His last day on earth was a quiet Sabbath, which he enjoyed in the midst of his family, walking out with his wife at sunset to listen to the music at the opening of the evening service in the church near by. "He still stood erect as a young man, retaining his faculties to a remarkable degree, and exhibited to the end the quickness of thought and feeling and imagination which always characterized him." Upon retiring, he was seized with pains which seemed to indicate some affection of the heart; and, after a few hours of suffering, as the morning dawned, he died, August 16, 1875. Thus closed in peace a life of storm and battles with the powers of darkness; thus went to his reward the most potential preacher of righteousness and successful soulwinner of his century, or, so far as we know, of the Christian centuries.
Chapter 15.
FINNEY ON PREACHERS AND PREACHING.
"I am an old man, and many of the results of my views and methods are known to the public. Is it out of place for me to speak freely to the ministry on the subject of preaching? A judge of the Supreme Court once remarked to me: 'Ministers do not exercise good sense in addressing the people. They are afraid of repetition. They use language not well understood by the common people. Their illustrations are not taken from the common pursuits of life. They write in too elevated a style, and read without repetition, and are not understood by the people. Now, if lawyers should take such a course, they would ruin themselves and their cause. Our object is not to display our oratory, but to convince the jury and get a verdict on the spot. Now, if ministers would do this, the effects of their preaching would be unspeakably different from what they are. They go into their study and write a sermon; they go into their pulpits and read it, and those that listen to it, but poorly understand it. They do not address the people, expecting to convince them and to get their verdict in favor of Christ upon the spot. They seek no such object. They rather seem to aim at making fine literary productions, and displaying great eloquence and an ornate use of language.'
"I never entertained the least hard feelings toward my brethren for the roughness with which they often treated me. They really supposed that I should do much more good, and much less evil, if I should adopt their views. But I was of a different opinion.
"When I was preaching in Philadelphia a Dr. from Connecticut, came there, and heard me preach. He was indignant at the manner in Which I let down the dignity of the pulpit. He insisted that I should not be allowed to preach till I had a ministerial education; that I should stop preaching and go to Princeton and learn theology, and get better views of the way in which the gospel should be preached.
"I had not enjoyed the advantages of the higher schools of learning; and so conscious had I been that I lacked those qualifications that would make me acceptable, especially to ministers, and I feared to the people in large places, that I had never had any higher ambition or purpose than to go into the new settlements and places where they did not enjoy the gospel. Indeed, I was often surprised myself, in the first years of my preaching, to find it so edifying and acceptable to the most educated classes. This was more than I had expected, and greatly more than I had dared to hope. But the longer I preached, the less reason had I to think that my error lay in the direction in which it was supposed to lie, by my brother ministers. The more experience I had, the more I saw the results of my method of preaching; the more I conversed with all classes, high and low, educated and uneducated, the more was I confirmed in the fact that God had led me, had given me right conceptions in regard to the best manner of winning souls. I say that God taught me; and I know that it must have been so; for surely I had never obtained these notions from man. And I have often thought that I could say with perfect truth, as Paul said, that I was not taught the gospel by man, but by the Spirit of Christ Himself. And I was taught by the Spirit in a manner so clear and forcible that no argument of my ministerial brethren, with which I was plied so often and so long, had the least weight with me.
"I mention this as a matter of duty; for I am still solemnly impressed with the conviction that the schools are, to a great extent, spoiling the ministers. Ministers in these days have great facilities for obtaining information on all theological questions, and are vastly more learned, so far as theological, historical, and Biblical learning is concerned, than they perhaps ever have been in any age of the world. Yet, with all their learning, they do not know how to use it. They are, after all, to a great extent, like David in Saul's armor. A man can never learn to preach except by preaching.
