Revival of 1800

These multi-day gatherings hosted people from great distances for outdoor services focused on arousing the heart-felt conversion and religious enthusiasm that came to characterize especially rural evangelicalism throughout the nineteenth century.

[2] In addition, well publicized attacks on Christianity were made by deists Ethan Allen, the hero of Fort Ticonderoga, and Thomas Paine, the famous author of Common Sense.

"[6] Stone eventually responded, with a sense of his own conversion, to the appeals of one of McGready's associates, William Hodge, who spoke not of the flames of hell, but of the love of God for sinners.

In the backcountry where few churches existed, early Methodist itinerant ministers such as the English missionary Francis Asbury rode on horseback thousands of miles yearly to establish circuits to reach remote settlements.

Set apart from the rest of the congregation, these tables were often covered with the best and finest linens available and sometimes "fenced" with a rail as the minister described the qualifications of communicants as a further barrier against those who had not been formally invited and approved.

[24] As in the later nineteenth-century revivals, the spectacle of the sacrament season, both inside and outside the meeting house, and the large influx of people coming for diverse reasons from considerable distances, sometimes produced a carnival-like atmosphere.

[25] McGready also revealed his openness to innovations associated with distinctly American influences as well, and he promoted the introduction of the camp meeting into the sacrament tradition in pioneer Kentucky.

By the summer of 1798, the sacrament observances were the site of more conversions, but criticism circulated by rival Presbyterian minister James Balch, recently arrived from another community, brought conflict and doubt and, according to McGready, quelled the enthusiasm, so that again, stagnation followed.

[32] At the subsequent sacrament at Gasper River, he reported the first incidences of a phenomenon that would continue to characterize the assemblies—people falling into swoons with groans and loud cries for mercy, often lying helpless for hours.

McGready's Calvinist beliefs prevented him from pronouncing with certainty that a person had been converted; he believed that only God knew for sure, but he made attempts, judging by the evidence at hand, to count the conversions that began in the summer sacraments of 1800.

McGready exulted in the revival at one community, a hundred miles from Logan County at the Red Banks of the Ohio River (Henderson, Kentucky) where "professed Deists" became "warm and lively Christians.

[50] McGready recorded several incidents of people inspiring their friends and neighbors after they had returned home, planting "true religion" in "careless and profane settlements where no professors lived.

As he rode through North and South Carolina, Asbury relayed McGready's account of the revivals, kindling the hope among his fellow Methodists that similar outpourings might occur among them.

He turned south before reaching Logan County and headed toward Nashville; his journal reflected his mood on Thursday, Oct. 16, 1800: "In travelling nearly six hundred measured miles, we have had only six appointments; and at these but small congregations: we have wearied ourselves in vain!.

"[54] Asbury echoed McGready's account of the meetings and activities extending into the night as he wrote of "fires blazing here and there [that] dispelled the darkness" as "the shouts of the redeemed captives, and the cries of the precious souls struggling into life broke the silence of midnight.

The now familiar scenes of the Kentucky and Tennessee revivals were repeated here" "on Saturday and Sunday several hundred in the congregation fell to the ground and felt they had received pardon.

"[61] The so-called, "falling" behavior had come to characterize the revivals, as Cartwright reported that "Scores of sinners fell ...like men slain in mighty battle; Christians shouted for joy.

Presbyterian Richard McNemar was especially indicted as encouraging physical enthusiasm, but Stone was also criticized for making no effort to bring order to the increasingly wild behavior of both worshippers and ministers.

Though the revivals continued to attract crowds, opposition to them was significant enough that one Sunday, McGready had to preach from the steps of his Red River meeting house, having been locked out by an anti-revivalist church member.

Denominational cooperation, a hallmark of the revivals that began in Logan County, was not necessarily uncommon among frontier preachers, because of the needs related to planting new churches and religious societies in the demanding circumstances of backcountry settlements.

McGready was especially impressed with recurring instances of child exhorters who sometimes exhibited the falling behavior, only to rise later and expound upon the mysteries of the gospel in words that seemed beyond their years.

"[78] While McGready's sermons were not subtle or scholarly, they did reveal some marks of sophistication, including a grasp of history, an organized flow based on logical argument, and a theology derived from John Calvin and St. Augustine.

McGready believed he was acting on a solemn charge to shine the light of truth on man's desperate spiritual condition, that judgment awaited, and was possibly imminent: "The ungodly and finally impenitent will now be ripe for destruction…they shall reap a harvest of immortal woe….

In this context, McGready, like Edwards, believed that dramatic conversion experiences that caused people to swoon or cry out were the physical manifestation of unseen spiritual activity.

[81] McGready's focus on the need of the people for regeneration was not reserved for overt sinners, but also for church members who relied on exhibiting a moral life and knowledge of the Westminster catechism, but had not experienced a saving change.

He regarded the participation in the sacrament without evidence of heart-felt regeneration as a serious hypocrisy, telling his congregation that "an unworthy communicant …is more offensive to Almighty God than a loathsome carcass crawling with vermin.

"[82] Aside from his primary concern for the conversion of individuals, McGready also expressed an urgency to battle popular philosophies and religious doctrines that had advanced in connection with the rhetoric of the American Revolution, especially deism.

In opposition to the Calvinist doctrines regarding atonement, election, and irresistible grace, Deism proposed that man could save himself and society through reason and scientific advances.

The Cane Ridge congregation, for example, presented a strong anti-slavery petition to the Kentucky Presbytery, while other social concerns such as temperance initiatives and legislation regarding the Sabbath were also introduced in the wake of the revivals.

Its numbers stagnated in the years between 1800 and 1820, while Baptist and Methodist membership soared to as much as tenfold from the time of the inception of the Logan County revivals, outpacing the rate of population generally.