IN summing up the influence of Finney's life, it is of course difficult, and indeed impossible, to separate it from that of the general agencies with which he co-operated. Necessarily, his work was largely determined by the circumstances of the time in which he lived. It is often said that, if he had been born fifty years later, he would not have been so marked a man as he was. Whether this is true or not, it is not our province to determine. At any rate, it was no fault of his that he was born in the last of the eighteenth century, rather than in the middle of the nineteenth. His crowning virtue was, that he adjusted himself to surrounding conditions, and concentrated all his marvelous gifts upon the fields of work that from time to time were opened before him. His rare argumentative and oratorical powers were first called forth by the spiritual destitution of frontier communities, and among them he would have continued to labor but for a divine call to broader fields.

Like the great apostle to the Gentiles, Finney was truly "as one born out of due time," and until the day of his death he was urged forward in his varied lines of activity by an overwhelming sense of his debt of gratitude to Christ. The whole effort of his subsequent life was to present to men, as best he could, the majesty and loveliness of God's character, and the absoluteness of the divine claim upon the affections and service of mankind. The severity which at times seemed to mark his preaching was as different as could be from rancor and ill-will. When he showed the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and the wrath of God necessarily incurred by it, the auditor was left to judge for himself whether he was by his conduct personally incurring this wrath. In the course of his revival labors in any place, Finney was sure at some time to preach a sermon upon the necessity of confessing and forsaking sin. This almost always resulted in the unearthing of many buried crimes, the restitution of much ill-gotten gain, and the reuniting, through confession, of many broken friendships. But he ever had the true feeling, bred in his legal practice, of repugnance to bringing to light any matters which were not strictly of public concern.

The point with reference to which he felt that he had, above all others, a special mission in his later years was that of binding together in closer union the doctrine of faith and works. This appeared in his preaching long before he distinctly enunciated it in his writings on sanctification. Formally stated, his teaching was, that, while the love of God is the ground of justification, and the atonement of Christ one of the essential conditions of it, we must insist also that present, full, and entire consecration of heart and life to God is an equally unalterable condition of pardon. According to his form of statement, the penitent soul remains justified no longer than this full-hearted consecration continues. "If he falls from his first love into the spirit of self-pleasing, he falls again into bondage to sin and to the law, is condemned, and must repent and do his 'first work,' must return to Christ, and renew his faith and love as a condition of his salvation."⁽¹⁰²⁾

The death of Dr. Channing occurred in Boston in 1842, while Finney was engaged in his second revival effort in that city. It was reported to Finney that Dr. Channing desired to see him, but circumstances beyond control prevented the interview. Meanwhile, however, Channing had obtained from one of Finney's converts a copy of "Views of Sanctification" which Finney had just published, and expressed both great interest in it, and his inability to see anything in the doctrines there presented to which orthodox Christians could reasonably object. And, indeed, on going over the discussions of those early days, it is not difficult to believe that, had the relations between justification and sanctification been as clearly presented by the early New England theologians as they were afterwards by Finney, much of the occasion of separation between the Calvinists and the Arminians, as they were called, or, in the later development, the Orthodox and the Unitarians, would have been obviated. Against Finney's statement of the doctrine of justification, Unitarians could certainly have had no ground of charging that it depreciated the importance of good works.

Finney's style of preaching has already been spoken of in some detail, but it will be useful to add here the description and estimate of it which was given in 1850 by Dr. John Campbell, editor of the "British Banner." Dr. Campbell was at that time pastor of the Tabernacle in Finsbury, London, and also of Tottenham Court Road Chapel, both of which had been built for Whitefield, and occupied by him for years. By invitation of Campbell, Finney preached in the Tabernacle for a period of nine months. At the end of the first three months, Dr. Campbell gives the following account of the character and result of these labors: -

