Revival

“ Viewing that revival in its widest and most general aspect, it must be regarded as a return to earlier sources of inspiration whether for the artist or the thinker, as the sympathetic reconstruction and vindication of much that humanity had tossed aside as infantile and outworn. ”

“ They were the extravagances and confusions that always attend a revival, whether in art or religion. And by the general public, who can never get but one idea, and never more than one side of that idea, into its head at a time, these extravagances and side-shoots are taken for the very heart of the movement. ”

“ The Romantic Revival, which we are beginning ungratefully to decry, did at least restore to poetry the sense of a genuine stateliness of expression, which once more gave it the requisite dignity, and made it a vehicle for the vital and the noble sentiments of humanity. ”

“ The word Renaissance, indeed, is now generally used to denote not merely that revival of classical antiquity which took place in the fifteenth century, and to which the word was first applied, but a whole complex movement, of which that revival of classical antiquity was but one element or symptom. ”

“ It was nothing less than a great revived movement of the soul of man, after a long period of prosaic acceptance in all things, including literature and art. To this revival the present writer, in the introduction to an imaginative work dealing with this movement, has already, for convenience’ sake, and in default of a better one, given the name of the Renascence of Wonder. ”

“ Avoid useless and over-busy detail, and rely on good proportions and solemnity of effect. {124} Above all, we must remember that everything old is not an object of imitation—everything new is not to be rejected. If we work on these golden principles, the revival would be a living monument, as it was in days of old; and that God may grant us means to carry it out, that he will enlighten the hearts of the obdurate, and unite the faithful in one great bond of exertion for the revival of the long-lost glory of his church, sanctuary, and altar, is the earnest prayer of the writer of this book. ”

“ In a period which is one of revival and not of imitation, it is most natural that we should find the two kinds of realism more or less blending together—the literalness of an exhausted epoch, and the faithfulness of a regenerated life. ”

“ If there is to be revival,—a mighty, Divine revival,—it will need, on our part, corresponding whole-heartedness in prayer and faith. Let not one believer think himself too weak to help, or imagine that he will not be missed. ”

“ However far we pursue it, the steadfast illusion keeps its distance, while shifting sands are about our feet as before. There never was a time, in short, when the interplay of old and new did not go on, exactly as it does now—when survival and revival, degeneration and regeneration, were not pulsating together in the rhythm of the social life. It is at least as necessary to read the present into the past as the past into the present. Let it, then, be an article of our creed to recognize the immanence of folklore. ”

“ There are astonishing instances of revival after a considerable time has passed, and it is worth while to persist in the effort most energetically and constantly for a long time before hope is given up. ”

“ To those who busy themselves about bringing art into the lives of the people, I would also say—Do not dabble in revivals. The very word smacks of the vault. Revivals look back; art is concerned with the present. People will not be tempted to create by being taught to imitate. Except that they are charming, revivals of morris-dancing and folk-singing are little better than Arts and Crafts in the open. ”

“ These angels have been correctly designated, by judicious expositors, "angels of revival and reform." To the intelligent Christian it will be obvious, that without reform there can be no revival. The popular idea of our time connected with the term revival, is without foundation in the Holy Scriptures. It does not mean the regeneration of a sinner, nor the first work of the Spirit in conviction. ”

“ Men moved forward with their faces turned backward,—in the religious world, seeking ideals in mediævalism; in art, also, borrowing their motives from the past. It was a time of rediscovery, of revivals; less of new birth or growth than of new assimilations. ”

“ Old time revivals are described and incidents related which are calculated to thrill the reader and beget a longing desire for the return of the Old Time Revival Power."
Bishop N. Castle: "It surely has the old time swing. It is rich in sentiment, thrilling, heart-inspiring. It certainly will have a large sale."
The Free Methodist: "An excellent compilation of facts in connection with old time revivals and contains much solid truth respecting old time repentance, conversion, and righteousness. ”

“ To-day, owing largely to the progress of science, and a host of other causes social and economic, life grows daily fuller and freer, and every manifestation of life is regarded with a new reverence. With207 this fresh outpouring of the spirit, this fuller consciousness of life, there comes a need for first-hand emotion and expression, and that expression is found for all classes in a revival of the ritual dance. ”

“ They may be right, but great religious revivals which are not simply short emotional upheavals lifting people to the heights and dropping them down again below the place from which they rose, mean a fundamental change in human nature. ”

“ As you well know, all imaginative work is truly alive only when it has died into the mind and been born again. The mystery of dissolution is the common mean of growth. Resurrection is the test of any spiritual idea—as of the spiritual life itself, of art, and of any final expression of the inward life.... I have been ill—and seriously—but am now better, though I have to be careful still. All our plans for Scandinavia in the autumn are now over—partly by doctor’s orders, who says I must have hill and sea air native to me—Scotland or Ireland. ”

“ See how the old elements of the air, soil, water, forever recombine under the touch of that mysterious something we call life, and produce new herbage, new flowers, new fruit, new men, new women,—forever and yet never the same. So do the forces of man’s spirit recombine with the old facts and truisms, and produce new art and new literature. ”

“ The New Age bids men keep reverence for the past, and Progress bids them keep religion. Guard the fire within, lest the heart of humanity perish of cold. The Future, a poem as full of imagination as of thought, paints first all that man has lost of the insight, the freshness, the calm, the vigour of life which filled the past ”

“ The Renaissance was a conscious recovery from the longest and dreariest set-back that humanity has ever experienced within the historical period—a veritable glacial age of the spirit. At this time men were too full of admiration for the newly recovered treasures of antiquity to look forward to the future. In the seventeenth century a doctrine of progress was already in the air, and a long literary battle was waged between the Ancients and the Moderns. ”

