IT is gratifying to relate that the convention at New Lebanon was conducted throughout in such a spirit that it did not seriously interfere with the revival which had been in progress in the place. Soon afterwards Finney was invited to labor in Wilmington, Del., with Rev. Mr. Gilbert, whose home was in New Lebanon, and who had become familiar with Finney's work while on a visit there. While at Wilmington, Finney was invited to preach twice a week for some time in the church of Rev. James Patterson, of Philadelphia. So great was the interest in this city that a little later it was thought expedient for him to devote his whole time to Philadelphia. Here he preached in turn in nearly all of the Presbyterian churches with great effect, and continued in this way without intermission until August, 1828. To satisfy the demand, at one time, he was compelled to repeat his sermon on the text, "There is one God and one Mediator between God and man," seven different evenings in succession in as many different churches. In the autumn of 1828, it was deemed best that he should preach steadily in one place, and a German church, the largest in the city, was selected. Here he continued until the close of 1829, with no abatement in the revival interest.

During the winter of 1829-30, Finney labored with his usual success in Reading, and then for a short time in Lancaster, Pa. After a few weeks' visit to his home in Oneida County, New York, he was induced by Anson G. Phelps, a well-known philanthropist, to come to New York city. From the late William E. Dodge, Mr. Phelps's son-in-law, we learn that this invitation was extended only after mature consideration and correspondence. The well-known opposition of Nettleton and Beecher had led the clergy of New York to look upon Finney with much suspicion; so that, according to Mr. Dodge, there was not a Presbyterian church or any other church in the city that would have invited him. Under these circumstances, it was difficult to persuade Finney to come to the city at all. But Mr. Phelps corresponded with Dr. Lansing, of Auburn, and through him overcame Finney's hesitation. A vacant Presbyterian church in Vandewater Street was hired by Mr. Phelps, and Finney was accompanied to New York by Drs. Lansing and Beman, who for a week remained with him at the house of Mr. Phelps, and held a succession of prayer meetings with reference to the work about to be commenced. After three months, a Universalist church in the neighborhood of Niblo's Garden was for sale, and, as affording a more eligible audience-room, was purchased by Mr. Phelps, and here the meetings were continued for a year longer, Finney preaching to crowded audiences almost every night. Long "before the year was up," says Mr. Dodge, "there were many churches that would have been delighted to invite him to come to them."⁽¹⁸⁾ Among the converts were many leading lawyers and other prominent business men of the city. It was at this time, also, that the strong attachment between Finney and the two Tappans, Arthur and Lewis, began, and that the foundations were laid for their future influence in connection with his labors. As a result of these meetings in New York city, the First Free Presbyterian Church was formed (so called because the seats were free), to accommodate those not heretofore in attendance upon any church.

Leaving New York city in the summer of 1831, for a few weeks' rest with Mrs. Finney's parents at Whitestown, Oneida County, Finney was urged while there to supply for a time the vacant pulpit of the Third Presbyterian Church in Rochester. On account of local dissensions, the opening seemed unpropitious. On calling some friends together at Utica to help him to decide whether to go to Rochester, or to some one of the other fields which were open to him, they with one consent advised him to return to New York or Philadelphia, rather than go to Rochester. To this view he assented, and they left him, expecting that on the next morning he would take the canal boat with his family for the East. But during the night his mind was deeply wrought upon with the conviction that he ought not to shrink from the work at Rochester. Greatly to the surprise of his friends at Utica, therefore, Finney with his family embarked the following morning on the packet boat going west instead of east.

The revival in Rochester was remarkable for its extent, its depth, the class of people brought under its influence, and as a preparation for subsequent labors of Finney in the same city. Though the population in 1831 was only about 10,000, the number of converts in the city alone was upwards of 800, while large numbers in all the surrounding towns were affected by the movement. As a result, 1,200 united that year with the churches of the Rochester Presbytery, besides the large number whose affiliation was with other denominations. At this time, as at later periods of revival under Finney's preaching in Rochester, the leading citizens of the place were the first to be moved. Nearly all of the lawyers, judges, physicians, merchants, bankers, and master mechanics of the city were among the converts; so that, according to unquestionable testimony,⁽¹⁹⁾ "the whole character of the city was changed. . . . And the city has been famous ever since for its high moral tone, its strong churches, its evangelical and earnest ministry, and its frequent and powerful revivals of religion. . . . Those who know the place best ascribe much of all the good that has characterized it to the shaping and controlling influence of that first grand revival. Even the courts and prisons bore witness to its blessed effect. There was a wonderful falling off in crime. The courts had little to do, and the jail was nearly empty for years afterwards." It is said, also, that no less than forty of the young men who were converted entered the ministry. All classes of society were equally influenced. "The only theatre in the city was converted into a livery stable, the only circus into a soap and candle factory," the "grog shops were closed," and "a new impulse was given to every philanthropic enterprise."