"As many of our readers are anxious to know the progress of Mr. Finney in the metropolis, we shall give a few words of report. He continues, as heretofore, to preach five times a week, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, and latterly attending, also, and delivering an address, at the prayer meeting on the Monday evening, and then on Thursday evening meeting all inquirers. This is an amount of labor which, at this season of the year, it may be supposed that most men would sensibly feel, if not sink under; but with Mr. Finney it is otherwise. We have never heard him complain of fatigue, and scarcely ever say the weather is hot! He seems, indeed, in his very element. This remarkable man would appear destined by Providence for this species of labor. He speaks with an ease altogether peculiar; to a large extent, his style is colloquial, interspersed, nevertheless, with lofty flights and impetuous bursts of a more oratorical character, when the delivery becomes intense, the voice acquires an ocean swell, accompanied by very energetic action. But these bursts are never long continued; he quickly returns to an easy level, and for many minutes together proceeds in a state of earnest repose, during which the address is colloquial, but still with a measure of inflection, always forcible and always solemn. It is a peculiar sort of style, altogether unlike that of any other preacher we ever heard; so much so, that simple people, whose taste has been formed upon the established model, have difficulty in considering it preaching at all. They scarcely know what to call it. It is speaking, they say, and they are not greatly out. It is speaking such as may be heard in Parliament, and to large extent in courts of law. It would correspond very well with first-class Westminster oratory, and would have fitted its possessor for eminence at the bar, to which he was originally destined. His voice is clear and remarkably strong; nevertheless admitting, although for that purpose rarely used, of the deepest pathos. The hearer is principally affected by a sense of power; no pity is ever felt for the speaker. The idea that he must be fatigued, or that he will injure himself, never enters the mind, and it is somewhat strange that, while he never tires himself, it is the same with his hearers, - they never tire. Rarely, on Sabbath or week days, does he preach less than an hour and a half; and we remember no case of complaint, or any manifestation of weariness, even in London, of all places the least inclined to favor prolonged exercises of a religious character. To all appearance, they would sit till sunrise. Yet never a man had less of the meretricious or claptrap, than Mr. Finney: the austerity of his manner, the severity of his address; the terrible force with which he comes down upon the ungodly, shutting up men in the prison-house of an awful accountability; and practical as his address to professors is - yet it would seem somehow that the more he lashes the more he is loved. Never man had less of the soft and sentimental, the luscious in doctrine or spurious in experience, which has so frequently in London crowded houses with thoughtless, frivolous multitudes. This may be accounted for partly by his manner, perhaps very largely so, and also by his matter; for while in one respect he is mechanical, in others he is original, natural, and very varied. His mode of conducting services is peculiar to himself. In a pastoral light, his devotional exercises are exceedingly defective. Although he has now preached three months in this great house, the hearer would scarcely ever have discovered that there was either church or pastor, or officer or schools, sickness or death, or any species of local labor requiring either prayer or sympathy: that there was a nation with its manifold wants, a senate, or a sovereign. Of a Queen or Parliament he has never been heard to make mention. So it is as to the world, the cause of missions, and so forth. The prayer grows out of the coming sermon; he speaks as if all flesh were before him: sin and death, redemption, and its application to the wants of the perishing portion of the multitude, - these things alone concern Mr. Finney; and from beginning to end, the petition is made to bear upon the conversion of his auditory. This is the case as a rule, to which there is scarcely an exception. His prayers, too, are interspersed with a dash of peculiarity, sometimes of eccentricity; but the effect is to fix attention on the part of the fallen multitude, although it rather grates occasionally upon the spiritual portion of his auditory. Then, as to his sermons, there is the same uniformity: he announces his text in the bluntest, simplest way possible, and without a word of prelude or preparation, intimates what he means to do, by dividing his text; then he dashes on from head to head till he has done, or rather till his time is up, for his thought never seems run out. Having finished that, he never fails to conclude with what he calls a few remarks, and these remarks are always peculiarly striking, pungent, and carefully drawn out of the subject. Then, in a moment, he stops short, prays, pronounces the benediction, and so the matter ends.

"The least informed portion of the people, and those that hear him only once or twice, may be strongly tempted, on certain occasions, to doubt whether he preaches the gospel, and whether he is altogether sound in the faith; but those that hear him, as we have heard him, for three months, will be at perfect ease upon that point, being fully satisfied of his perfect soundness in all respects, although he does not preach all points in every sermon, and does not always base his addresses on gospel considerations to the extent that is customary in England. There is one striking peculiarity which often exposes him to the charge of heresy, but which, we think, constitutes his remarkable, striking excellence: in speaking to the multitude, he always addresses them, not as unfortunate, but as criminal, ever pressing upon them the doctrine that nothing prevents them from repenting and believing but their pride and love of sin; and never calls on men to do other than repent and believe, - nothing to obtain faith and repentance. Under his preaching, no man could ever have been led to conclude that there was no sin in unbelief, none in impenitence. The result is, a remarkable cogency in his appeals. The atonement, the love of the Father, the abundance of mercy, - these points are exhibited in all their fullness, and men are summoned to an immediate surrender. But it could never be gathered by the sinner, from his addresses, that any power is necessary either to dispose or to enable him to receive the truth. Mr. Finney addresses him as if no such help or power was either needed or provided; and in this we must contend that he pursues the true apostolic path,. from which much preaching of modern times has grievously deviated. But when Mr. Finney comes to address Christians, and to speak of the operations of the Spirit, he pours himself forth in strains to which an apostle would have listened with approbation."⁽¹⁰³⁾

At the farewell meeting six months later, Campbell made an address in which he more minutely analyzes Finney's characteristics: -