"But one great thing ministers need, and that is singleness of eye, If they have a reputation to secure and to nurse, they will do but little good. Many years ago a beloved pastor of my acquaintance left home for his health, and employed a young man just from the seminary to fill his pulpit while he was absent. This young man wrote and preached as splendid sermons as he could. The pastor's wife finally ventured to say to him: 'You are preaching over the heads of the people. They do not understand your language or your illustrations. You bring too much of your learning into the pulpit.' He replied: 'I am a young man. I am cultivating a style. I am aiming to prepare myself for occupying a pulpit and surrounding myself with a cultivated congregation. I can not descend to your people. I must cultivate an elevated style.' I have had my eye upon that man ever since, and I have never seen his name connected with any revival, and I never expect to unless his views are radically changed.
"It was very common among ministers, in my earlier years of preaching, to agree among themselves that if I were to succeed in the ministry, it would bring the schools into disrepute. Now, I never had a thought of undervaluing the education furnished by colleges or theological seminaries; though I did think, and think now, that in certain respects they are greatly mistaken in their modes of training their students. They do not encourage them to talk to the people, and accustom themselves to extemporaneous addresses to the people in the surrounding country while pursuing their studies. Men can not learn to preach by study, without practice. the students should be encouraged to exercise and prove and improve their gifts and calling of God by going out into any place open to them, and holding Christ up to the people in earnest talks. They must thus learn to preach.
"Instead of this, the students are required to write "what they call sermons, and present them for criticism; to preach, that is, read them to the class and the professor. Thus they play preaching. No man can preach in this manner. These so-called sermons will, of course, under the criticism they receive, degenerate into literary essays. The people have no respect for such sermons, as sermons. This reading of elegant literary essays is not, to them, preaching. It is gratifying to literary taste, but not spiritually edifying. It does not meet the wants of the soul, nor is it calculated to win souls to Christ. The students are taught to cultivate a fine, elevated style of writing, As for real eloquence, that gushing, impressive, persuasive oratory that naturally flows from an educated man whose soul is on fire with his subject, and who is free to pour out his heart to a waiting and earnest people, they have none of it.
"A reflecting mind will feel as if it were infinitely out of place to present in the pulpit to immortal souls, hanging upon the verge of everlasting death, such specimens of learning and rhetoric. . . When men are entirely in earnest, their language is direct and simple. Their sentences are short, cogent, powerful. The appeal is made directly for action; and hence all such discourses take effect. . . The impassioned utterance of a common exhorter will often move a congregation far beyond anything that these splendid exhibitions of rhetoric can effect. Great sermons lead the people to praise the preacher. Good preaching leads the people to praise the Savior.
"My experience has been that 'honesty is the best policy' in a minister. . . Men are not fools. They have no solid respect for a man who will go into the pulpit and preach smooth things. They cordially despise it in their inmost souls. And let no man think that he will gain permanent respect, that he will be permanently honored by his people, unless as an ambassador of Christ he deals faithfully with their souls.
"My habit has always been to study the gospel, and the best application of it, all the time. I do not confine myself to hours and days of writing my sermons; but my mind is always pondering the truths of the gospel and the best way of using them. I go among the people, and learn their wants. Then, in the light of the Holy Spirit, I take a subject that I think will meet their present necessities. I think intensely on it, pray much over it, and get my mind full of it, and then go and pour it out to the people. One difficulty of a written sermon is, that after a man has written it, he needs to think but little of the subject. Unless men will begin and talk to the people as best they can, keeping their hearts full of truth and full of the Holy Ghost, they will never make extemporaneous preachers.