It was at Rochester that Finney first introduced into his own meetings the practice of inviting persons forward to "the anxious seat." Previous to this time, his efforts to bring his hearers to an immediate decision had been limited to invitations to "an inquiry meeting," or, when the interest warranted it, those in the audience who were seriously considering the question of their religious duties were asked to rise, and by that act publicly commit themselves to the service of God. As Finney recognized no intermediate position between a state of disobedience and a state of obedience, he never adopted a formula of invitation which implied such a state. He did not ask his hearers to do anything which would intimate that any progress had been made in becoming reconciled to God previous to an entire surrender of their will to the Divine Will. When he introduced into his services the so-called "anxious seat," the invitation was to those who were ready to repent of their sins, and to consecrate their whole hearts to God. Such were invited to respond at once in a public committal, and were asked to separate themselves from the world, and to come forward to specified seats, where there would be opportunity for personal conversation and direction.

The opposition to the anxious seat arose largely from its theological significance, since the Old School Calvinists were not willing to admit that the human will possessed that self-determining power implied in these urgent appeals to immediate submission. In their view, there was little natural connection between the means used for the persuasion of men and their conversion. According to their theory, conversion could only follow regeneration, and that was a mysterious process wrought directly by God on the hearts of the elect. Instead of urging men to immediate repentance, it was the habit of the preachers of this school to urge their hearers to use the means of grace, and wait on the Lord for Him to transform their tastes and desires according to his sovereign grace; whereas Finney always proceeded upon the assumption that there was nothing but the perverse will of the sinner which, at any time, prevented him from becoming an inheritor of the divine promises. Consequently his preaching always had in view immediate results, and he always proceeded upon the theory that the proper province of the preacher related to the action he was to elicit from his hearers, and he so set forth the gospel scheme in accordance with this theory as to sweep away every excuse for man's inaction. Finney's use, therefore, of the anxious seat must be interpreted in connection with his whole system of theology. It should be remarked, however, that he had no inordinate attachment to any particular measure, and did not employ any with unvarying uniformity. He was more afraid of formality than of almost anything else.

In connection with this account of Finney's labor in Rochester in 1831, it will be profitable to glance forward to his subsequent labors in the same city, which occurred in 1842 and 1856. On each of these occasions the invitation came from the lawyers of the city as he was passing through, toward Oberlin, on his way from the East. On both occasions, also, the results were equally striking with those in 1831. In 1842, another revival was in progress in the city in connection with the preaching of the famous Jedediah Burchard. As Burchard largely drew the common people, Finney's audiences were composed of the most intelligent portions of the people, including the lawyers who invited him, almost in a body. As he proceeded from night to night with his lectures addressed especially to them, the interest increased, and finally culminated, without any call on Finney's part, in a spontaneous movement, in which the lawyers, almost en masse, arose one evening and expressed their determination henceforth to live Christian lives, and to acknowledge God before the world.

In the winter of 1855-56, the request from the lawyers was that he would give them a course of lectures on "The Moral Government of God." The lectures then given resulted in the conversion of large numbers of the class inviting him, as well as in an extensive work throughout the whole community. On each of these occasions it is estimated that the converts were not less than one thousand.

The last time he was at Rochester, the First Presbyterian Church refused to unite with the other churches in support of Finney. The following letter, addressed to me in answer to inquiries, therefore has special value in attestation of the genuineness of the work: -

EVELYN COLLEGE, PRINCETON, N. J., May 4, 1890.

DEAR SIR, - In answer to your note of March 29th inquiring for particulars of Mr. Finney's labors in Rochester while I was there, I am happy to say that I regard them as connected with the greatest work of grace I have ever seen in any of the churches. I was not in sympathy with it at the time, and would not admit Mr. Finney into the pulpit of the First Church, of which I was then pastor; but I have long been convinced that I was totally wrong, and have since taken occasion to say so to the church itself. During the revival Rochester rocked to its foundations. Great numbers of hopeful converts were added to all the churches during his labors. You are at liberty to make what use of these statements you please.

Very truly yours,

J. H. MCILVAINE.

But, going back to the spring of 1831, when Finney closed his first season of labor at Rochester, we must follow him briefly in subsequent years. He started East on an urgent invitation from Dr. Nott, President of Union College, Schenectady, to bold revival meetings which should be accessible to the students under his care. It was on this journey that, as previously related, Finney was invited to preach at Auburn to the very congregation and people who had with so much spirit turned away from him five or six years before, and in the course of six weeks five hundred were converted.

From Auburn he was called to Buffalo, where the same influential classes were reached by the means of grace as at Rochester, though not to an equal extent.