"Now, then," he said, "that Mr. Finney's course has reached its close, it may be permitted us to utter a thought or two relative to a man for whom we have conceived a very high regard, and in whose labors and history we feel the deepest interest. We cannot say that we are much gratified at the thought of Mr. Finney's returning to college duties, and the general ministry of a rural charge. We do not consider that such is the place for the man; and we must be allowed to think that, fifteen years ago, a mistake was committed when he became located in the midst of academic bowers. In our view, there are few living men to whom such an element is less suited. He is made for the millions - his place is the pulpit, rather than the professor's chair. He is a heaven-born sovereign of the people. The people he loves, and the mass of the people all but idolize him. He seems specially created for oral labor. The structure of his mind is altogether peculiar. The logical faculty is developed in an unusual degree, and hence there is a tendency to argument in excess. He reasons on and to the extreme of redundancy, often laboring to explain that which requires no further explanation, and needs no further proof. He is, moreover, strongly addicted to the metaphysical and analytical, and hence whatever he touches becomes more or less arrayed in a dialectical costume. These peculiarities might, at first sight, seem somewhat to unfit him for pulpit labor among the million; but it is otherwise: he succeeds either through or in spite of them. Whether he be understood or not, he is listened to, and complaints are not generally heard on the score of his being unintelligible. These rare gifts are of signal service in enabling Mr. Finney to fathom the deepest recesses of the human heart, and to throw light on the darkest portions of human character. For moral anatomy, he has no equal among the multitude of great and successful ministers whom it has been our lot to hear. An assembly often quivers under him as does the living subject under the knife of the operator, whom experience has rendered skillful and habit made callous. Multitudes have stood amazed at themselves as presented in the mirror he exhibits to their astonished view. This peculiar power alone would have rendered Mr. Finney remarkable among public instructors; but this is only one feature of his complex and multifarious character as preacher. His declamatory are fully equal to his logical powers. In this walk we think he has no superior. He thunders and lightens when his subject requires it, in a manner to shake the heart of an assembly, rousing the most apathetic, and awing the most careless.

"But even this is not all; he possesses another quality seldom found in combination with the foregoing: he is occasionally, though seldom, strongly pathetic; the voice falters, and the eyes become suffused with tears. Thus, then, Mr. Finney largely combines to himself the qualities necessary to constitute the three great classes of public speaking, and is capable, with proper application, of the highest success in them all; but we believe it is only justice to his great character to say that he never thought five minutes on the subject. Whatever he is, he is from nature and the gifts of God; art has done nothing for him. The result of the whole is an extraordinary range of mental and moral contact with the assembly. There is something for men of every class; all, in turns, are gratified, and all are occasionally disappointed, according as, throughout the discourse, the one quality or the other may predominate. Sometimes, during an entire sermon, he is dry and logical in the extreme, addressing himself to pure intellect, making no provision whatever for either heart or fancy. At other times both are regaled in a very high degree, as an interdict is then placed on the logical faculty; and there have been a few discourses, also, touching and pathetic throughout. In these respects he is the most varied of preachers, and in all respects the most unequal. . . .

"It is certainly a pity that a man so singularly endowed for evangelistic labor should be chained down by the dull routine of college duties. If we mistake not, there are a thousand men to be found in the United States that would perform Mr. Finney's professorial duties as well, perhaps in many respects better, than he; but we doubt if, amongst the three and twenty million American citizens, and the forty thousand ministers, more or less, that labor among them, there are many, if one, that possess all the qualifications above enumerated. Thus much for the attributes of Mr. Finney as a public instructor; and the opinion is given after hearing him incessantly for about nine months.

"It was my wish for many years that Mr. Finney should visit the shores of England. His works had come before him; and when his 'Lectures on Revivals' appeared, I read them with avidity, and, as a portion of you will remember, for three months, from week to week, at special meetings, I read and expounded them in this edifice. Their value was not in my estimation at all lessened by their peculiarities, and by what might be called, not without truth, their occasional extravagance both of thought and of language. These I considered, and still consider, but as the dust in the balance, - as spots in the. sun. The volume, as a whole, I have ever viewed as of extraordinary importance. The more I pondered, the more I perceived its inherent excellence. The book excited a very strong desire in me to see the man, and still more to hear him. The man I have seen, the man I have heard; and in both, the expectations excited by the book have been more than realized. But I have not only seen and heard him: after the manner of the ancients, we have eaten salt together. You all know the adage, 'If you will know a man, you must live with him.' Mr. Finney and I have lived together for the space of some nine months, a period which, I suppose, will be admitted sufficient for the purpose in question. I think I may therefore say I have a tolerable knowledge of him, and that it is but simple justice to say that to increase knowledge has been only to increase regard. Throughout that long period we have seen in him much to love and much to admire. I shall never cease to prize his friendship, and to think of him with unalloyed satisfaction and high pleasure. His virtues partake not a little of the old Roman, while his manners are strongly republican. In everything good, the reality exceeds the appearance, and, as the observation becomes closer, the esteem ascends."⁽¹⁰⁴⁾

During this period of Finney's labor in London, Henry Ward Beecher was in England on a visit, and was sending letters regularly to the "New York Independent," one of which is devoted entirely to Finney's work. Having referred to the alarm which some American papers were endeavoring to raise in England concerning Finney, one of them declaring "that the churches in America in which Mr. F. had labored have since wept tears of blood in consequence," - Beecher comments as follows upon what he saw and heard:

"On two occasions we were present, when, at the close of the Sabbath evening's service, more than a thousand persons presented themselves in an adjoining hall as inquirers. Nor have we ever witnessed in any place more solemnity, order, and unexceptionable propriety in the conduct of meetings, than has prevailed under Mr. Finney at the Tabernacle. And now, if we were an English clergyman, and if we were inclined to doubt the reality of revivals, and, seeing the results of Mr. Finney's labors, should hear it testified from the land of revivals that they were spurious, - that, good as they might now seem, they would end in mischief, - we should conclude, not against Mr. Finney, but against revivals. We should say, if these are spurious, all revivals are spurious. This is the tendency of the efforts put forth by religious newspapers in America - to undermine Mr. Finney in England. For the sake of pushing at a theological antagonist, they are deepening the impression, already too deep, that revivals of religion are disorders, - the channels of mischief and not of blessings. . . .

