THE AMERICAN REVIVALISTS. (M.A.P.)

Otago Witness, Issue 2665, 12 April 1905, Page 71

THE AMERICAN REVIVALISTS. (M.A.P.)

— Strangers in Strange Lands. —

I have been reading with considerable interest the accounts which have appeared in various- newspapers in reference to the two American evangelists who at this lrovnent are producing such remarkable results in London, and who have produced, perhaps, even more remarkablp results elsewhere. There must be s"niiething out of the common in two men who. speaking in a tongue very strange to us, in an accent ■which is unfamiliar and not very agreeable, without apparently any great intellectual endowments, are able to draw together audiences by the tens of thousands. I read that these same men, speaking in Australia^ — which is, after all, not their own country either — produced such enthusiasm that as they travelled by rail there were halts at railway stations ; prayer meetings were improvised ; hundreds and thousands of people came long distances in order that during the short stay of these rapidly flying travellers they might join in prayer and hymn. In other cities anA

in other lands these two men gather together night after night in the biggest hall they can get ten thousand, twelve thousand people with the same ease as others can assemble as many hundreds. There is no theatrical manager in the world who would not think that he had made a fortune if he could get such audiences for any two artistes for one single year which these two men are able to gather for year after year, and in all parts of the world. There is no politician or electioneer who, if he could get together such crowds and excite such enthusiasm, would not know that a general election was going to be a landslide. In short, these two men are a great, strange,, almost inexplicable phenomenon.

— Dr Torrey. —

As I have said, there is no explanation of the results in any particular intellectual gift on the part of the one or the other of these evangelists. Gifts they certainly have, or they could not attain such results ; but they are not intellectual gifts. I take two descriptions, for instance, of Dr Torrey, the preacher, from two brilliant pens. The first is not written in the attitude of a sympathiser; it is from the pen of Mr Harold Begbie in the somewhat incredulous columns of the Daily Ma.il, and here is what he says :

He mounted the tall crimson-covered box — the modern form of Wesley's Stone — and stood like a statue, with his hands clasped behind his back. His frock-coat was buttoned across his broad chest. He looked a small and dizzy figure on the top of the crimson box. A little grey man, against a steel-coloured background of lofty organ-pipes reaching up to the very roof. On hi& right hand and his leH, like two outspread wings, were the close-packed men and womenof the choir, a dazed mist of faces, rising upward on either tide like an open fan. In front of him was a vast semi-circle oi hiunanitv gazing towards him with twenty thousand eves. Under the seven-ringed gas chandelier, drooping from the centre of the vast dome with its bellying canvas, was gathered together in the splendid hall as strange and eager a congregation a.s evor came to a man with a 'message. People of all classes. A sea of humanity. On* looked jnto that vast gathering and saw the smiling faces of converted men and the wistful faces of their women: the rebellious and halfscornful faces of the men of the world, and tho nervous, flushed faces of ladies of (m-ility. F-ice after face, face above face, from the floor to the topmost gallery, till one's eyes wearied of the human countenance and longed for tree.", and mountains, and moving waters. Not a seat was vacant, except in the cases of a few darkened boxes, whose owners, objecting to the mission, refused to lend them. To right and to left, up from the floor to the roof, a dense, multitudinous mass of men and women. The coughing died down. A great hush settled over the hall. It was like the dawn.

J'r Torrey appeared to be tii-f»i?. His voice was hoarse and husky. He spoke like a man at tho end rather than nt the beginning of a great undertaking. One was not conscious of any magnetism in thp man, felt no powerful outpouring of personality. People, it Feem.-d tn me. were disappointed. They land expected « sen.-ation. or at least originality. Xov>icbodv coughed in the arena; tl»ei l* was an answer from the boxe-.

— Another JmpiesMon —

This, as I have said, is the language of one who is evidently out of sympathy, or at lo'ist ,in imperfect sympathy, with 'both the preacher and his methods. Mr James Poiigl;».«. writing in the Morning Trader — an organ for readers the very opposite of tho^e represented by the Daily Mail — yet gives positively t he same impicssion:

