring of 1831 will be long remembered for its wonderful revival, and the three following years were characterized by an abiding religious interest. In the year 1835 about fifty students became hopeful converts, and in 1836-37 there were spiritual visitations. In the space of ninety-six years (1741– 1837) this college was favored with twenty distinct effusions of the Holy Spirit, of which only three were in the last century.

In Dartmouth College, from 1800 to 1830, there were five revivals-in 1805, 1815, 1819, 1821, and 1826. In the revival of 1815 sixty students professed conversion. There were also revivals in 1831 and 1834, and later. It was said that in the first sixty-five years of this institution, as the result of the revivals, ninety-five ministers of the Gospel were thrust out, one of whom, not to speak. of others, Rev. Dr. Alvan Hyde, gathered into his church more than seven hundred converts.

In Amherst College, founded in 1821, after the Congregationalists abandoned all idea of retaining any control of Harvard University, there were marked revivals in 1823, 1827, 1828, 1831, and 1835, besides others of lesser power, making twelve in the first twelve years of its existence. Rev. Dr. Heman Humphrey has said: +

During a considerable part of the time three fourths of the under-graduates were professors of religion, and there has always been a majority. No class has ever passed through the college and graduated without witnessing at least one revival and sharing in its blessings. Of the whole number of alumni in 1838, which amounts to 556, nearly three fourths are professors of religion, and more than half of them are in the ministry or preparing for it, and about twenty have gone forth as missionaries.

In Williams College there were great revivals of religion. Founded when morals were low, and when French infidelity was rife, the progress of religion was slow at first; but a revival commenced in 1805 and progressed slowly through the summer. In the summer of 1806 the interest deepened and widened, Messrs. Samuel J. Mills and James Richards, subsequently widely known in evangelizing labors, being prominent actors. In 1812, the era of serious national cmbarrassments, the religious interest ran low and intemperance appeared among the students. Some hearts were moved to earnest prayer, and nearly forty students professed conversion. In 1815 there was another revival; another in 1819, and one of wider extent and

*For a fuller account of Revivals in Yale College see American Quarterly Register, 1838, article by Prof. Chauncy Goodrich, D.D. P. 289, etc.

+ American Quarterly Register, 1839, p. 327.

power, under the presidency of Rev. Dr. E. D. Griffin, in 1825, 1826, and 1827. Revivals also occurred in 1832, 1838, 1840, and still later. Those of 1838 and 1840 were very powerful, effecting a great change in the morals of the students.

In the year 1831 revivals occurred in fifteen colleges, gathering in over three hundred students as converts. Similar occurrences in numerous years might be stated in the other colleges. The old academies at Wilbraham, Mass.; Newbury, Vt.; Kent's Hill, Me.; Poultney, Vt.; Amenia, Cazenovia and Lima, N. Y., and many others elsewhere, of all denominations, have seldom passed a year without some revival interest. Thousands of young persons have been brought into the churches while attending these institutions.

Section 6.-The Effects

of the revival of 1799-1803 were extensive, abiding, and in the highest degree salutary.

1. It was the beginning of a reformation from a low state of morals and religion which had long and alarmingly prevailed.

2. It gave the first check to the rampant infidelity of the times. 3. It exploded from the evangelical churches the remains of the "Half-Way Covenant," whose influence had been so deleterious. Thenceforth spiritual religion came into greater prominence in the churches.

4. It gave rise to the numerous evangelizing enterprises so conspicuous in the churches during the century. The Home Missionary movements, then slightly incepted, were infused with new life, multiplied, expanded, and energized. An immediate powerful impulse was felt to spread the Gospel in destitute frontiers, among the blacks and Indians. Out of this new life also sprang Tract, Bible, Sunday-school, educational, city and foreign mission societies.

Rev. Dr. Gardner Spring † said:

From the year 1800 down to the year 1825 there was an uninterrupted series of these celestial visitations spreading over different parts of the land. During the whole of these twenty-five years there was not a month in which we could not point to some village, some city, some seminary of learning, and say, “Behold, what hath God wrought!"

Rev. Dr. Heman Humphrey said:

In looking back fifty years and more the great revival of that period strikes me in its thoroughness, in its depth, in its freedom from animal and unhealthy excite*Am. Quarterly Register, 1841, pp. 472, 473. ↑ Personal Reminiscences. Vol. I, p. 160.

