This booklet was penned in 1816 by Menzies Rainer, the Rector of an Episcopal Church and well-known Universalist, as a response to the powerful Awakening that began around 1800 and continued for several years.

Clearly Mr Rainer does not agree with revivals nor revivalists and sets out to discredit them by appeals to Ecclesiastical decorum, respectful order and the creeds and doctrines of the true (Episcopal) church. He despises non-ordained preachers and considers even extempore prayer an offence to the gospel. Revivals attract the impressionable young, the undiscerning and the gullible, he claims. He acknowledges that that there are seldom, if ever, any extraordinary awakenings, or religious stirs, in the Episcopal church but continues to exalt the doctrines and practices of a dead orthodoxy which bears no fruit.