"I have spoken of my method of preparing for the pulpit in more recent years. When I first began to preach, and for some twelve years of my earliest ministry, I wrote not a word, and was most commonly obliged to preach without any preparation whatever, except what I got in prayer. Oftentimes I went into the pulpit without knowing upon what text I should speak or a word that I should say. I depended on the occasion and the Holy Ghost to suggest the text, and to open up the whole subject to my mind; and, certainly, in no part of my ministry have I preached with greater success and power. If I did not preach from inspiration, I don't know how I did preach. It was a common experience with me, and has been during all my ministerial life, that the subject would open up to my mind in a manner that was surprising to myself. It seemed that I could see with intuitive clearness just what I ought to say; and whole platoons of thoughts, words, and illustrations came to me as fast as I could deliver them. . . . I believe that all ministers, called by Christ to preach the gospel, ought to be, and may be, in such a sense so inspired as to 'preach the gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.' All ministers may be, and ought to be, so filled with the Holy Spirit that all who hear them shall be impressed with the conviction that God is with them of a truth." (Memoirs, pp. 85-97.) "Men and women vary indefinitely in their natural powers of persuasion; but no human eloquence can ever convert a soul. Unless the Spirit of God sets home and makes the truth of God effectual, all human eloquence and learning will be in vain, And it is a fact worthy of all attention and consideration that, with very little human culture, this enduement of power will make a Christian wise and efficient in bringing souls to Christ. . It is very humiliating to human learning and pride, and always has been; nevertheless, it has been Christ's method from the beginning to choose the weak things of this world to confound the wise. . . . This enduement of power is not a thing into which people can grow by forming habits of persuasion and conversation, It is a gift, an anointing, Instantaneously received, and that may be enlarged or diminished as the possessor of it uses it, more or less faithfully and intensely, for the purposes for which it was given, It is oftentimes possessed and then lost, or its manifestation suspended by something that quenches the light of the Spirit in the soul.
"Where this power exists, the more learning and eloquence the better, But it is painful to observe the constant tendency to substitute culture for this power, or human learning and eloquence in place of this Divine enduement. I fear this tendency is increasing in the Church, The Churches are calling for men of great learning and eloquence in place of this Divine enduement, instead of men deeply baptized with the Holy Ghost.
"The seminaries of learning are much at fault in this thing. They do not lay half stress enough upon this enduement as an essential qualification for usefulness in the world. The manifestation of this enduement of power should be considered an indispensable qualification for a professor in college or in theological seminary, and the want of it should be considered a disqualification for a professorship, especially in a theological seminary. A theological professor who does not believe in this enduement of power, and who does not possess it in a manifest degree, can not fail to be a stumblingblock to his students, If he does not urge it upon them as the most important of all qualifications for the ministry, if he does not speak of it and treat it as altogether indispensable to success in the ministry, his teaching and his influence will be vitally defective; they will be a snare and a stumbling-block. This must be true, or this whole question of the enduement of power from on high must be a delusion." (Baptism of the Holy Ghost, pp. 245-247.) I have quoted these extended remarks of Finney on preachers and preaching and ministerial instruction, because I believe they contain more sound judgment and wise counsel than can be found in any other equal amount of homiletical literature. I, too, have been through the disgusting farce of preaching a play sermon to a professor and classmates for criticism. I, too, have been kept from preaching for years while in the college and seminary. I, too, was trained and graduated, and sent out to preach, without having it ever even hinted to me by a professor that I needed the Divine anointing, the enduement of power from on high.
When we reflect that some three thousand Congregational and Presbyterian Churches annually do not report a conversion, with the most highly-educated clergy in the world, and that there are whole denominations that do still worse, it is quite manifest that something more is needed than the instruction of the schools to make preachers. Finney's success was so signal that theological professors, students, and preachers might well sit at his feet and take lessons in homiletics.
Chapter 16.
FINNEY ON FREEMASONRY.
Finney was a reformer, not because he enjoyed battles or loved revolution, He was essentially a man of peace. But he had a heaven-implanted passion for souls. He had a deep and abiding loyalty to the kingdom of God. He struck at anything and everything that crossed his path or stood in the way of establishing that kingdom in the hearts of men, When he was past seventyfive years old he struck at Freemasonry as a hindrance to the spread of the cause of Christ. I shall take the liberty to quote from the Preface, the Table of Contents, and the Introduction, and the conclusion of his book, which will show its drift and purpose and the prayerful decision which he reached.
