CHAPTER XIV.
THE GREAT AWAKENING. REVIVALS.
We have but little information in regard to the general state of religion in the churches of this town during the earlier periods of their existence. But we know that from the year 1700 and onward, throughout all New England, experimental and vital godliness had very much decayed. The doctrines of Christ grew more and more unpopular; family prayer, and all the duties of the gospel were less regarded; ungodliness prevailed, and infidelity was making alarming progress. Out of the church, was to be seen a general carelessness. In it, a spirit of deep slumber; a want of discipline ; want of active brotherly love; want of everything, almost, but cold profession. As the good people who planted the town died and the new generation came on, there was a sensible decline as to the life and power of godliness. The generation which succeeded were not in general so eminent and distinguished in their zeal and strictness of morals, as their fathers. The third and fourth generations became still more generally inattentive to their spiritual concerns, and manifested a greater declension from the purity and zeal of their ancestors. This is not the place to enter upon a discussion or even a full enumeration of the causes of this declension. The
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"half way covenant," the numerous and almost incessant wars which oppressed and harassed the people, and the fierce political agitations of the day, were, no doubt, among these causes.
In 1715, the General Association said, "that there was a great want of Bibles, great neglect of public worship on the Sabbath," and complained of intemperance and other vices. Trumbull remarks, "that there was little of the power of religion; that professors were worldly and lukewarm, the young people loose and vicious, family prayer was neglected, the Sabbath was profaned, taverns were haunted, intemperance and other vices increased, and many of the ministers preached a cold and lifeless morality."1 Wallingford did not differ much in these respects from the rest of New England, and in our town as elsewhere, formality, irreligion and declension prevailed to a mournful extent. From the records we find that year after year not more than one or two united with the church annually.
In 1735 there began a most remarkable religious awakening under the preaching of the celebrated Jonathan Edwards, at Northampton, which was the cause of the greatest revival of religion ever known in New England. It spread throughout Connecticut, and the feeling and interest manifested in the great themes of religion were intense and absorbing. Childhood, manhood, old age, the learned and the ignorant, the moralist and the skeptic, men of wealth and the highest official position, as well as paupers and outcasts, were numbered among its converts. Says Trumbull, "Negroes and Indians, on whom before no impression could be made, were heard
1 Hist. Conn., II. 137.
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with others making the great inquiry."1 In some places not a solitary person could be found whose mind was not concerned for his soul's interest. In 1740 and 1741, various towns in Connecticut were most wonderfully affected. People flocked together on all days of the week in great crowds to hear the word of God; they would fill the houses and then stand clustered around the doors and windows, pressing eagerly to hear; they would go from one town to another wherever there was public worship.
In the autumn of 1740, the Rev. George Whitefield arrived in New England directly from Charleston, and produced an excitement never before known in our religious history. His itineracy, like the blazing cross of the Lady of the Lake, was the signal for an uprising. Fired by his passionate oratory, the masses revolted from the chill formalism of a dead ministry. He sailed from Charleston to Newport, where venerable parson Clapp, tottering with age, welcomed him as though he had been an angel of God. All classes caught the enthusiasm, and New England was in a blaze of excitement. A revival such as modern times had not before witnessed was the consequence. There was great intensity of feeling, and great diversity of sentiment and angry controversy followed. Those who favored the new doctrines and practices were called New Lights, while those who chose to adhere to the good old ways of their fathers, discountenancing innovation, were denominated Old Lights. The clergy were divided, "while the magistrates and principal men of the commonwealth" were on the side of the Old Lights.
Notwithstanding Whitefield was a priest of the Episcopal
1 Hist. Conn., II. 144.
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Church, he grew more bold under the impulse of his successes and excited feelings, and finally threw aside as an oppressive yoke, all reverence for the authority and teaching of the Church; and thereupon the Congregational ministers opened wide their arms to embrace him, and their sanctuaries to admit him, that he might be heard by the vast crowds which everywhere crowded to their portals.
