Great Revivals and Evangelists By JOHN H. HUNTER IV. CHARLES G. FINNEY Copyright, 1915, by John H. Hunter
and attended high school. He intended to enter Yale College, but was dissuaded from doing so bjr his preceptor, himself a grad uate of Yale. In later years he acquired some knowledge of Latin, Hebrew and Greek, but speaks thus modestly of his at tainments : “I was never a classical scholar, and never possessed so much knowledge of the ancient languages as, to think myself capable of independently criticising our English trans lation of the Bible.” Yielding to his parents’ solicitations he refused an invitation to join the preceptor referred to in establishing an academy in the south, and returned with them to New York and soon took up the study of law with Squire W—i f at Adams, in Jefferson county. He was then twenty-six years old, and, to quote his own language, “almost as ignorant of religion as a heathen. I had very little regard to the Sabbath and had no definite knowledge of religious truth.” BUYS HIS FIRST BIBLE On taking up his residence at Adams, Mr. Finney became a regular attendant at the Presbyterian Church of which the Rev. George W. Gale, a Princeton graduate, was the pastor. He also attended the weekly prayer meeting as regularly as possible. The preaching on Sundays and the praying on week days alike perplexed him. He began to read the Bible about this time, not from any religious or spiritual motive but solely because in his study of common'law he found the writers referring so often to the Bible as authority that he had to look up the passages exactly as he had to’ look up authorities on law in legal text-books. So he bought a Bible, the first he ever had, and placed it on his desk with his other books.
RINCE of evangelists of ljis generation was Charles Grandison Finney, whose “Memoirs” and “Lectures on SU d Revivals” have been fuel to
kindle revival fires wherever and whenever they have been read. If this brief sketch impels some reader of it to read these two books, we are certain that the result \vill be a great quickening of the spiritual life. Mr. Finney was not only an evangelist; he was the first pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle in New York City; later he was professor of theology in Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, and later still, president of that college. But whatever position he filled, his passion for bringing men to repentance and acceptance of the finished work of Christ always dominated Jiim. Mr. Finney was born at Warren, Litch field county, Connecticut, August 29, 1792, and died at Oberlin, Ohio, August 16, 1875. When he was two years old the family re moved to Oneida county, New York, which was then largely wilderness and destitute of religious privileges, except for the occa sional visit of a chance itinerant preacher, whose ignorance made him oftener a sub ject for ridicule than a channel of spirit ual blessing to his hearers. Mr. Finney at tended the public schools of the community until he was fifteen or sixteen years of age. The family removed from Oneida county to near Sackett’s Harbor, on the southern shore of Lake Ontario, and after living there a few years Mr. Finney returned to his native State, Connecticut. BECOMES A TEACHER When about twenty he became a teacher in New Jersey, not far from New York City. He returned to Connecticut twice
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