In the autumn of 1831, he went by invitation to preach for a while at Providence, Rhode Island, and while there received a request from the Congregational ministers and churches of Boston to labor in that city. The change in public sentiment can be appreciated only by recalling the strength of Beecher's opposition four years before, when he had said to Finney: Finney, I know your plan, and you know I do; you mean to come to Connecticut and carry a streak of fire to Boston. But if you attempt it, as the Lord liveth, I'll meet you at the State line, and call out all the artillerymen, and fight every inch of the way to Boston, and then I'll fight you there."⁽²⁰⁾ The true magnanimity and sincerity of Beecher appear in the fact that now he headed the invitation to have Finney come to Boston. This was brought about, it seems, by a chance meeting between Finney and Catherine Beecher. Some one had written to Finney about his coming to Boston, but upon this meeting with Miss Beecher, Finney said: "Your father vowed solemnly at the New Lebanon Convention he would fight me if I came to Boston, and I shall never go there until he asks me." "So," as Beecher says, "we wrote and invited him, and he came, August, 1831, and did very well."⁽²¹⁾

In Boston, as elsewhere, marked results attended the preaching. Dr. Edward Beecher writes, under date of November 6, 1889: "I was pastor of Park Street Church when he [Finney] was first invited to preach in Boston, and I invited him to preach for me. He complied with my request, and preached to a crowded house the most impressive and powerful sermon I ever heard. . . . No one can form any conception of the power of his appeal. It rings in my ears even to this day. As I was preaching myself, I did not hear him again. But I met good results in all who heard him, and have ever honored and loved him, as one as truly commissioned by God to declare his will as were Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Paul."⁽²²⁾

Finney's preaching in Boston, however, was not followed either at this time or at any other by such a general movement as in some other places. At four subsequent periods Finney labored in Boston, namely, in the winters of 1842, 1843, 1856, and 1857. During the first and second of these, he preached in Marlborough Chapel; on the last two occasions, in Park Street Church. At all these times, extensive revivals attended his ministry, and it is the universal testimony of the members of Park Street Church surviving from that time that the conversions were characterized by greater permanence than were those brought about in connection with the labors of any other revivalist whom they have had with them.

In the summer of 1832, Finney was invited again to New York city, at this time to preach in the Chatham Street Theatre, which Lewis Tappan and others leased for the use of the Second Free Presbyterian Church, which had grown out of the movement inaugurated by Finney two years before. This was the year of the famous visitation of the cholera. In the midst of the installation services, Finney was taken down with the disease; and, though he recovered, his prostration was so great that he was unable to preach till the following spring. Upon resuming his labors with the church, though he was still somewhat feeble in health, he preached twenty evenings in succession at the outset. As a result, there were as many as five hundred converts, making the church so large that a colony was formed to organize another, which occupied a building on the corner of Madison and Catherine streets. From this time on, the number of meetings was diminished, but the revival continued for two years, in the course of which no less than seven churches grew out of the movement. Toward the close of this period, Finney became so dissatisfied with the difficulties of administering discipline through the Presbyterian forms of procedure that his friends decided upon organizing a Congregational Church, and proceeded to build the Broadway Tabernacle. When the building was completed, he took his dismission from the Presbytery,⁽²³⁾ and became pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle Congregational Church, which, with slight reorganization, is the same as that of which Dr. Joseph P. Thompson and Dr. William M. Taylor subsequently became pastors.

During Finney's New York pastorate, many events occurred of both public and private significance. He found his own health badly broken down at the beginning of 1834, and was advised to take a sea voyage. Consequently he embarked in the midst of winter upon a small brig, bound for the Mediterranean. The weather was stormy; his quarters were close; the captain was given to strong drink; and so the voyage was not a satisfactory means of recuperation. But it enabled him to spend a few weeks in Malta and Sicily, and added to his experience some vivid scenes connected with storms at sea which often furnished illustrations for his sermons in subsequent years. Here, too, his knowledge of seamanship, early acquired on Lake Ontario, was put to practical use. At one time, when a storm was raging and the vessel was in great peril, and the captain was disabled by drink, the command of the ship temporarily devolved on Finney. But he was equal to the occasion; and, indeed, his imperial qualities were such that he really appeared at his best in such a position. Finney was absent on this voyage about six months, and naturally, as he was approaching his native shore again, with his health not much improved, his mind was deeply agitated over the question how his revival work should be carried on without him. This anxiety culminated in a day of great distress, in which he gave himself to prayer during almost the whole time. The experiences of this day, and the peace of mind which followed it, were always looked back to with the greatest interest and encouragement, and had much to do with his readiness soon after to undertake the work of educating ministers at Oberlin.