PREFACE.
"In a few words I wish to state what are not, and what are, my reasons for writing this book.
"1. It is not that I have any quarrel or controversy with any member of the Masonic Order. No one of them can justly accuse me of ill-will.
"2. It is not because I am fond of controversy. I am not. I have always dreaded and endeavored to avoid the spirit, and even the form, of controversy.
"3. It is not because I disregard the sensibility of Freemasons upon the question of their pet institution, and am willing to arouse their enmity by exposing it.
"4. It is not because I am willing, if I can dutiful y avoid it, to render any member of the Fraternity odious.
"But my reasons are: "5. I wish, if possible, to arrest the spread of this great evil by giving the public at least so much information upon this subject as to induce them to examine and understand the true character and tendency of the institution.
"2. I wish, if possible, to arouse the young men who are Freemasons to consider the inevitable consequences of such a horrible trifling with the most solemn oaths as is constantly practiced by Freemasons. Such a course must, and does, as a matter of fact, grieve the Holy Spirit, sear the conscience, and harden the heart.
"3. I wish to induce the young men who are not Freemasons 'to look before they leap,' and not be deceived and committed, as thousands have been, before they were at all aware of the true nature of the institution of Freemasonry.
"4. I, with many, have been remiss in suffering a new generation to grow up in ignorance of the character of Freemasonry as it was fully revealed to us who are now old. We have greatly erred in not preserving and handing down to the rising generation the literature upon this subject, with which we were made familiar forty years ago. For one, I must not continue this remissness.
"5. Because I know that nothing is wanting but correct information to banish this institution from wholesome society. This has been abundantly proven. As soon as Freemasons saw that their secrets were made public, they abandoned their Lodges for very shame. With such oaths upon their souls, they could not face the frowns of an indignant public, already aware of their true position.
"6. Freemasons exhort each other to maintain a dignified silence, and are exhorted not to enter into controversy with opposers of Freemasonry. The reasons are obvious to those who are informed. We know why they are silent, if they are so, and why they will not enter the field of controversy and attempt to justify their institution. I greatly desire to have the public, and especially the Church of Christ, understand what Freemasonry is. Then let them act as duty "requires."
CHAPTER II. --INTRODUCTORY.
"It is high time that the Church of Christ was awake to the character and tendency of Freemasonry. Forty years ago we supposed that it was dead, and had no idea that it could ever revive. But, strange to tell, while we were busy in getting rid of slavery, Freemasonry has revived, and extended its bounds most alarmingly. I propose to write a series of articles giving my views of the character and tendency of the institution. I know something about it, for I have been a Freemason myself. Soon after I was twenty-one years of age, and while in Connecticut at school, an old uncle of mine persuaded me to join the Freemasons, representing that, as I was away from home and much among strangers, it would be of service to me, because, if a Freemason, I should find friends everywhere.
"The Lodge in that place was but a Master's Lodge. I therefore took three degrees, or as far as what they call 'the Sublime Degree of Master Mason.'
When I returned to the State of New York, to enter upon the study of law, I found at Adams, where I resided, a Masonic Lodge, and united with them. I soon became secretary of the Lodge, and met regularly with it. When I took especially the Master's Degree, I was struck with one part of the obligation, or oath, as not being Sound either in a political or moral point of view.
"However, I had been brought up with very few religious privileges, and had but slight knowledge on moral subjects; and I was not, therefore, greatly shocked, at the time, with the morality of anything through which I passed. The Lodge where I took my degrees was composed mostly of professed Christians. But when I came to join the Lodge at Adams, I found that the Master of the Lodge was a Deist. At this distance of time I can not he certain whether he was Master when I joined; but I am certain that Deism was no objection to any man becoming a member or a-Master of this Lodge. There were in that Lodge some as thoroughly irreligious as I have ever associated with anywhere, and men with whom I never would have associated had they not been Freemasons. There were some very profane men who belonged to it, and some very intemperate men.