Head very deep, but very narrow : perpendicular forehead, with razor-edged brows ; eyes small, deep-sunken, conti acted, full of darling frozen fire ; nose rampant, challenging, sharply carved right to the keen tip ; heavily indented nostrils; ears small, set low and far bark ; month clamped like a vice under a fierce military moustache ; chin thrusting out its pointed tuft of grey beard in lmgiiiiiic pugnacity; haid, lean, fleshless, grey jaw £horn close ; the grey hair that is left round the base of the gleaming bkull is cut as short as Lord Roberts's. The head and face of a soldier. It belongs to the Csesar-Napoleon-Bis-mirck type. The body is corpulent, but solidly vigorous, and stands squarely on stiff legs, planted wide apart. The hands are small, nervous, refined, but imperious ; the index finger long and minatory. The whole man is a live menace, a vivid ultimatum, with a clenched heart, a, clenched soul, a clenched mind, and a clenched body. Clenched? Yes, his very brows and eyes and lips are clenched in a tense fury of agonised will. — The Voice of One Crying. —

How does he charge up to the guns of the Churches? By calling upon Christians to obey Christ. It seems trite, but it is volcanically new, for this man calls upon every Christian to "save" others. He says it is the business of fieir life. He preaches the great democratic doctrine that every sonl is equal in value. The soul of Jenny in Piccadilly is worth more than all the diamonds of De Beers. The .«oul of the ragged boy is as valuable as the soul of the King. It is the old story, told with austere ferocity, with haggard fire. The Soul — what is it? Oh, you polished elegances of London, hedonists and dilettantes, cosmopolitan sippers of sifted delight, Jrfbbers of rare poetry and prose, tasters of art and music, dabblers in the last cries of science, what is the soul? Despise this man, if you will. Sneer at his rasping dialect, his hu&ky Westernisms, his crude phrasing, his obscurantist biases. But down in your depths are you not afraid of — yourselves? In some

sort have not we, too, we also, souls to save, our own and others ? From what ?

well, from divers kinds of death. It is into the myriad supple insincerities of London that this hoarse voice crashes with a primitive challenge like the challenge of love or death. It is the eternal cry of driven humanity ; the deathless yearning of man the insatiate, the insatiable, the questioner, the pursuer.

— The Second Figure. —

I turn to the second — and, as I am inclined to think, the more powerful and effective figure in this strange couple — and again I fail to find any evidence in Mr Alexander of the divine, intellectual fire which might account for his extraordinary influence. In him, as in his colleague, the portrait painter and psychologist find the crude methods, the crude doctrine, the crude appeal which belong to a community young in energy, in hope, and in both intelligence and culture. One feels about this, as about other emanations from the strong-limbed, bustling infant Hercules beyond the ocean, which has entered so late, but so clamorously, into the family of grown-up nations — one feels a certain sense as of a survival from simpler and earlier ages. Just as you detect in some American words, phrases, and pronunciations reminiscenses of the language of the times of Shakespeare, so in the religious methods of these two Americans you have a haunting sense that you see, revived in the twentieth century, the methods, the ideas, the still immature points of view that belong to the days when Wesley preached in his travels during the eighteenth century.

— T\\ o Aspects — The Unsympathetic. —

As before, I give two descriptions of Mr Alexander in juxtaposition — and from the same two writers. Here, first, is how he strikes Mr Begbie :

I looked to the crowded platform, ex-

pecting to see a drawing-room entertainer, or at least an after-dinner speaker. I saw instead Mr Alexander, the Sankey of this revival. He was standing on a very tall, crimson-draped box in the ( entre of the vast platform. He was dressed in p neat frock-coat and well-tit - ting trousers ; his head was thrown back.

his shoulders were squared, his eyes had the look of command. A typical American. He held in his hands, pressed against his black waistcoat, a red hymn book. He stood alone there, a dizzy

and a central spirit

He is a young man, clean-shaven, premiturely bald, with thin lips tightly com-

pressed, round eyes deeply set, and a chin that advertises self-reliance and selfassurance. A man, I should say, who had nev^r been nervous. "Now, you didn't do so bad that time !" he says with a strong American accent, amid the coughing. "But you ain't perfect yet. You can do better than that. I know you can. Trj-. Hark at me for a minute. I'll sing you the chorus again. , Now, listen. it's quite easy

'tvhen once you get the trick of the

time. Now hark Oh, :i — i.- — wonderful: that — He — should —

caiefornic' K-nou»h — to — dieforme ! O-o-o-oh ! It— is — wonderful ! Woa-dei-iul — to — me !