In connection with Finney's first period of labor in New York city, the "New York Evangelist" was started, for the express purpose of representing, as its name indicates, the revival interests of the period. The first number was issued March 6, 1830, and Finney assisted in its preparation. The paper soon obtained a large circulation, especially when, after two years, Rev. Joshua Leavitt became its editor. Leavitt was an ardent anti-slavery advocate, and Finney was by no means an indifferent spectator of the anti-slavery conflict, speaking his mind freely in his sermons, though never giving any large amount of time or strength to the discussion. But his position was well known; if not from what he himself said, at any rate from the character of the men who sustained him in his church, prominent among whom were the brothers Arthur and Lewis Tappan, and now at length Mr. Leavitt. The practical caution of Finney's mind is well illustrated in his parting advice to Leavitt, when about to set sail upon the voyage just referred to, which was that Leavitt should be careful not to go too fast in the discussion of the antislavery question, lest he should destroy his paper.

Leavitt, however, was not able to follow the advice. The times had not been favorable for the calm exercise of judgment. His first greeting to Finney upon his return from the Mediterranean voyage was, 'I have ruined the 'Evangelist' by my advocacy of radical anti-slavery measures." This confession was the basis of an appeal to Finney to write for the paper a series of articles on revivals, in order to increase the subscription list. In response to this appeal, Finney at once began giving a series of revival lectures, which Leavitt reported, and printed from week to week in his paper. Finney's bold upon the religious public appears in the result. The publication of the lectures acted like magic, and subscriptions to the paper began to pour in beyond all precedent. Of the character and effect of these lectures we shall speak in another place.

The fall and winter of 1834-35 witnessed a continuous and deep revival in connection with Finney's preaching in the Tabernacle, and plans were taking shape for establishing a course of theological lectures with the special design of training persons for revival work. A theological lecture room had been provided with such an end in view, and arrangements were in progress for the completion of the scheme, when events occurred which led to the transfer of that part of Finney's work to Oberlin, and to the establishment of a theological seminary at that place.

After his removal to Oberlin, Finney ordinarily devoted three or four months of the year to revival efforts in other places. Reference has already been made to his later work in Rochester and Boston. In addition to this, he preached for short periods in revival meetings in Cleveland and Cincinnati, Ohio; in Detroit and other places in Michigan; in Western, Rome, and Syracuse, New York; and in Hartford, Conn. In the autumn of 1849, he went to England, and labored continuously in revivals in various places for a year and a half, nine months of the time in London.⁽²⁴⁾ In 1858, he returned to England, and was absent from home nearly two years, preaching at various places both in England and in Scotland. During both of these visits to England his labors were unremitting, and the revivals attending his preaching were continuous and most extensive.

While he was in Oberlin, during all this period, scarcely a year passed without an extensive religious awakening among the great crowd of incoming students. After 1860, his strength was not sufficient to warrant his undertaking to preach in other places. But in connection with this portion of his life in Oberlin, the years 1860, 1866, and 1867 were marked by special revivals

This bare recital of Finney's later labors will convey a false impression if we fail to record that theoretically he was strongly opposed to "spasmodic efforts" at promoting revivals. His views on this point were most fully set forth in a series of thirty-two letters on revivals which he furnished to the "Oberlin Evangelist" in the years 1845 and 1846. In the seventeenth and eighteenth letters, he tells us that from the first his practice was to add to the services of the Sabbath only "as many meetings during the week as could well be attended, and yet allow the people to carry forward their necessary worldly business." And he pronounces it a grand error to attempt to promote revivals by breaking in for a while on all the ordinary and necessary duties of life, and making every day a Sabbath for a number of weeks in succession, thus forcing the attendants, in order to maintain their business, to neglect all further meetings except on the Sabbath.⁽²⁵⁾

In a subsequent letter, he sets forth the importance of holding protracted meetings when the people are most free from the pressing cares of business. While guarding against the dangers of spasmodic efforts, therefore, he recommends and beseeches the churches "to make special and extraordinary efforts at every season of the year when time can be spared from other necessary avocations to attend more particularly to the great work of saving souls."⁽²⁶⁾

18. William E. Dodge in Reminiscences, p. 33.

19. Rev. Charles P. Bush in Reminiscences of Charles G. Finney, p. 14 seq.

20. Beecher's Autobiography, vol. ii. p. 101.

21. Ibid., p. 108.

22. See, in this connection, Professor Park's account of Finney's preaching in Andover, Mass., ante, p. 71.

23. Finney was released from the Presbytery March 2, 1836. The church became Congregational, and its name was erased from the roll of the Presbytery on the 13th of the following June.

24. For a fuller account of his work in London, see chapter ix.

25. Oberlin Evangelist, vol. vii. p. 171.

26. Ibid., p. 195.