"Our English brethren ought to understand that the opinions expressed by several religious newspapers on this side are not the opinions of the American church; that there is a large proportion of American Christians differing from Mr. Finney in his views of Christian perfection, and not ignorant of some evils in his early revival labors, who, notwithstanding, regard his life to have been an era in the revival history of America, and his labors, upon the whole, to have been a precious blessing to the cause of God in America. Another generation will sift the chaff from the wheat, and then, we firmly believe, few men will be found to have been better husbandmen than Charles G. Finney. May God long spare his life and increase his usefulness!"⁽¹⁰⁵⁾

Apropos to these references to the early revivals in central New York is the testimony of the late Rev. James B. Shaw, of Rochester, for forty-seven years pastor of the Brick Church of that city, who listened to Finney's preaching in Auburn in 1827, and in subsequent years was repeatedly assisted by Finney. According to Dr. Shaw, the earlier as well as the later preaching of Finney was characterized by great propriety of manner; and when anything occurred which seemed otherwise, it was amply justified by the attendant circumstances as interpreted under the inspiration of the moment.

In the "History of the Rochester Presbytery," published in 1889, the following commendatory reference is made to Finney's work in the same region: -

"The powerful revivals wrought of God through the labors of Rev. Charles G. Finney, in the years 1830, 1842, and 1856, in the city of Rochester, still retain their impress upon the churches in this section, and are often referred to, by those who were then converted, as characterized by very strong conviction of sin, followed by very positive evidence of change of heart." It is suggestive, also, that they can add, "the absence of strife [throughout the Presbytery] is worthy of special mention. . . . The peace of the churches has been attested by the almost entire absence of judicial business."

To these contemporary estimates of the character and influence of Finney's preaching, we may add the tribute of Dr. Joseph P. Thompson in an historical discourse given upon the last Sabbath of his own occupancy of the Broadway Tabernacle, New York, in April, 1857. After having referred to Finney's labors in that church, he adds: -

"Mr. Finney's method of preaching was peculiar. Gifted with fine powers of analysis, which were early disciplined in the study of the law, he has, also, the constructive faculty in a high degree; so that he can at once dissect an error or sophism, analyze a complex feeling, motive, or action, and build a logical argument with cumulative force. With these he combines a vivid imagination, and the power of graphic description. Nor, with the seeming sharpness and severity of his logic and the terrors which his fancy portrays, is he wanting in tenderness of feeling. His experimental knowledge of divine truth is deep and thorough, and his knowledge of the workings of the human mind under that truth is extended and philosophical. Hence his preaching searches the conscience, convinces the judgment, and stirs the will either to assent or to rebellion. His elocution, though unstudied and so sometimes inelegant, is yet strangely effective; and in the proper mood of an assembly, a pause, a gesture, an emphasis, an inflection, an exclamation, will produce the highest oratorical effects. The conviction of sincerity attends his words; the force of an earnest mind goes with his logic.

"His sermons in the Tabernacle were unwritten, and were usually preached from a brief lying before him. But though extempore in their dress, they were not unstudied as to their matter or their form. In yonder study, the first pastor of the Tabernacle had a huge slate, upon which he would sketch an outline of a sermon, as an architect sketches his plan, the painter his groups. This done, he would betake himself to prayer, or pace the room in earnest thought. By and by perhaps the whole plan would be effaced, and another substituted for it; or the first would be recast in the vigorous mould of a mind kindled by prayer, till it came forth glowing with the fire of the Holy Ghost. Then he was ready for the pulpit, and therefore God was with him in the pulpit."⁽¹⁰⁶⁾

The extent to which opposition to Finney at length subsided, and the degree to which the real merits of his work were finally appreciated, appeared preeminently at the great meeting in Oberlin in November, 1871, to organize the National Triennial Congregational Council. This meeting was composed of the chief representative men of the denomination from all parts of the country, and was presided over by Rev. Dr. Budington, of Brooklyn, New York. Toward the close of their deliberations Finney was able, though in his eightieth year, to address the council for an hour upon the "Endowment of the Holy Ghost." The scene has already been alluded to, and was one long to be remembered by those who witnessed it. The day after this address, when the council laid the corner-stone of the building which was to be the future home of the theological seminary, Dr. Budington closed the meeting with some brief remarks. After referring to the fact that, on the day before, they had all listened to President Finney with bated breath and swelling hearts, he added the following significant words: -

"I rejoice to stand this day upon the grave of buried prejudice. It is true that Oberlin has been a battle-cry in our ranks for a generation. It is so no longer, but a name of peace, of inspiration, and hope. What does the history of Oberlin prove but just this, - to hold sacred the individual conscience, and inviolable the liberty of the individual church? If days of darkness come, of suspicion and alienation, as sure as God's truth is great and the love of Christ pervasive, the light will return and come again with a brighter and sweeter effulgence."⁽¹⁰⁷⁾

It is impossible to determine the number of conversions directly traceable to Finney's labors. But without doubt it runs far up into the tens of thousands; and as the converts were largely men and women in mature life, the influences directly proceeding from them at once became predominant in a large number of important religious centres.

