The Primary Sources “Sermons on Various Subjects”, “A Memorial of William Lloyd Garrison from the City of Boston”, and “Walden” reveal that mutual religious revival and the progressive reformation in the Second Great Awakening had been a paramount influential movement through change and increased church attendance in American history from 1790 to 1839. Specifically in Charles Finney’s “Sermons on Various Subjects”, sinners create their own “wicked” hearts. This notion can have many different meanings but can be inferred that those who sin make those choices by themselves. Their preference of choosing to sin is their own voluntary act, and nobody else’s. “They make self-gratification the rule to which they conform all their conduct. When they come into being, the first principle that we discover in their conduct is their determination to gratify themselves. It soon comes to pass that any effort to thwart them in the gratification of their appetites, is met …show more content…
The Second Great Awakening signaled this popular fundamental transition in the lifestyles of many Americans. Many early American religious groups in the Calvinist tradition had emphasized the deep depravity of human beings and believed they could only be saved through the grace of God. The new evangelical movement, however, shone greater emphasis on humans' ability to change their situation for the better. By persistently stressing that individuals could impose "Free Will" in choosing to be saved, and by suggesting that salvation was open to all human beings, the Second Great Awakening embraced a more optimistic view of the human condition and broadened the horizons of many Americans. The continued revivals of these several decades helped make the United States a much deeper Protestant nation than it ever had been