"As I paid the strictest attention to what they called their lectures and teachings, I became what they call 'a bright Mason;' that is, as far as I went, I committed to memory their oral teachings, for they had no other. The oaths were familiar to me, as was everything else that belonged to those three degrees that I had taken.
"I had belonged to the Lodge in Adams nearly four years when I was converted to Christ. During the struggle of conviction of sin through which I passed I do not recollect that the question of Freemasonry ever occurred to my mind, The season that I call properly my conviction of sin was short. My exercises were pungent, and I very soon obtained hope in Christ.
"Soon after my conversion, the evening came for attendance upon the Lodge. I went. They, of course, were aware that I had become a Christian, and the Master called upon me to open the Lodge with prayer. I did so, and poured out my heart to the Lord for blessings upon the Lodge. I observed that it created considerable excitement. The evening passed away, and at the close of the Lodge I was requested to pray again. I did so, and retired, but much depressed in spirit. I soon found that I was completely converted from Freemasonry to Christ, and that I could have no fellowship with any of the proceedings of the Lodge. Its oaths appeared to me to be monstrously profane and barbarous.
"At that time I did not know how much I had been imposed upon by many of the pretensions of Masons. But, upon reflection and examination, and after a severe struggle and earnest prayer, I found that I could not consistently remain with them. My new life instinctively and irresistibly recoiled from any fellowship with what I then regarded as 'the unfruitful works of darkness.'
"Without consulting any person, I finally went to the Lodge and requested my discharge. My mind was made up. Withdraw from them I must; with their consent, if I might; without their consent, if I must. Of this I said nothing; but somehow it came to be known that I had withdrawn from them. This created some little feeling' among them. They therefore planned a Masonic festival, and sent a committee to me, requesting me to deliver an oration on the occasion. I quietly declined to do so, informing the committee that I could not conscientiously, in any wise, do what would manifest my approval of the institution or sympathy with it. However, at that time, and for years afterward, I remained silent, and said nothing against the institution; for I had not then so well considered the matter as to regard my Masonic oaths as utterly null and void, But from that time I never allowed myself to be recognized as a Freemason anywhere. This was a few years before the revelations of Freemasonry, by William Morgan, was published. When that book was published, I was asked if it was a true revelation of Freemasonry. I replied that it was, so far as I know anything about it; and that, as nearly as I could recollect, it was a verbatim revelation of the first three degrees as I had myself taken them. I replied in this way, because I saw, of course, that as the thing was published, and no longer a secret, I could not be under any obligation to keep it a secret, unless I could be under an obligation to lie, and to lie perpetually by denying that that which had been published was truly Freemasonry.
"I knew that I could be under no obligation to be guilty of a perpetual falsehood, and that I really made no revelation of any secret when I frankly acknowledged that that which had been published was a true account of the institution, and a true exposure of their oaths, principles, and proceedings. After I considered it more thoroughly, I was more perfectly convinced that I had no right to adhere to the institution, or appear to do so, and that I was bound, whenever the occasion arose, to speak my mind freely in regard to it, and to renounce the horrid oaths I had taken.
"On reflection and examination, I found that I had been grossly deceived and imposed upon. I had been led to suppose that there were some very important secrets to be communicated to me, But in this respect I found myself entirely disappointed. Indeed, I came to the deliberate conclusion, and could not avoid doing so, that my oaths were procured by fraud and misrepresentations, and that the institution was in no respect what I had previously been informed it was; and as I have had the means of examining it more thoroughly, it has become more and more irresistibly plain to my convictions that the institution is highly dangerous to the State and in every way injurious to the Church of Christ."