As already shown, the widespread and growing usefulness of Oberlin is pre-eminently due to Finney's direct influence upon the community, and upon the successive generations of students who gathered there through the forty years of his connection with the institution. During this period, there were 294 graduates from the Theological Department, 626 young men and 657 young women from the Classical and Literary Departments; in all, 1,577. But in addition to this, throughout this entire period there was upon the ground a great body of transient students of unusual maturity of mind who were as thoroughly influenced by him as were those who took the full course. In all, there were about twenty thousand who thus felt the magnetism of Finney's presence at Oberlin.

Finney himself fully appreciated the greatness of this opportunity. In a letter to Lewis Tappan, in 1865, he points with satisfaction to the result of the movement initiated by Arthur Tappan in giving an anti-slavery character to the school at Oberlin, and remarks that no history of the anti-slavery movement can be satisfactory which does not recognize the large share which Oberlin had in directing it and giving it success, and that in the anti-slavery struggle it was Oberlin that turned the scale in the Northwest, and thus at the critical moment saved it to the Union.⁽¹⁰⁸⁾

The character of the Oberlin influence and the methods by which it was obtained have been well delineated by Gen. J. Dolson Cox: -

"The theological classes spent their vacations in preaching or anti-slavery lecturing, and, whether preaching or lecturing, the absorbing topic of the time was rarely absent from their thoughts or speech. The undergraduate classes in college were men of more maturity than the average of such students in other colleges. They were nearly all poor, and many of them quite dependent upon their own exertion for support, and this class of students had to wait for advanced education till they could save the means to pay for it, or reach an age when they could make teaching in the common schools furnish the wherewithal to keep the wolf from the door in their alternate terms of study. The college terms were arranged to suit such students, who were a large majority of the whole, and the long vacation was placed in the winter for this reason. From the preparatory classes upward, and in both the collegiate and ladies' departments, all of the hundreds of earnest young people who thronged here were already active workers in life. Each of them had his scores of younger minds upon whom for some months in the year he was impressing his own zeal for knowledge not only, but his own intense earnestness in the great public questions of reform. Every debating society formed in a country hamlet was a platform from which the politics of the country took shape, and where the men were formed and instructed who became delegates to nominating conventions, and created the public sentiment which soon began to find its echo in Congress. It mattered little whether a representative was a Whig or a Democrat, it soon became apparent that there were a considerable number of the districts in the Northwest where no man's re-election was safe if he defied or disappointed the rapidly growing anti-slavery sentiment of his constituents. It would be hard to overestimate the part in this work which was taken by Oberlin students. Remember that they were numbered by hundreds at an early day, and soon exceeded a thousand. Each autumn they swarmed from the college halls, and were not only to be found in the white schoolhouses dotted thick over northern Ohio, but they scattered westward and eastward, and even southward, and a beneficent swarm they were, always appreciated as successful and earnest teachers, sometimes also hated and cursed as the supposed emissaries of a radical propaganda, but, whether loved or hated, always pushing, debating, inquiring, and agitating. This was not altogether because they meant to agitate, or fully understood the sort of influence they were exerting. It was better than that. They were young, intelligent men and women who were inspired by new views of life and human progress, and with the naivete of children they talked about what interested them. It bubbled from their lips as naturally as their breath, and they could not refrain from it. They saw with prophetic instinct the good time coming, and preached it most effectively by the constant exhibition of their faith in its advent. The number of students who took degrees in the ordinary college course was not large compared with other schools. By far the greater number came for a year or two, to supplement their common-school education and prepare for common-school teaching, from which they went back to the farm and shop, and to all the common avocations of life. The school-mistresses became the wives of the most intelligent and active men in the little, growing communities of the West, and often did more than their husbands to mould the opinions of their neighbors through the subtle influence of earnest conscientiousness and intelligence, exerted quietly but persistently from day to day and from year to year. . . .

"Their numbers [that is, of Oberlin students] have been so great that, throughout the West and Northwest it would be hard to find a community which did not acknowledge their influence. The great tide of immigration from all the Eastern and Middle States runs by the very doors of Oberlin, and her students, among the most active and enterprising of those that committed themselves to the current, have explored every byway and highway of all the new routes that advancing civilization opened. Nay, they were often the foremost among the pioneers who preceded all civilization. They were missionaries among the Ojibways while Iowa and Minnesota were yet a wilderness. They were with John Brown at Lawrence and Osawatomie when the outposts of freedom were first established.