"Xmv, we've got ten minutes before tli3

.nvvting begins, so we'll sing this hymn rijrht now .-aid get it perfect Will the ladies in the two top galleries sin» - it first ? Can you I'e.-ir me up there? Eh? Cm you hear mo V — The Sympathetic—

This is the unsympathetic. Now for the sympathetic : now for Mr Douglas again :

Twenty-four thousand eyes gaze at a squaie crimson pedestal in the centre of the orchestra. But the pedestal is empty. All ! the crowd leans forward as a tall, lean, lithe apparition climbs the «teps and stands on the pedestal like one of the statues in Trafalgar Square. Deep silence. The statue is a study in black and white and pink — black cylinder legs, black cylinder body, black cylinder

arms ; white collar, out of which leaps a

pink polished bald head find a pink polished beardless face : white cuffs out of which Spring pink polished hands. Ah ! it is Alexander. — Alexander the Great. —

The statue speaks. Like the dying Goethe he calls for more light — light — more light. "If there is anyone here who has influence with the people who can put on the light, I wish they would put on the light." The voice is clear, sharp, colourless, keen-edged. It cuts the air like a swallow's wing. The crowd rustles with shy laughter. It likes Alexander. His personality tickles it. There are now only two forces in the beehive. One is the crowd ; the other is

Alexander. And Alexander just takes the crowd in his pink hands, puts it under his chin, and plays on it. Tl»e crowd is a giant violin, and his voice is a giant bow. London likes new sensations, and I predict that London will go crazy over Alexander the Great. Alexander is more than a choir conductor. He is a crowd conductor. In ten minutes he turns this huge multitude into a choir. He teaches " them to obey him. He gives them singing lessons. He begins with his vast choir, which is skillfully posted in strategic positions, not massed in one spot. The superb hymn, "Abide with me," serves as an example of his method. He first makes his choir whisper it, sigh it, croon it, murmur it. Then he calls on the crowd. "Don't look at your books -. look at me !"' And the crowd follows his flowing gestures ; its enormous tones are led from note to note so deftly that it gasps with surprise. Have you ever seen twelve thousand people visibly pleased with themselves ? No ? Then go to Albert Hall. His skill in analysing the crowd is amazing. First he makes all the choir women sing ;" then all the men. Then all the women in the top gallery • then

the first three rows — a dim, faint blur of sound, half drowned by the piano. Then all the women in the hall. "If you've,, never sung before, sing now !" Then all the men — their deep, dark tones silhouttted against the paler tones of the women. "Do you like that chorus?" Cries of " Yes ." " Then sing it ! " — The "Glory Song." — The climax of this bizarre sensation is the "Glory Song," the battle hymn o] the revival. "This is the Glory Song. I want you to sing it all the rest of youi life. It will do you good." The choii sings it. Then he claps his hands stamps this feet, curves his lithe body, swings his arms, wheels round with coat tails flying, and works the crowd into on>

wild whirl of emotion. " Oh,that will be ... glory for me . . ; O-lory for me . . . glory for me . . . When by His grace I shall look on His face, That will be glory, be glory for me." The hollow c's in the chorus ring out sonorously, and the liquid r's slide and"-

turn in a .vast tumult of sound. The tune is catching, and the crowd swiftly

sniatches it. "JTou've been practising it!" The crowd laughs like a happy child. "I see you Londoners can sing." The crowd laughs again. — The Power of the Hymn. —

Or pass from the strange methods thus described to the language of those hymns which are most effective. Again you have the same impression of the crude, the immature — 1 had almost said the illiterate. '"The master stroke," writes Mr Douglas, "is a hymn with the heartrending refrain, 'Tell mother I'll be there,' based upon President M'Kinley's telegram to his dying mother. The words." confesses even sc sympathetic a writer, "are bald and banal,' 1 as. inrleed, this specimen of them abundantly proves -. TVheu I was but a little child how well I re-

collect How I would grieve my mother by my folly

and ueglect ; And now that she has gone to Heaven I miss

her tender care . O Saviour, tell my mother I'll be there,

Though 1 was often wayward, she was always

kind and good — So patient, gentle, loving, when I acted rough

and rude ; When I became a prodigal, and left tlie old roof-tree, She almost broke her loving heart in mourn-

ing after me, And to on.