In the concluding chapter of the book he makes the following point: "V. Judging from these revelations, how can we fail to pronounce Freemasonry an antichristian institution? For example: 1. We have seen that its morality is unchristian; 2. Its oath-bound secrecy is unchristian; 3. The administration and taking of its oaths are unchristian, and a violation of the positive command of Christ; 4. Masonic oaths pledge its members to commit most unlawful and unchristian deeds: "a. To conceal each other's crimes.
"b. To deliver each other from difficulty, whether right or wrong.
"c. To unduly favor Masonry in political actions and in business transactions.
"d. Its members are sworn to retaliate and persecute unto death the violators of Masonic obligations.
"e. Freemasonry knows no mercy, but swears its candidates to avenge violations of Masonic obligations unto death.
"f. Its oaths are profane, the taking of the name of God in vain.
"g. The penalties of these oaths are barbarous, and even savage.
"h. Its teachings are false and profane.
"i. Its design is partial and selfish.
"j. Its ceremonies are a mixture of puerility and profanity.
"k. Its religion is Deistic.
"l. It is a false religion, and professes to save men on other conditions than those revealed in the gospel of Christ.
"m. It is an enormous falsehood.
"n. It is a swindle, and obtains money from its membership under false pretenses.
"o. It refuses all examination, and veils itself under a mantle of oathbound secrecy.
"p. It is a virtual conspiracy against both Church and State. No one, therefore, has ever undertaken, and for the plainest reasons none will undertake, to defend Freemasonry as it is revealed in these books. Their arguments are threats, calumny, persecution, assassination. Freemasons do not pretend that Freemasonry, as revealed in these books, is compatible with Christianity. I have not yet known the first Freemason who would affirm that an intelligent adherence to Freemasonry, as revealed in these books, is consistent with a profession of the Christian religion. But we know, if we can know anything from testimony, that these books do truly reveal Freemasonry. We have, then, the implied testimony of Freemasons themselves that the Christian Church ought to have no fellowship with Freemasonry as thus revealed, and that those who adhere intelligently and determinately to such an institution, have no right to be in the Christian Church, In our judgment, we are forced to the same conclusion; we can not escape from it, though we wish it were otherwise. We, therefore, sorrowfully but solemnly pronounce this judgment.
"And should the question be asked, 'What shall be done with the great number of professed Christians who are Freemasons?' I answer, Let them have no more to do with it; let Christian men labor with them. Let it be distinctly pressed upon their consciences that all Masons above the first two degrees have solemnly sworn to conceal each other's crimes, murder and treason alone excepted, and all above the sixth degree have sworn to conceal each other's crimes without an exception. All above the sixth degree have sworn to espouse each other's cause and to deliver them from any difficulty, whether they are right or wrong. If they have taken those degrees where they swear to persecute unto death those who violate their obligations, let them be asked whether they intend to do any such thing. Let them be distinctly asked whether they intend still to aid and abet the administration and taking of these oaths; if they still intend to countenance the false and hypocritical teachings of Masonry; if they mean to countenance the profanity of their ceremonies, and practice the partiality they have sworn to practice. If so, surely they should not be allowed their places in the Church.
"Can a man who has taken and still adheres to the Master's oath, to conceal any secret crime of a brother of that degree, murder and treason excepted, be a safe man with whom to intrust an office? Can he be trusted as a witness, a juror, or with any office connected with the administration of justice?
"Can a man who has taken, and still adheres to the oath of the Royal Arch Degree, be trusted in office? He swears to espouse the cause of a companion of this degree when involved in any difficulty, so far as to extricate him from the same, whether he be right or wrong. He swears to conceal his crimes, murder and treason not excepted. He swears to give a companion of this degree timely notice of any approaching danger that may be known to him. Now, is a man bound fast by such an oath to be intrusted with office? Ought he to be accepted as a witness, a juror, when a Freemason is a party, in any case --a sheriff, constable, marshal; ought he to be trusted with the office of judge or justice of the peace? Gentlemen, you know he ought. not, and you would despise me should I not be faithful in warning the public against intrusting such men with office.
