gift JH Russell 6-12-33 PREFACE. SUPPOSITIONS employed in accounting for modern religious revivals are diverse and numerous : by one class of reasoners they are attributed to purely natural agencies; another class introduce into their hypotheses supernatural elements. Supernaturalism and naturalism, as would be expected, look upon revival phenomena, as upon all other events, from strictly opposite points of view; conclusions are consequently rigidly opposed to conclusions. Among supernaturalists there are also different opinions as to the agencies to be employed, and as to the mutual dependencies between the divine and human factors. With as little embarrassment from creeds as possible, the author, in this treatise, desires to collect, impartially, facts relating to revivals, with a view of showing therefrom the more obvious deductions, and of testing the modern revival and religious methods. |
