"SPIRIT AND POWER."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 253, 24 October 1936, Page 2 (Supplement)

"SPIRIT AND POWER."

RELIGIOUS AWAKENINGS. The passage here quoted is taken from "Spirit and Power," a book published some years ago by Dr. D. M. Mclntyre, principal of the Bible Training Institute, Glasgow. The book is a reproduction of contributions he had made on the laws and principles regulating true religious awakening. Apart from its cautious spirit and the quality of the argument and diction, the book has been prized by many readers for its quotations from the great masters in the school of experimental theology. "The word revival suggests precedent decay, but revival itself, as an act of God, comes to us down the ordered avenues of the divine providence. Its advent is determined in accordance with principles which may be formulated, principles which are wrought into harmonious co-operation with the believing response of the Church. If we could imagine an unbroken progress of the Church in faith and obedience, we might still suppose that she would be called to pass, at recurrent intervals, through a climacteric experience. For the emergence of new truths, the acceptance of fresh obligations, the realisation of a richer and more elevated experience, would inevitably impart an added splendour to the glory of the Bride of Christ. But, as a matter of fact, the history of the Church of God is little more than the commemoration of a linked series of revival movements, interlaced with periods of declension. "Like every other term of religion, the word revival has been used with a varying connotation. Too frequently it has been em,ployed to designate a movement that was. in its origin human rather than divine, in its nature carnal rather than spiritual, of the earth rather than of heaven. In the history of the Church there have been revival episodes, and these, alas! not few, which now awaken only regret; we cannot recall them without pain. Also, there have been movements, genuinely spiritual in their inception, which in their progress and issue have proved hurtful. Once more there have been religious awakenings which were undoubtedly the gift of God, but were hindered and shorn of fruit because in our pride of he'art we insisted on reducing to conformity with our own prejudices a divine efficiency. The differences of manner, too, which are displayed during successive seasons of blessing, may lead to jealousy of each new awakening on the part of those who have previously passed through similar experiences. It seems safe to say that a revival, while it is in progress, is usually accompanied with a very sensible trial of faith. It is only when it is a matter of history that it becomes a subject of popular-applause. "Christ always comes in lowly guise, and always He brings His cross with Him. "We may be longing for revival, praying for it, and asking others to pray, and yet when it comes we may be unprepared to receive it. Blessed are they who recognise the working of the Divine Spirit behind the crude enthusiasm and frequent excesses of some of those who are borne forward in the sweep of His operations!" 1