"But take the large class of men who have sworn, under the most awful penalties, to take vengeance on all who violate Masonic obligations; to seek their condign punishment; to kill them; to persecute them; and to ruin them by representing them wherever they go as worthless vagabonds, --is a man who is under a most solemn oath to kill or seek the death of any man who shall violate any part of the Masonic oaths a fit person to be at large among men?
Ought Freemasons of this stamp to be fellowshipped by a Christian Church?
Ought not such an one to be regarded as an unscrupulous and dangerous man? I appeal to your conscience in the sight of God, and I know that your moral sense must respond Amen to the conclusions at which I have arrived."
It seems to me that an institution about which this great and wise man could truthfully say such things should be most thoroughly let alone by all holiness people, and by all who ever hope to be holy.
After he wrote the book, he received letters containing threats of killing him, He only playfully remarked, "I guess I am worth more to kill than for anything else." But God's angels kept him in peace.
Chapter 17.
THE ESTIMATE OF FINNEY MADE BY OTHERS --FINNEY AS A.
THEOLOGIAN.
I have already given the opinion of Dr. Edward Beecher and Dr. Park, of Andover, of Finney's greatness as a preacher. Rev. Charles P. Bush, D. D., of New York City, describing his use of the law and the gospel in his preaching, said: "The Church being thus shaken as by an earthquake, and Christians aroused to pray fervently for God's blessing, Mr. Finney was prepared to preach to sinners. He began with the law, showing what its requirements are; what its penalty, and how just it is; how absolutely necessary to the order and stability of the universe; how even the law itself, as really as the gospel, demonstrates the goodness of the Divine Being; and, therefore, how fearful a thing it must be to sin against such a Lawgiver and against all the interests of the universe. "There was something fearful in those sermons also. Indeed, it almost makes one shudder, even after this lapse of years, to recall some of them, that especially from the text, 'The wages of sin is death.' The preacher's imagination was as vivid as his logic was inexorable. After laying down selfevident principles of human Nature and Divine government, then drawing out Scripture truth touching the same, making all plain and irresistible by argument and illustration, how he rang the changes on that word 'wages,' as he described the condition of the lost soul! 'You will get your wages; just what you have earned, your due; nothing more, nothing less; and as the smoke of your torment, like a thick cloud, ascends for ever and ever, you will see written upon its curling folds, in great staring letters of light, this awful word, 'wages, wages, wages!'
"As the preacher uttered this sentence, he stood at his full height, tall and majestic --stood as if transfixed, gazing and pointing toward the emblazoned cloud as it seemed to roll up before him; his clear, shrill voice rising to its highest pitch, and penetrating every nook and corner of the vast assembly. People held their breath. Every heart stood still, It was almost enough to raise the dead.
"And yet that same mighty man, when speaking of the love of Christ or the peril of the soul in its sins, was as great in tenderness and pity as before in majesty and truth --moved himself to tears and entreaties enough to break a heart of stone. Many seem to think of him only as the stern, uncompromising preacher of righteousness, He was that, and more also --a Paul in doctrine, but touching and tender as John himself in his delineations of Divine love, But he did not preach love as a mere instinct, or a weak, mawkish, and undiscriminating sentiment, His God was not all pity, but also a God of majesty and of law and of justice. His love all the more glorious because intelligent, and because it saves from wrath deserved." (Reminiscences, pp. 12, 13.)
PECULIARITIES.