"What can be clearer than that, in this chapter of our country's history, the influence of Oberlin as a college was a factor of great and permanent importance? It would be rash to assign to any one influence a decisive and pre-eminent power, for all the circumstances of the time, and the march of intellect and progress in the whole race, combined to remove from the earth an institution that belonged to the dark ages; but I unhesitatingly assert that there is hardly a township west of the Alleghanies and north of the central line of Ohio in which the influence of Oberlin men and Oberlin opinions cannot be specifically identified and traced. It was the propaganda of a school of thought and action having distinct characteristics, and as easily recognizable in its work as was that of Garrison and the American Anti-slavery Society in their methods and work."⁽¹⁰⁹⁾

As we have seen, Finney early learned the value of the press as an adjunct to the pulpit and to the teacher's desk, and through this agency his influence has gained a permanent place in the world. His sermons, though imperfectly reported, and his theological treatises are still read by great numbers of the most earnest, intelligent, and thoughtful people in the world, and will be well worth reading as long as religion and theology are topics of human interest. The peculiar value of these writings arises from the fact that they proceeded, not from a recluse, but from a born philosopher whose brain was constantly taxed with the great practical problem of converting the world.

While acting as pastor in New York, several of Finney's sermons were issued in tract form and widely distributed. But his thoughts came prominently before the public first in his "Revival Lectures," which were reported by Dr. Leavitt for the "New York Evangelist" in the fall and winter of 1834. As already noted, these at once gave a large circulation to the paper, and thirteen editions were rapidly sold in this country in book form, and there has been a continuous and large demand for the volume up to the present time. In England the sales were still more phenomenal. Two rival houses published the book, one of which reported previous to 1850 that it had sold eighty thousand copies. It was translated into Welsh, and was largely instrumental in promoting extensive revivals in the churches using that tongue. The Morrisonians of Scotland were likewise incited to successful revival efforts by the advent of the volume. Dr. Campbell, the successor of Whitefield in London, was so attracted by the lectures when they were first issued that, as already related, he read and commented upon them to his people in course. They were also translated into French, and, according to Finney's impression, into German. Of this, however, there does not seem to be sufficient evidence, though the following incident related by Professor Park is indicative of the character of the influence of the book in that country. "About the year 1843," he writes, "I made repeated visits to a friend in Berlin who resided in the palace of the King of Prussia. My friend was a scholar of rare learning and of warm piety. He was an instructor of the heir of the Prussian throne. I saw in his library a copy of Finney's 'Lectures on Revivals of Religion.' My friend spoke of the lectures in terms of high praise. The query came at once to my mind, Who can tell that Charles G. Finney may not exert on the future king an influence which may be felt throughout the Prussian kingdom? About forty-five years after these visits, the heir to the throne became not only the King of Prussia, but the Emperor [Fredrick] of Germany."

Through the columns of the "Oberlin Evangelist," also, Finney's sermons, lectures, and letters for a period of twenty years (1839 to 1859) reached many thousands of most influential Christian people living in all parts of the country. The volumes entitled "Sermons on Important Subjects," "Lectures to Professing Christians," and "Gospel Themes," did not have so wide a circle of readers as the "Revival Lectures," but they have all passed through repeated editions, and are still in active demand. The first American edition of his "Systematic Theology," and a subsequent edition in England in 1851, were rapidly sold, and the somewhat condensed reprint edited by President Fairchild has, at the present time, a steady sale.

From the beginning, the authorities of Oberlin set themselves in opposition to secret societies, and none have ever been permitted among the students. In his early life Finney himself was a member of a Masonic lodge, but soon after his conversion he quietly withdrew, and was granted an honorable dismission, dated May 7, 1824. For some years he did not feel called upon to make any revelations prejudicial to the order, but when, by the murder of Morgan in 1829, attention was directed to the character of Masonic oaths, Finney no longer felt any scruples in letting the public know that Morgan's revelations of Masonry were correct, at least so far as Finney himself had gone in its degrees. But he was not prominently known as an opponent of the system until 1869, when circumstances connected with the First Church in Oberlin thrust the subject upon him; and with his accustomed energy and decision he both preached and wrote upon it until it received full treatment at his hands. Finney's sermons and articles resulting from this discussion were soon afterwards collected, arranged, revised, and published in a volume of about 300 pages, by the Western Tract and Book Society, and it has since constituted one of the standard works of anti-Masonic literature.

Shortly after his death the "Memoirs of Rev. Charles G. Finney, written by Himself," were published. These contain personal reminiscences of his revival labors, and are a most important source of information concerning his whole life and work. The book is written in his usual perspicuous style, and is full of important reflections upon the character of Christianity, and upon the means of promoting its interests. It breathes a most kindly spirit, and reveals in striking light the secret springs of Finney's untiring activity. Many thousand copies have been sold, and it is highly valued by Christians of all denominations. The copyright was bequeathed to the trustees of Oberlin College on condition that they would not have the book sold by subscription.

Thus, fortunately, Finney has left in literature a permanent record not only of his life, but also of his struggles to adjust the truths of Christianity into such a harmonious system of thought that no violence should be done to the dictates of reason. This, as he often said, was (after that of the actual conversion of souls) the great aim of his life. In attempting the work, he had the important advantage of viewing everything from his own deep spiritual experience, and from wide practical contact with the world. Added to this was the strong philosophical character and analytical bent of his mind. The tribute which Prof. Charles Hodge, in his review of the volumes on "Systematic Theology," paid to Finney's intellect, is striking, and to a good degree just, though the evident purpose of the praise was to establish a solid ground from which to demonstrate the absurdity of the positions maintained by the New School Calvinists of his time. By exalting the logical consistency of Finney, Hodge skillfully aimed to commit the unwilling New School men to Finney's conclusions, and so to lead them to disavow his premises and give up their whole system. This aim, however, did not prevent the Princeton professor from speaking the truth when he said, "It [the book] is to a degree very unusual, an original work. . . . It is as hard to read as Euclid. Nothing can be omitted, nothing passed over lightly. The author begins with certain postulates, or what he calls first truths of reason, and these he traces out, with singular clearness and strength, to their legitimate conclusions. We do not see that there is a break or a defective link in the whole chain. . . . If you grant his principles, you have already granted his conclusions."

