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The following is from the files of the late Dr. J. Edwin Orr. Not many people realize that in the
wake of the American Revolution in 1781 there was a moral slump throughout the states. Drunkenness became epidemic. Out of
a population of 5 million, 300,000 were confirmed drunkards. They were burying 15,000 of them each year. Profanity was of
the most shocking kind and for the first time in the history of the American settlement, women were afraid to go out at night
for fear of assault. Bank robberies were a daily occurrence. What about the churches? The Methodists were losing more members
then they were gaining. The Baptists called it their most wintry season. The Presbyterians and General Assembly deplored the
nations ungodliness. In a typical congregational church in Massachusetts in 16 years had not taken one young person into fellowship.
The Lutherans were so languishing that they dicussed uniting with the Episcopalians who were even worse off. The Protestant/Episcopal
Bishop of New York, Bishop Samuel Provost quit functioning. He had confirmed no one for so long that he decided he was out
of work. The Chief Justice of the United States John Marshall wrote to the Bishop of Virgina, James Madison that the the church
was too far gone ever to be redeemed. Voltaire declared and Thomas Paine echoed that Christianity would be forgotten in 30
years. A poll taken at Harvard had discovered not one believer in the whole student body and a poll at Princeton, a much more
evangelical place only found two believers in the entire student body. Students rioted, they held mock communion at William's
College, and they put on anti-Christian plays at Dartmouth. They burned down the Nassau Hall at Princeton. They forced the
resignation of the President of Harvard. They took a Bible out of a local Presbyterian church in New Jersey and they burned
it in a public bonfire. Christians were very few on the campus in the 1790s. As the demoralization of a nation intensified
so did the hunger and the hearts of the people of God. They began to pray intensely, the Spirit of the Lord began to move,
and the hearts of the people were changed. Revival after revival hit the colonies, sweeping hundreds
of thousands into the kingdom. It was the 2nd Great Awakening, and it happened when God's people became desperate and
earnestly prayed.
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