"Nobody knows better than those who loved and admired this good man most that he had his peculiarities. What great man has not? But he was never accused of levity or insincerity, He was a plain, blunt man, that spoke right on, and always meant just what he said. His soul abhorred deceit and hypocrisy. Perhaps it is not too much to say that he saw the truth in greater clearness and more fully appreciated its value and importance than most men could. He was, in fact, a giant in intellect, in the grandeur of his thoughts and purposes, and in the sublime force of his character, and this was enough to justify some of his peculiarities. It is said that he told one of the elders of the Church at Adams, before he was converted, that Christians generally did not half believe what they professed. 'If ever I become a Christian,' he said, 'I shall go into it with all my might.' And he did." (Page 19.) Rev. R. L. Stanton, D. D., Cincinnati: "When I heard Finney preach that winter, I stood in fear of him. I have heard many of the great preachers of the day, and I regard him as the greatest preacher I ever heard. I should say that Mr. Finney was a severe preacher. He held up the law as I never heard it held up before or since. He gave such delineations of sin as would make men literally tremble in their seats. On the other hand, I have never heard such exhibitions of the love of Christ. I recollect hearing him preach on 'The wages of sin is death.' I timed him, and he preached two hours. I never heard such delineations of the terrible wrath of God. I think Mr. Finney introduced a new style of preaching. The first three-fourths of his sermon was in a colloquial style; and in the latter part he would make such appeals as I never listened to anywhere." (Reminiscences, pp. 26-27.) Hon. William E. Dodge, of New York City: "he was the most remarkable preacher that i ever listened to. He would hold his audiences an hour and a half or two hours, and no one seemed to think the time hung heavy."
Professor John Morgan, D. D.: "I think those who were most intimately acquainted with Mr. Finney have come to the conclusion that he was a man who combined, in a remarkable degree, the intuitive and the logical powers. He had a wonderful intuitive power, and when he had arrived at his bold premises by intuition, whether taken from reason and the works of God, or from the Word of God, he would reason from them with wonderful power. I came, therefore, to the conclusion that, although Mr. Finney was not a learned man, he had been such a student, such a thinker, had so profoundly reflected, that he was really one of the deepest theologians that I had any knowledge of; and I have been compelled to compare him with president Edwards, as at least his equal; and President Edwards is confessedly one of the first theologians that our country has ever produced. In fifty years, if it be not now, I think that Mr. Finney's equality with him will be admitted.
"But I think that all of us felt that his spiritual power was that in which he most excelled. The influence which he exerted on souls was sometimes Very strong. I remember times when he thought religion was declining in Oberlin; for his standard was so high that he wanted to have things at a very high pitch in order to satisfy him at all. I remember how he used to come and talk the matter over with us, and I used to quake as his mighty eye would fix itself upon me. I believe that he had much the same kind of influence over whole congregations; but I felt it especially when he addressed me personally. . . . There was in him, in prayer, the most remarkable power that I have ever seen in any human being." (Reminiscences, pp. 57, 58.) Professor Barbour, of Yale. I remember hearing Rev. Dr. Barbour in a long, critical lecture, declare that President Finney was the first great thinker who had ever adequately and fully maintained, in all its bearings, the doctrine of the freedom of the will. He named him among the very foremost of the metaphysical thinkers of the world.
Professor George F. Wright, speaking of Finney as a theologian, makes a striking comparison between him and Augustine, and describes his system of thought as follows: "It is expected of me to speak of President Finney in the role of an Augustine elaborating a theological system, and through it reaching onward with a direct grasp to the generations of the future. With, of course, many qualities, that are in contrast, these characters [Augustine and Finney] certainly have numerous striking points of resemblance. Their early neglect of religion, the pronounced nature of their conversion, and the overwhelming flood of emotion that accompanied it, the philosophical cast of their minds, and, what is more in point, the mental furniture with which they began and carried on their expositions of the Christian system of thought, give a striking likeness to these remarkable men. Augustine knew no Hebrew, and very little Greek. Yet, in the opinion of those best qualified to judge, no single uninspired name has ever exercised such power over the Christian Church, and no one mind ever made such an impression on human thought."
President Finney frankly acknowledged that, while he had studied Hebrew and Greek to some extent, he nevertheless did not consider himself competent to venture on any independent criticism of the Scriptures in their original languages. Our English version was to him what the Vulgate was to Augustine.