“An Anxious Bench may be crowded where no divine influence whatever is felt. A whole congregation may be moved with excitement, and yet be losing at the very time more than is gained in a religious point of view. Hundreds may be carried through the process of anxious bench conversion, and yet their last state may be worse than the first. It will not do to point us to immediate visible efforts, to appearances on the spot, or to glowing reports struck off from some heated imagination immediately after. Piles of copper, fresh from the mint, are after all something very difference from piles of gold.” ~ John Williamson Nevin, The Anxious Bench

“Vows and pledges that spring from excitement rather than reflection are considered fanatical, and as such neither rational nor free; and thought in certain cases men may seem to be strengthened and supported by them in the…