SECRET OF FAITH

CHARLES FINNEY (1792–1875) was nearly thirty years of age when he turned from his skepticism regarding Christianity and wholeheartedly embraced the Bible as the true Word of God. He gave up his law profession in order to spread the gospel and soon became the most noteworthy revivalist of the nineteenth-century Second Great Awakening. In 1835, upon the request of Arthur Tappan, Finney established the theology department at Oberlin Collegiate Institute (today known as Oberlin College). He served there as a professor of theology, as well as pastor of Oberlin’s First Congregational Church, until a few years before his death in August 1875.