An Endless Line of Splendor (PDF)

Earle E. Cairns, renowned historian and writer on religion, explores revivals in the church from the Great Awakening to the present. In an enlightening narrative that begins with the Bible-centered Pietists of nineteenth-century Germany, Dr. Cairns unfolds the story of the workings of God's Spirit in renewing the church.

Cairns takes the reader on a historical pilgrimage that features candid accounts of such figures as Billy Graham, Billy Sunday, Charles H. Spurgeon, Dwight L. Moody, Charles Finney, Lyman Beecher, Francis Asbury, John and Charles Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Philipp Jakob Spener, and many others who have served as God's instruments in revitalizing the church.

The pilgrimage includes glimpses of John Wesley's field preaching, American camp meetings, college revivals in the early 1800s, Hans Hauge's revivalistic work in Norway, Francis Asbury's long treks on horseback, Dwight L. Moody's London meetings, the Jesus people of the 1960s, Billy Graham's early crusades, and many more stories of revival.

Cairns also looks at the fruits of revivalism-missions, social reform, the holiness movement and more. He examines the work of missionary and explorer David Livingstone, Salvation Army founder William Booth, temperance leader Frances Willard, the abolitionists of the Clapham Sect, and many others.

The Christ-centered theology that guided the revivals is discussed, and so are the hymns that gave poetic expression to that theology. And the author looks at the various methods used by the Spirit-led individuals who brought renewal.

Written with impeccable scholarship and engrossing style, An Endless Line of Splendor is an insightful study of the leaders of revival and the fruits of revival.