70 of these were in 2 churches.

105 churches average 70.6 in revival year.

must serve the religious leader before he can most wisely judge the matter. And let us not forget that statistics are to the student of social affairs what the microscope is to the biologist. They are only a tool of the scientific student. Statistics simply bring social phenomena where they can be seen and valued. When this has been done established social principles often enable the student to go beyond the conclusions of the mere statistician. The examination of meager data is sometimes quite sufficient to justify a wide prediction. All the material sciences proceed on the assumption that in certain departments of investigation general laws can be predicted from the facts found in a few specimens, or at least a working-hypothesis may be taken to be verified by later or more enlarged studies.

This well-known scientific principle has guided this inquiry as it has some other investigations, which its author has made, extended statistics confirming earlier predictions. The examination of a very few cases disclosed a certain uniformity apparently due to a psychological principle analagous to that of the physiologist, who has discovered that in case of ordinary use the muscle recovers from fatigue in two to four hours but when the action is carried so far that exhaustion has occurred the recovery to the natural tone is the work of weeks or months of rest. The psychologists seek to recognize a similar law touching the effect of great mental excitement. Of course the principle of evolution and the solidarity of all life suggested that the same law might be found in the field of sociology. Aside from a recognition of the practical value of the results of the research the present investigation is an attempt to bring together enough of the facts to justify some scientific conclusions and to stimulate further study by others in a field much in need of scientific treatment.

The data are all drawn from New England and chiefly from the last three quarters of the nineteenth century simply because no other can be readily obtained. It would be helpful if we could have gone over churches in the West or gone back to the revivals of Finney in Western New York and elsewhere, or followed Nettleton to the South, or Miller and Burchard beyond New

England, or the work of the Tennants in New Jersey, and others, as well as the remarkable revivals of Kentucky a hundred years ago. But statistical data of any great value are utterly lacking. Besides, it seems quite unnecessary. The material we now have from all New England for three or four denominations, for four great revival periods and covering as a whole 104,716 additions to churches in revival years and with a special study of 337 churches most increased by revivals having 25,935 additions in the revival year, would seem quite sufficient for some safe conclusions. Some of these conclusions may now be indicated.

1. A large decline in additions usually follows a revival. This is apparent even on looking at Tables I and II in which all the churches of a state or denomination contribute to the result, whether they had a revival or not. But Table III brings this out distinctly. Here are 24 groups of churches from different denominations, and from all over New England, proportionately distributed between city and country and in four widely separated periods, all with two or three exceptions showing the same general result. These exceptions, which are chiefly those of degree only, are among the Methodists where conditions are different from those of other churches. The Methodist practice of continuous evangelistic effort and a large floating population in their city fields make the movement following revival years in some of their city churches more nearly uniform with that of revival years. But note their great losses following the large additions in 1842 and 1843, when the excitement over the teaching of Miller concerning the immediate second coming of Christ had subsided. But of the 299 Baptist and Congregational churches that contribute to the last table less than a dozen of them show any exception to the general movement. And these exceptions are due to one of three reasons. The revival sometimes continues into the second year, or it is repeated three or four years later, or a changing population with a pastor of an evangelistic method keeps up the movement. A country church in Connecticut added 136 in

the revival year and 123 in the next year. Two or three similar instances were found in other states.

2. The depression following a revival seems to continue from four to six years. The common length of it may be put at five years, that is, to the lowest point, the full recuperation coming later still. This varies with circumstances. An intense revival with large additions is often followed by a prolonged period with very small gains. But that this is not necessarily due to a lack of material appears from the facts just stated regarding the recurrence of revivals in small communities.

3. As to the measure of this loss as compared with the gains of the revival years, Table III gives striking results. In the first period with seven groups of Baptists and Congregationalists the 105 churches in the five years following their revival year added all told by baptism and on confession 57 per cent. as many as they did in the one revival year, the groups ranging from 39 to 73 per cent. The footnotes explain the two high percentages, as due to continued or renewed revivals. In the revival of 1843 the total additions in the 73 churches in five groups in the five years after the revival were only 20.5 per cent. of those in the single revival year. The highest percentage is 28 for the 24 Congregational churches of Massachusetts and the lowest is 3.9 per cent. for 13 Baptist churches in Maine. In the third period, the revival of 1858, the total additions of the 117 churches in it for the five years after the revival were 64 per cent. of those of the revival year. But here the Methodists are exceptional. In the case of one group of 19 of their churches in the cities of eastern Massachusetts the gain in five years was nearly double that of the revival year, while in another of 19 churches in Connecticut it was nearly equal. Taking out these 38 Methodist churches the remaining 79 Baptist and Congregational churches had 34.5 per cent. as many in the five years as they had in the year of revival. The four groups in the revival of 1877 show together 51 per cent. as many additions in the five years after the revival as they had in the revival year alone. And the average for all the 337 churches in the four periods taken together, with no allow