In constructing his theological system, Finney necessarily approached the Bible with a certain amount of presupposition respecting the nature of the subject under consideration; and in his view, as in that of Augustine, the Bible is a religious revelation to the common people which does not to any great degree lose its perspicuity in a translation. Its main line of thought is so plain that a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein. As a practical revelation pointing out the highway of holiness, it is not a substitute for common sense, but a supplement to it. Like Augustine of old, therefore, he never felt greatly embarrassed by his ignorance of Greek and Hebrew.

Briefly stated, the most characteristic points of Finney's system of theology are these: -

1. The human will is self-determining in its action;

2. Obligation is limited by ability;

3. All virtuous choice terminates upon the good of beings, and, in the ultimate analysis, on the good of being in general;

4. The will is never divided in its action, but, with whatever momentum it has at each instant, it is either wholly virtuous or wholly sinful;

5. The total depravity of the human race is a biblical doctrine, and since the fall in Eden all the acts of men previous to regeneration are sinful;

6. Regeneration and conversion are synonymous terms, descriptive of an act in which the Holy Spirit and the human will co-operate. Truth, however, is in all cases the instrument through which conversion is secured by the Spirit;

7. The condition into which men are brought by regeneration is either that of continued holiness, increasing in volume; or of states alternating from entire holiness to entire sinfulness, the former state predominating at last. The final perseverance of all who are once truly converted is a revealed truth which the reason cannot contradict;

8. The doctrine of election is our only assurance that the salvation of any will be secured. There is a divine plan of salvation whose means and ends were chosen from eternity, and which is now unfolding before us;

9. In this plan Christ is the central figure; a being who is both God and man, and whose humiliation and sufferings are a governmental substitute for the punishment of those who are sanctified through faith. The atonement satisfies the demands of general justice, and its provisions are freely offered to all men.

Such, in brief, is the system. With two or three exceptions, the statements as here given are accepted by New School Calvinists. The controverted points have reference to the ground of obligation, the simplicity of moral action, and the process of sanctification.

So far, however, as relates to the nature of holiness, Finney's system is the first cousin, if not the grandchild, of that of President Edwards; and the student who accepts the system will find himself very well satisfied with Dr. Samuel Hopkins's development of the Edwardean theory of virtue in his "Inquiry into the Nature of True Holiness."

To avoid the charge sometimes made against this theory, that it substitutes abstract for concrete objects of love, or, as Dr. Hodge states it, puts "the universe in the place of God, as that to which our allegiance is due," Finney was very particular to use a formula in which God was expressly recognized. In designating the objects of love, he was scrupulously careful to say, "God and the universe," and he everywhere emphasized, as much as Edwards did, the thought that "all other beings, even the whole universe, are as nothing in comparison with the Divine Being."

Careful analysis and prolonged study will show that the view of benevolence which Finney defended with such skill, and preached with such power, is adapted in an unparalleled degree for maintaining just views of both the goodness and the severity of God. By regarding "benevolence," or "good-willing," as the generic virtue under which all minor virtues range themselves as species, the theologian and philosopher is raised to a point of view from which the reason, if it cannot indeed and of itself prove the evangelical doctrines of Christianity, at any rate can most easily approve them.

De Quincey has well remarked that Christianity is the only religious system that provides any place for preaching, in the true sense of that word. Dr. Albert Barnes narrows the field to still closer limits, and shows that all great preachers have gone for their most effective weapons to the armory in possession of the New School Calvinists of his day. Finney's system preserves all the advantages of Arminianism in the pulpit, and all the strength of Calvinism in the closet, and so has been one of the most efficient means looking to that doctrinal agreement now so rapidly approaching between the great religious denominations of this country.

Probably Finney has succeeded better than any other author in elaborating a system of theology which combines and harmonizes the truths of these contending parties. He has done this in part, in a negative way, by not philosophizing overmuch. For, as he maintained, it is not the New School Calvinists who deform the evangelical system by their excess of philosophy, but, rather, it is the Old School Calvinists who distort the system by burdening it with their inflexible theories of an "imputed guilt which is not actual guilt," and with a theory of obligation which is dis-severed from ability. It was, he contended, the Old School tbeologians who were entering too deeply into the philosophy of regeneration, and attempting to prove a universal negative by asserting that regeneration is an act of the Spirit which is not moral and persuasive. It was they who undertook such impossibilities as trying to prove that in regeneration the Spirit produces a change "in the immanent disposition, principles, tastes, or habits which underlie all conscious exercises."