There is in the other hymn a potency which seems to be greater < wen than that of the hymn from which I have just quoted To me it seems the "Glory Song" contains one line which alone would account for the tremendous effect the hymn always produce*. It is, "Friends will be there I have loved long ago." Mr Alexander uses this hymn, and the idea which underlies it, with an instinct almost of artistic genius. I quote again from Mr Douglas :

He calls upon those who have lost "loved ones" to sing it. He frankly says that this stanza always "breaks them down." He opens the old wounds of sorrow, and as the crowd sings there is a tragic wail in the music. — A Pathetic Scene. —

As I read this passage I thought of a scene which occurred many years ago, and which has always remained with me, not merely because of its inherent pathos, but of its usefulness as a guide to any human emotions ; and' especially to those emotions which lie at the root of religious faith and religious sentiment. The scene was at the burial of a number of Welsh miners who lia-cl lost their lives in one of those terrible accidents which spread such tragic desolation in mining villages. At the momert when the bodies w.^re about to be committed to carth — poorer mangled remains of what a few hours before had been sentient, stalwart humanity — there rose the hymn which spok^ of the meeting once again across the black waters "of death, of those who had been separated, of the life eterral. of the life joyous, of the life of union after this life of transience, and soitow, and separation ; and I can, even yet, feel the thrill •which communicated itself to me in the description of those far-off voices, singing this anthem of triumph, of hope, of lov." 1 , in the midst of all this desoJation.

— Seeing Light. —

Reading between the lines of these van oiis descriptions of Dr Torrey and Mr Alexander, I think I see som; clear light as to the secret of the influence which they are able to exercise over humanity. They arft a triumphant refutation of the idea that humanity in them is governed by logic, or of the other dioctrine that science,knowledge, and education will ever do away with the religious sense. When this world is entirely happy ; when life is universally satisfactory ; when there is no grief, no suffering, no disillusion, no crosspurpose amid the destinies of man, then, but not till then, will men turn entirely away from the dreams and hopes that paint a world wh.^re every wrong is righted, and where a Divine Love vindicates its somewhat imperfect manifestation in this sad world by bestowing upon humanity another world, where all these imperfections have c.°ased to be. But it is curious that it should be two Americans who should first make such tremendously successful appeals to these primordial facts in human nature in the mids>t of our land) of great scholars, ancient universities, multitudinous and richly-endowed churches. Perhaps it is -America's youthf ulness that accounts for the phenomenon. — T. P.

A M4SSACHUSSETS MAN'S HEALTH THEORY.

Andrew Funk, aged 49, believes he hs3 discovered the secret of perpetual youth. Mr Funk is a German who came to America just two score years ago. When! he arrived he liad no more extravagant hopes than the average individual of over-, running the proverbial three score and tea years. To-day he declares that he ex-, pects to be alive and enjoying youthful)

— Nell : "He seems to be devoted to /ou." Belle: "Yes." Nell: "Why don't Yon marry him" Belle: "Oh, I like to ha.ye him devoted to n3«b"

— "This thing of telepathic communicatkn is a great thing. Do you think the time will ever come when we shall cease to talk?'' — "Not you. m? dear."

health when the youngest, child in Athol has rounded out old age and passed away. He says that the system which he has invented wilJ bring the power of prolonging life to an indefinite period. He goe9 even further in declaring that others who will adopt his system will be able to banish all fear of the grave. Mrs Funk, who was at first sceptical about her husband's assertions regarding his system of restoring age to its proper eternal state of youth, has become so convinced of his success that she is also to fdopt the system, and together husband and wife believe that they will continue to live and grow younger when generations of persons about them axe coming into the world and passing away. Mr Funk, whom half the people of Athol have dubbed a crank and the other half an interesting wonder, has in thiee years been successful in regaining health by means of his system. Many persons who have known Mr Funk for years agree that

the change which has taken place in hif a2>pearar.ce is nothing short of wonderful. When the experimenter three years ago had perfected his system for renewing his blocd daily by driving from it all the acids and impurities, he was a man with the appearance of having passed 60 years of age. His skin was wrinkled, his sight was failing, and his fingers were cracked. He himself declares that his general appearance was that of an elderly man. To-day his skin has the delicate pink colour noticeable in young people ; his hair, which was falling out, is now thick and vigorous ; his sight is excellent ; he is able to undergo extraordinary transitions from heat to cold without the slightest effect

upon his health ; he sleeps winter and summer in the open air, resting upon the ground, and with only the scantiest clothing as a protection. He has forgotten what a cold seems like. He eats one meal daily, almost entirely of uncooked food and of an amount which the ordinary individual would think an infant's all. \rance. A large item of this scanty diet is sand and gravel.