He preached in Wallingford in Mr. Whittelsey's church about the middle of October, 1740, and also in Mr. Hall's church in Meriden parish. Our records of that date inform us of considerable accessions to the church. From Wallingford Mr. Whitefield proceeded to New Haven, and shortly after preached again at Wallingford, taking for his text the eighth verse of the eightieth Psalm: "Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt, thou hast cast out the heathen and planted it." While in Wallingford his wife joined him, having come from Hartford. Before leaving the town he preached while standing in his chariot to a large multitude, and soon after started for New Haven, large multitudes following him several miles on foot or on horses. When a church or meetinghouse could not be obtained he preached in the open air, a practice which he had inaugurated in England, and justified by saying, "I thought it might be doing the service of my Creator, who had a mountain for his pulpit and the heavens for a sounding-board, and who, when his gospel was refused by the Jews, sent his servants into the highways and hedges." When he took his leave of Boston, it was supposed that twenty thousand persons assembled to listen to his farewell sermon. Late in October he reached New Haven, and was affectionately welcomed and entertained at the house of
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Mr. James Pierrepont, a brother-in-law of Edwards, and a sympathizer with his religious views. People came in from the country a distance of twenty miles to hear him, and many neighboring ministers also sought the opportunity of personal intercourse with a clergyman whose zeal and eloquence were so widely known.
Whitefield seems to have been a man of more zeal than judgment; better fitted to rouse and agitate than to guide and instruct; and in the few years between his first visit and his second, a thick growth of mischievous enthusiasm and disorganizing extravagances had sprung up in his track, and were unquestionably the result in part of his unbalanced and unguarded teaching.
In 1745 the following resolve was "come into," by the General Association of the State:
"Whereas there has of late years been many errors in doctrine, and disorders in practice, prevailing in the churches of this land, which seems to have a threatening aspect upon these churches; and whereas Mr. George Whitefield has been the promoter, or at least the faulty occasion of many of these errors and disorders, this association think it needful for them to declare that if the said Mr. Whitefield should make his progress through this government, it would by no means be advisable for any of our ministers to admit him into their pulpits, or for any of our people to attend upon his preaching and administrations."
But after all we honor the name of Whitefield. Doubtless
"The tear
That fell upon his Bible was sincere."
He was no doubt a true evangelist, earnest, faithful, fervent, self-sacrificing, eloquent as if gifted with a tongue of fire. Whitefield's power was comparable to
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the supernatural; and it was in this view that John Foster, at a later day, found the only solution of his success. Says a writer, "In the pulpit his appearance and manners exceeded the dreams of apostolic grace. A youth of elegant form, with voice of enchanting melody, clear blue eyes, endurance which knew no exhaustion, a fancy which ranged both worlds, were all fused by a burning zeal for the salvation of souls. Such was Whitefield at twenty-five, and as such he was worthy of that ovation which he received at Boston when governor and council went out in form to welcome him. The evangelist bore his honors meekly, and hospitality did not weaken the vials of wrath which he poured upon the unfaithful. He found, as he said, in New England, 'a darkness which might be felt.' "1
A great many itinerant clergy traversed the State. Among the most efficient and zealous laborers in the work were Tennant, Bellamy, Pomeroy, Mills, Davenport, and others. Many of the clergy of the colony however, strenuously opposed the measures employed and the effects produced, and many of the magistrates and other leading men joined with them in denouncing the "itinerating clergy" and their converts as enthusiasts, new lights, and ranters. On the 24th of November, a grand council of ministers and messengers delegated from all parts of the colony, met at Killingworth, as directed by an act of Assembly, to discuss the whole subject of traveling ministers, the disorders occasioned by them, the odium they brought upon settled ministers, and the countenance they gave to separatists. This council condemned as disorderly the preaching of one minister within the
1 W. Frothingham.
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parish of another without his leave. In conformity with this ecclesiastical decision the General Court, in May, 1742, enacted a stringent law directed chiefly against irregular ministers and exhorters, entitled, "An act for regulating abuses and correcting disorders in ecclesiastical affairs;" by which,
"Any person not an ordained or settled minister who should attempt publicly to teach or exhort without the express desire and invitation of the pastor or a major part of the church and congregation, should he bound in the sum of one hundred pounds lawful money not to offend again."