“ What those years have done for the regeneration of the soul will appear, now that its inmost state is translucent, no longer concealed by the expediencies learned of intellectual prudence. When the second childhood is true and genial, the work of regeneration approaches its consummation; and the light of heaven is reflected from silver hairs, as if one stood nearer to Paradise, and caught reflections of the resurrection glories. ”

“ The imagery is distinct and majestic; the prophecy, such as poets love to dwell upon, the Regeneration of Mankind—and that regeneration reflecting back splendour on the foregone time, from which it inherits so much of intellectual wealth, and memory of past virtuous deeds, as must render the possession of happiness and peace of tenfold value. ”

“ A new era is moving gently onward, old things are rapidly passing away; old superstitions, old prejudices, and old notions are now bidding farewell to their old associates and companions, and giving way to one whose wings are plumed with the light of heaven and tinged by the dews of the morning. ”

“ Weep not for your dead children so, Death the renewal is of life. The dead, dry seed lies hid from view, To burst forth to new glorious bloom; The former beauty to resume, The ancient harvest to renew. O earth! in thy soft bosom keep, And quicken with new warmth this clay, This sacred frame to rest we lay. It smiles in thy embrace to sleep. 'Twas once the immortal spirit's cell. ”

“ Thus does regeneration become a work of orderly progress and successive growth. Guided by the Lord, it is brought forward under his never ceasing energies. It is begun in chaos and ends in the glorious likeness of Divinity. This, and manifold more, the parable of the Creation sets forth, in its beautiful symbols, concerning the beginnings of the soul, its progress through the stages of its advancing career, the nature of each successive state, and the quality of its celestial outcomes. ”

“ Besides all this, it is worth while to note that the eighteenth century, particularly during the first half, was a time of depression in poetry and art and architecture, and that for a time it appeared to be at a standstill in all moral and religious progress. But there was, nevertheless, in almost every field of human activity a new spirit stirring which wrought an amazing change before the century came to an end. ”

“ As we saw in the beginning of this book, in the matter of the Renaissance, every age of discovery and re-birth has its double aspect. It is a revolution in style and language, an age of literary experiment and achievement, but its experiments are dictated by the excitement of a new subject-matter, and that subject-matter is so much in the air, so impalpable and universal that it eludes analysis. Only you can be sure that it is this weltering contagion of new ideas, and new thought—the "Zeitgeist," the spirit of the age, or whatever you may call it—that is the essential and controlling force. ”

“ To this degree is subjoined the dogma of a possible ascension, from the undermost stage of hierarchy to the highest being, by an endless series of periods and revolutions; a new religion is established upon the ruins of the former; the resurrection, the end of the world, the last judgment, the rewards and punishments, are only emblematic expressions of the successive periodical revolutions of the stars and of the universe, of the destruction and renovation of all beings, produced by the disposition and combination of the elements. ”

“ Then an art arises greater even than that of the eras of tradition. The pathos of the dying and the inexpressible hope of the newly born find expression side by side; all chains are broken, and the world appears suddenly to be immeasurable. Is this what happened at the Renaissance? ”

“ Up to the rising stars I looked and cried,
‘There is no death! for year on year, re-born
I wake to larger life: to joy more great,
So many times have I been crucified,
So often seen the resurrection morn,
I go triumphant, though new Calvaries wait. ”

“ Then came the time which is called 'The Renaissance,' a word which means being born again, or a new awakening, when men began to draw real pictures of real things and fill the world with images of beauty. ”

“ Humanity hath taken on new life. The autumn hath gone by, and the reviving spring is here. All things are now made new. Arts and industries have been reborn, there are new discoveries in science, and there are new inventions; even the details of human affairs, such as dress and personal effects—even weapons—all these have likewise been renewed. The laws and procedures of every government have been revised. Renewal is the order of the day.
And all this newness hath its source in the fresh outpourings of wondrous grace and favour from the Lord of the Kingdom, which have renewed the world. ”

“ But times are changed, and changes rung From old to new — the olden days, The old bush life and all its ways Are passing from us all unsung. The freedom, and the hopeful sense Of toil that brought due recompense, Of room for all, has passed away, And lies forgotten with the dead. ”

“ A new era had broken upon us, ushered by the wild din of trumpet and cannon, and battle-cry; an era which was to form new men, and shape a new generation. He must pause and listen to the agonies of this birth, striving vainly to absorb the commotion into himself and to let it subside into clear visions of the future. ”

“ The Renaissance was, on the contrary, born out of a passionate joy in nature, which joy was intensified by the unexpected possession of the literature of the past and by the discovery of new lands beyond the seas. ”

“ Yes—reverence is the most precious emotion that such a building inspires: reverence for the accumulated experiences of the past, readiness to puzzle out their meaning, unwillingness to disturb rashly results so powerfully willed, so laboriously arrived at—the desire, in short, to keep intact as many links as possible between yesterday and to-morrow, to lose, in the ardour of new experiment, the least that may be of the long rich heritage of human experience. ”

“ But that is the beginning of a new story—the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. ”

“ This is not the place to repeat the charming story of the Renaissance, that movement which marks the transition from the Middle Ages to the Modern World, or to dwell on the spirit of the time which witnessed the liberation of reason and gave rise to that passionate recognition of humanity—that escape, "at first hesitating and then triumphant, from a circumscribed life of ecclesiastical tradition into "joyous freedom and unfettered spontaneity." ”

“ What is the mere fidget of the foreground, the present, the transient, compared with the huge unchanging past, where everything is secured and established under the appearance of eternity?—and how, when the obstruction is wonderfully pierced, the page restored, the earth of the present shovelled away, shall we refrain from dashing{185} headlong into the world thrown open, serenely offering itself to our exploration? ”