It had cost Mr Funk lldol since the middle of October for the amount of sana that he has consumed. Now he has stopped buying his gravel diet, and takes at each meal four heaping tablespoonfuls of a quality which he discovered in a sand hole between AtKol and Orange. These four tablespoonfuls, well heaped up at each measure, make nearly half a pint of sand which he consumes daily, making a good quart and a-half each week.

Mr Punk takes it mixed with thick sour milk or stirred in his only drink — molasses, warm water, and milk — as regularly as his day passes, for. the purpose of assisting the blood-cleansing process, which is the object of his system.

The amount of sand and gravel which he has consumed since he began this peculiar diet amounts to nearly a cart load.

Previous to 1895 Mr Funk spent years following the prescriptions of doctors in New York and Europe to recuperate his health. He even went to Germany and consulted several specialists regarding methods of regaining health. He became a subscriber to 16 health magazines. The results of his consultations with physicians and his study led him to believe that he could frame a system which, by vigorous blood-cleansing processes, would keep away danger of disease.

Two weeks before Christmas, in 1895, he began by getting his body inured to the most radical changes of heat and cold. He accustomed himself to walk with bare feet on the icy floor of his cellar until he could remain there 15 minutes at a time without feeling inconvenience. He next began walking in the snow, with such success that at the end of a few weeks he could remain with his feet in snow 20 to 30 minutes without cold. At the same time each night he wrapped himself in a sheet wrung out in icy water, then placed a blanket over this wet covering and went to bed, where he remained until his body had become thoroughly warm. He repeated this process several times each night, continuing for two years, and never missed a night, even in the coldest weather.

He then began experimenting with the lightning shower bath. His first experience was when he persuaded a friend to turn the hose upon him in his barn when the thermometer was at zero, as he said, to learn the effects of .the cold shower. After that for three years he continued to take one to three cold showers daily. During this period Mr Funk won a reputation of being a health crank. He said nothing of the fact that his health had been restored and that he felt himself growing younger with each day, but he added to his system the open-air cure, and began sleeping in a shed behind his house, where the cold draughts and snows blew in from each side. He also began to change his diet, eating only raw foods and drinking a special drink which he prepared. He added health machines to his system, including a powerful electric battery.

Pinally, last year Mr Funk completed the system by the addition of a steam chest, made according to his own directions.

Prom April until June he devoted himself to the process of renewing his life. During this period of three months he spent 12 hours of each day sweating in this steam chest and plunging into" cold shower baths. He took 30 to 40 of these cold showers daily. He then modified his system, as soon as he was convinced that his physical organism had been cleansed, to the present regime, which he follows.

Mr Punk now gets up in the mornino at 4 o'clock, and his first act is to start the steam in his steam chest. Next he rubs Uis .vkin for 15 minutes with two stiff brushes. Then he enters his steam box, and for half an hour alternates between the vapour bath- and the cold plunge in his tub. The rest of the morning, until he begins work, he devotes to reading. He eats no breakfast, going to his business without food, and' returninxr at half-

past 11 o'clock. He then again spends half an hour with the different health apparatus, and afterward eats dinner, his only meal of each daj-. This dinner consists of 'three tablespoonfuls of uncooked lolled oats mixed with wheat, whole wheat bread, radishes, lettuce, raw onions, and four heaping tablespoonfuls of sand.

He has eaten no meat for seven years, and no cooked food pave wheat bread. He eats no eggs, cheese, oysters, or rich foods.

Dinner is the only meal which Mr Funk takes daily. All the food he consumes in 24 hours could be held in the palm of one hand. His only drink is molasses, milk, and warm water stirred together. He declares that he is seldom hungiy, and that his weight never decreases for lack of food.

The secret of being able to subsist on this meagre diet, he says, lies in the fact that every ounce of food that he takes is digested, a process which does not take place in the stomach of the ordinary person, whose system is more or less filled with poisonous acids.

Mr Funk returns to work at 1 o'clock, remaining until 5, after which he takes a third "turn with his steam chest and tub, and retires to bed on the ground in the shed at 9 o'clock.

Mr Funk is willing to discuss his remarkable system, which many have begun to believe is worth a second thought, since results have begun to appear, but he is averse to being called a crank, and declares that his method of making life perpetual is reasonable. He firmly believes that hundreds will be adopting his system, and that he will then be- credited) with the good sense which many friends have told him he lacked.

Athol is deeply interested in the experimenter's assertions, now that Mr Funk begins to appear much more youthful looking than he did ten years ago, and many of those who have laughed at Mr (Funk's idiosyncrasies are now wondering whether there may^not be something in his "foolishness" after all.