Finney's theory of virtue, especially his statement of the simplicity of moral action, is sometimes set down as rationalism, and his doctrine of sanctification as mysticism. But his theory that each act of the will is either wholly right or wholly wrong gives him this advantage, that he can interpret in an absolute manner, and regard as reasonable, the command to "love God with all our heart," while at the same time the ground of hope that we shall attain actual stability and constancy in holy exercises of the heart is left open for discussion on independent principles. The doctrine of sanctification is no more mystical than is the doctrine of the perseverance of saints. The questions concerning the assurance we may have of a state of entire (i. e. continuous) sanctification in this life, and, if attainable, concerning the methods by which it may be obtained, fall into the same category with those having reference to the perseverance of saints and their security in the heavenly state. His exhortation with regard to sanctification is really nothing more than this: Give perfect obedience now to the will of God; fill your minds to their utmost capacity with the persuasive knowledge of Christ; open your hearts in the fullest manner to the present work of the Holy Spirit, - and you may then rationally hope to be kept for the future; but your duty is always with the present. Finney did not encourage expectation of a definite experience of sanctification like that taking place in conversion.

The pages which Finney devoted in his "Systematic Theology" to the offices of Christ in securing our sanctification will always be classic, and, wherever they are known, will be valued most highly by the most devout members of the Christian church. No one could be more anxious than he to exalt Christ and his work. If it is rationalism to use words in such a manner that they are self-consistent, and to propound a philosophy which neither does violence to the reason nor robs Christ of his glory, the charge of being a rationalist ought not to be considered objectionable. But it is essential to emphasize, as Finney's system does, the pre-eminence of Christ, for there is no magical power in the formulas of his system either to determine practical duty for us or to determine us to duty. The "good of being," considered as a general conception which we are to choose, is so diffused, so vast, and so far off, that the choice of it does not of itself aid us much in threading our way through the perplexities of practical life. The navigator needs a chart of the ocean as well as a look at the North star to guide his course through the shoals and into the harbor. After Finney's pupil has accepted the highest well-being of God and the universe as his ethical polar star, he will still have to fall back on all the old-time helps of laws, customs, traditions, tendencies of mind, and revelation, in order to determine what things to do in service of that end, and what things to leave undone.

In no sense does Finney regard the Edwardean theory of virtue as a substitute for the gospel. It is only an unfolding of the words of Christ when he said that all the law and the prophets hung on the two commandments bidding us to love God with all the heart, and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Under this divinely enunciated law, the gospel ranges itself as the clearest of all revelations of subordinate duties, and the most persuasive of all incentives to virtuous action, while at the same time it presents the most perfect vindication of God's claim to the possession of both love and holiness, even when exercising the apparently antagonistic qualities of justice and mercy.

Finney's system is invaluable in the following respects: it leaves no excuse for sin; it emphasizes present responsibility; it exalts the atonement of Christ; and it magnifies the work of the Holy Spirit. It must be judged as a whole. Of the many advantages of its comprehensive theory of virtue, not the least is, that it affords a ready solution to the increasingly difficult problems which scientific discussions are forcing upon the Christian public with reference to the doctrine of final causes. In the light of scientific progress, it is becoming more and more hazardous to attempt to say for what ultimate ends particular contrivances in nature were designed. Indeed, the scheme of nature has so grown upon the vision of modern scientific inquirers that they can no longer find any unity in final causes which is not as far off and made up of as many particulars as the last end in Finney's theory of virtuous choice, viz., the "highest good of being."

With God, to choose is to perform. He chooses this highest good of being as the rule of his action, and everything in heaven and on earth and under the earth is designed for the promotion of it. Man with his limited powers cannot fathom this wisdom, but must rest content with such provisional interpretation as may serve his immediate necessities. For practical knowledge of God's subordinate designs, man has to pray for a daily supply of wisdom, and to go forth every day in the week to gather the manna which God sends down from heaven.

But the ultimate and real end for which anything is created is the sum of all the uses to which it is ever put. This principle, which in its sphere is coincident with Finney's definition of virtue, is destined to play an increasingly important part in our attempt to adjust natural theology to scientific theories of nature. Only as one learns to state correctly the true theory of virtue can he state correctly the doctrine of design in nature.

102. Lectures on Systematic Theology, p. 557.

103. Copied from the British Banner into the Oberlin Evangelist, vol. xii. p. 139.

104. The Oberlin Evangelist, vol. xiii. pp. 81, 83.

105. Reprinted from The Independent: Oberlin Evangelist, vol. xii. p. 199.

106. On the authority of Deacon Samuel Pitts. See The Last Sabbath in the Broadway Tabernacle, New York, 1857, pp. 14-17.

107. Oberlin News, August 20, 1874.

108. "At the breaking out of the Rebellion, the influences so long predominant at Oberlin had their full effect. One hundred of the one hundred and sixty-six young men in the college classes enlisted. Besides these, ninety-seven of the alumni are known to have done so, and about five hundred others who had been students. Among these, two rose to be major-generals, one brigadier-general, and two colonels. The first officers for the colored troops were largely drawn from Oberlin students. One hundred of those who enlisted lost their lives on the battle-field and in hospital." - Address by Prof. John M. Ellis on "Oberlin and the American Conflict," August 23, 1865.

109. The Oberlin Jubilee, pp. 285-289.