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ment, and its far-reaching influence on subsequent revivals, as having been decidedly in advance of any that had preceded it. It was the opening of a new revival epoch, which has lasted now more than half a century, with but short and partial interruptions-and, blessed be God, the end is not yet. The glorious cause of religion and philanthropy has advanced till it would require a space that cannot be afforded in these sketches so much as to name the Christian and humane societies which have sprung up all over our land within the last forty years. Exactly how much we at home and the world abroad are indebted for these organizations, so rich in blessings, to the revivals of 1800 it is impossible to say, though much every way-more than enough to magnify the grace of God in the instruments he employed, in the immediate fruits of their labors, and the subsequent harvests springing from the good seed which was sown by the men whom God delighted thus to honor. It cannot be denied that modern missions sprung out of these revivals. The immediate connection between them, as cause and effect, was remarkably clear in the organization of the first societies, which have since accomplished so much; and the impulse which they gave to the churches to extend the blessings which they were diffusing by forming the later affiliated societies of like aims and character is scarcely less obvious.

TAKEN ALTOGETHER THE REVIVAL PERIOD AT THE CLOSE OF THE LAST CENTURY AND THE BEGINNING OF THE PRESENT FURNISHES AMPLE MATERIALS FOR A LONG AND GLORIOUS CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF REDEMPTION.*

* Dr. Humphrey was a member of Yale College in 1802. See his Revival Sketches.

URING the fifty years of this period a great change came over the vast western valley. Twelve vigorous States with rapidly-multiplying people were added to the Union, and still larger Territories, with the beginnings of civil order and numerous schemes and enterprises, were soon after received into the sisterhood of States. The population of this region increased from 500,000 in 1800 to 8,247,373 in 1850-a sixteenfold advance. The material resources unfolded in a still greater ratio, and the boundless capabilities, outreaching the largest expectations, called for the utmost activity and zeal of the churches. It soon became evident

that there was to be a struggle for the possession of this inviting field. At the outset the Roman Catholic Church was the only religious occupant. Shall Protestantism enter, and will Protestant enterprise keep pace with the growth of society and promptly bear her ministrations to the new communities? Such was the question -one of great interest and importance.

The early Roman Catholic occupancy of this region has been already noticed at considerable length in previous chapters. In Illinois, as early as 1683, the year of the founding of Philadelphia, several permanent settlements were made under Roman Catholic direction, and in Michigan, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana and Mississippi, for about one hundred years prior to the present century, many points were held by the papists; in Alabama nearly as long, and in Florida for more than two hundred years prior to this century. Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana remained under foreign rule and papal control until 1803, and Florida until 1820. At the beginning of this century, therefore, all the vast territory from Lake St. Clair to "the howling

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wilderness" beyond Wisconsin, and from the lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, and eastward on the coast line to Florida, was under the sole religious control of Roman Catholics. Whatever religious occupancy there was, was papal, and in some localities there were very considerable populations mixtures of French, Spanish and Indians.

Section 1.-The Moral and Religious Condition. of these new regions at the opening of this century was most deplorable. Rev. Jacob Young, who went to Illinois in 1804, said: "The bulk of the people are given up to wickedness of every kind. Of all places this is the worst for stealing, fighting and lying. My soul, come not into their secret places!'" Rev. Jesse Walker, who went to St. Louis in 1820, said "the population was made up mostly of Catholics and infidels, very dissipated and wicked." It was thought that no Protestant minister could gain access to them, and he was advised to return to his family. Rev. Elisha B. Bowman, who went to New Orleans in 1805, said:

As for the settlements of this country, there are none that are composed of Americans. From Baton Rouge, the Spanish fort, which stands on the east bank of the Mississippi, down two hundred miles, it is settled immediately on each bank by French and Spaniards. When I reached the city I was much disappointed in finding but few American people there, and a majority of that few may be truly called beasts of men. . . . The Lord's day is the day of general rant in this city. Public balls are held, traffic of every kind is carried on, public sales, wagons running, and drums beating; and thus is the Sabbath spent. . . . I reached the Opelousas country, and the next day I reached the Catholic church. I was surprised to see race-paths at the church door. Here I found a few Americans, who were swearing with almost every breath; and when I reproved them they told me that the priest swore as hard as they did. They said he would play cards and dance with them every Sunday evening after mass; and, strange to tell, he keeps a race-horse and practices every abomination.

About twenty miles further he found another settlement consisting of American people.

"They knew," he says, "but little more about the nature of salvation than the untaught Indians. Some of them, after I had preached to them, asked what I meant by the fall of man, and when it was that he fell. They are perishing for lack of knowledge and are truly in a pitiable condition."

Detroit.

"Although Detroit was visited as early as 1610, and a settlement effected and a fort erected in 1701, it was not until 1805 that a Territorial government was established in Michigan. Among the