Any foreigner or stranger not an inhabitant of the colony, whether ordained or not, was ordered "to be sent as a vagrant person from constable to constable, out of the bounds of the colony." The assembly not only passed laws against these alleged irregularities, but the several ecclesiastical bodies interposed their authority to check the innovations of the new lights. After numerous attempts to discipline the refractory preachers, the consociations and associations proceeded to suspend or expel all the new light pastors in the colony. In May, 1742, the General Assembly passed an act very severe on itinerant preachers. This act, in part at least, had its origin in the consociation of New Haven county, as appears from the instructions which they gave to their delegates whom they sent to the council, which were suggested first by the Rev. Samuel Whittelsey, of Wallingford, who had in the beginning received Mr. White-field with open arms. Trumbull considers this act of the General Assembly as an "outrage to every principle of justice."
The trial of Rev. Philemon Robbins of Branford for preaching to the Baptists at Wallingford in 1742, was
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continued till 1747, and resulted in his deposition from the ministry. In 1744 the Rev. Mr. Pomeroy was brought before the assembly in consequence of a bill of indictment filed against him by Elihu Hall, Esq., of Wallingford, for publicly saying that the late laws of the colony, made concerning ecclesiastical affairs, were a great foundation to encourage persecution, and to encourage wicked men to break their covenants ; and that if they did not, it was no thanks to the court; and that the law which was made to stop ministers from going about to preach in other towns, was made without reason, and was contrary to the word of God. He was found guilty, and ordered to pay the cost of prosecution, which was £32 10s. 8d., and to be bound to his peaceable and good behavior in a bond of £50.
It is not to be denied that many gross errors and irregularities followed in the train of this remarkable revival. Many of the most enthusiastic of its subjects forsook their pastors and their usual places of worship, and followed the "itinerants" from parish to parish and from town to town. Some of the preachers and exhorters encouraged the most boisterous manifestations of feeling during the public worship on the part of the audience, and sought to arouse them by raising their own voices to the highest key, accompanied by violent gestures and the most unnatural agitation of the body.1 From that period there appears to have been no season of revival in this town for the space of seventy-four years. As a natural consequence, both religion and the church had arrived at a point of great declension and feebleness. The congregation had become very small, and was daily becoming weaker.
1 Hollister, I. 470.
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In 1814, while Rev. Mr. Ripley was in the pastoral office, a revival occurred. Previous to that time, the church for several years had annually diminished by deaths and dismissions, without corresponding- additions. In the fall of that year a few of the brethren in connection with the pastor commenced a weekly prayer meeting, and the pastor commenced a series of pastoral visits to all the families of the congregation. He found with equal surprise and joy, that in all the houses at which he called, one or more persons were under deep religious impressions, and that the whole community seemed pervaded by divine influence. The revival soon developed itself in the increased attendance on public worship, in the deep conviction of sin evidently produced on the minds of large numbers, and probable conversion of many individuals. In the course of three or four months it is thought that nearly one hundred were converted, and about eighty of them subsequently united with the church. In 1822 eighty-one families were connected with the church, and one hundred and forty-nine persons constituted its members. Another revival occurred in 1829, during the ministry of Rev. Mr. Hinsdale, resulting in fifty persons uniting with the church. In the winter of 1833-4, while Rev. Wm. McLean was supplying the pulpit, a revival occurred in which severity persons united with the church. In 1837 about forty were converted and united with the church. In the month of February, 1840, during the ministry of Rev. Charles Rich, commenced a revival more extensive and powerful than had ever before been witnessed in this place. For some time previous Rev. Dr. Taylor had preached statedly on the sabbath, and as afterwards appeared, his powerful and solemn discourses had prepared
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the minds of the people for the scenes which were to follow. About one hundred and thirty were converted, and one hundred connected with the church, and about as many more with the other churches of the town. The first sabbath school was commenced in 1818 with one hundred and thirty pupils; it was kept only during the warm season until 1830. In 1831 it contained two hundred and thirty-one members; and in that year seventeen of them united with the church. In 1832 adult classes became connected with the church. In 1837 it contained two hundred and seventy-four members. In 1841 the school contained two hundred and sixty-five members, and in 1847 five hundred and seven.