Saturday, May 17, 2008 • 9:00 am
James M’Gready was called to Logan County in south Kentucky in the late 1700’s. In the summer of 1798, as he reported, there was some movement among the congregations in Logan County, he wrote, ‘a very general awakening’. The spirit of prayer deepened and twelve months later it was apparent that a powerful work of conversion was in progress. At the Red River communion services at the end of July 1799 ‘many of the most bold and daring sinners of the country were brought to cover their faces and weep bitterly’. A month later the same ‘heart-piercing conviction’ was in evidence at services at Gasper River, some individuals being so overcome with emotion that they fell to the floor.
Much more was to follow: M’Gready wrote:
The year 1800 exceeds all that our eyes ever beheld on earth. All the blessed displays of Almighty power and grace, all the sweet gales of the divine Spirit, and soul-reviving showers of the blessings of Heaven which we enjoyed before, and which we considered wonderful beyond conception, were but like a few scattering drops before a mighty rain, when compared with the overflowing floods of salvation, which the eternal, gracious Jehovah has poured out like a mighty river, upon this our guilty, unworthy country. The Lord has indeed shewed himself a prayer-hearing God: he has given his people a praying spirit and a lively faith, and then he has answered their prayers far beyond their highest expectations.
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M’Gready’s Short Narrative of the Revival of Religion in Logan County, in the State of Kentucky, and the adjacent Settlements in the State of Tennessee, from May 1797, until September 1800 was published in four installments in the New York Missionary Magazine, 1802.
Filed under: 18th Century, 19th Century, American History, Revival
Monday, May 5, 2008 • 6:49 am
One of the most widely circulated contemporary accounts of the Kentucky revival of 1800 was written by the Rev. George Baxter, successor to William Graham in the teaching work in Lexington, Virginia. Baxter described his extended visit to Kentucky in the autumn of 1801, in a letter to Archibald Alexander, dated 1 January 1802:
The power with which this revival has spread, and its influence in moralizing the people, are difficult for you to conceive of, and more difficult for me to describe…On my way to Kentucky, I was told by settlers on the road, that the character of Kentucky travelers was entirely changed, and that they were now as distinguished for sobriety as they had formerly been for dissoluteness; and indeed, I found Kentucky the most moral place I had ever been in; a profane expression was hardly heard; a religious awe seemed to pervade the country; and some deistical characters had confessed that from whatever cause the revival might originate, it certainly made the people better…
Upon the whole, sir, I think the revival in Kentucky among the most extraordinary that have ever visited the Church of Christ, and, all things considered, peculiarly adapted to the circumstances of that country. Infidelity was triumphant, and religion at the point of expiring. Something of an extraordinary nature seemed necessary to arrest the attention of a giddy people, who were ready to conclude that Christianity was a fable, and futurity a dream.
Oh, that the Holy Spirit would visit His church again in Kentucky. It does no good to schedule a revival and advertise popular preachers and singers. For real revival to sweep our land there must be a transformation of the heart and mind by the power of Christ. There is no substitute. We will not see revival again in Kentucky until God sends one. Let us all ardently pray to this end and for Christ to be glorified in the bluegrass state like that of 1800.
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To read more of the 1800 Kentucky revival please see Revival and Revivalism by Iain H. Murray
Filed under: 19th Century, Revival
