Maker, and the indispensableness of a complete and immediate change of character; and when in the most impassioned language the terrors of an offended God are described, and the woes of an eternal hell denounced on those who do not awake to the call which he himself is represented as now making upon them; how easily is all the success, which is realized, explained without admitting the means to be in the least correct. When in connexion with this it is remembered, that the season of a revival is represented as one of God's special presence, and people are told that it may be long ere he appears so graciously again, and thus new motives are obtained to prompt to an immediate profession of religion, as it is called; when all these means of excitement are backed by perhaps the urgent solicitations of anxious and tender friendship; when in great measure the ordinary occupations of life are intermitted, and those to be affected are brought frequently into the closest intercommunion, so that fears shall meet fears, and doubts meet doubts, and anxiety find its correspondent anxiety; when prayer, and preaching, and exhortation, and singing, all wearing one character, all speaking one language, all addressed to one end;when all these concur, strange indeed would it be, if there were no response! Accordingly, the excitement not uncommonly becomes deep and extensive, but without hardly the slightest proof of the presence of that divine influence, which it is always confidently maintained attends to sanctify it.

I have left myself but little room to speak of one other feature belonging to revivals, from which arises another objection to them; and that is, the view which

is constantly exhibited of the Divine character and dealings. I want words to express my horror at listening to a sermon I heard during the present revival season. I doubted not the sincere piety of the preacher, but I shuddered to think that a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that message of Divine love to our race, should present such appalling views of the Being who sent it, or the nature of that gospel itself. Instead of a Father, arrayed in all the mild and endearing attributes of a parent, his ineffable majesty and glory softened by his parental love, inviting to repentance and pardon even his most rebellious children, he seemed seated on a throne of awful and despotic power-a tyrant, before whose glance human frailty must wither -surrounded by clouds and thundering tempests, and attended by the angels of destruction and vengeance, kept ready to execute in the fires and tortures of an eternal hell, the awards of his wrath! It needed no very curious eye to discern in the expression of the assembled crowd, that the clemency, the benignity, of the Divine character was forgotten, and that religion, in her very temple, was anything but a cheerful and blessed principle. The prayers, too, which were offered on the same occasion, did not sound like the expressions of a soul standing before the mercy seat of a Being, who is more ready to impart the choicest spiritual aid and blessing to all who seek, than the kindest parent on earth to give good gifts to his children. To a stranger who knew nothing of the religion of Jesus Christ, or the God who sent it, but what he could gather from such services, the last idea which could have been

presented of the one, was that it is a religion of mercy, or of the other, that he is a God of love. He might seem God the Avenger-God the Almighty-God the Supreme and Infinite Judge, of inflexible justice, indeedbut little like God the Father and friend of man. The soul of the worshipper appeared to cower beneath his frown, rather than to be lifted in humble but filial confidence in his readiness to hear, forgive, and bless.

I would not have the sinner lulled asleep in a fatal sense of security; I would not have the real and uncompromising character of God's law in the least disguised. But I would have the meetings together of our race to worship God, happy meetings. I would see the peace and joy of religious, of christian hope; the smile of devout gratitude; the calm expression of religious faith and trust, mantling the countenances of the worshippers. True, there is need of penitence; yes, and of penitent confession of sin; true, there is need at times to declare even the terrors of the Lord'; but if there be aught in the religion of Jesus Christ, which entitles it to the name of gospel or good news, I am sure it is the pardon and the hope of immortality which it brings to the contrite and penitent sinner; and I am equally sure, that the offering which is laid on God's altar, even though it be brought in penitence, should be brought also in joy.

I might, if time permitted, easily enforce other weighty objections to revivals, drawn from their natural tendency to make religion a thing of tumult and excitement; from the outrage they commit upon some of the finer sensibilities of our nature, by the sort of publicity of religious exhibition which they encourage,

nay, almost make necessary, when it seems to be a law of our constitution to bury all deep emotions in the heart, or to unfold them in the confidence of the tenderest friendship, or, in the case of religious ones, to carry them to the altar of secret prayer; from the fact that under the operation of revivals religion comes to be thought a series of passive impressions for which men are always to be waiting; from the depression and melancholy which they are apt to induce, and their tendency to abridge, if not destroy, the proper activity and freedom of man. I might speak of their unfriendly bearing upon the human intellect, narrowing the range of thought, habituating the mind to the same set of ideas repeated over and over again, and serving to check, therefore, the cause of social improvement. But I forbear. I leave it to the reader to reflect upon the terrible reaction, which not unfrequently follows a revival that attains any considerable height; the jealousies and bitter enmities, and the dull, sluggish apathy which follow; the disgust at the very sound of religion. which may have been engendered by the prevalence of excesses, hastily identified with its true manifestations; and last, not least, the sad and ominous cases of thorough relapse which occur.

In what I have now written, I have had but a single and solemn end in view. At a time, when loud boasts are made that a wonderful 'refreshing' of the churches is going on throughout large sections of our land, and the reproach is repeatedly cast upon all who do not engage in these excitements, that they are enemies of Christ, I would excite attention to their causes, their nature, and their results; I would, if possible, lead men

to see, that in all these particulars, they do not wear unequivocal proofs, that the pouring out of the Divine Spirit has anything in the least to do with them; that it is the easiest thing in the world to account for their spread and progress; and that from beginning to end, they are the result of human design, human preparation, human labor. I would have all compare them with what their study of the Scriptures and of their own minds teach them of the growth and manifestation of true religion in man, 'the life of God in the soul;' and this I would have them see, comes not in the whirlwind, nor the earthquake, but in the still small voice. And more than all, I would, if possible, urge every one to constant efforts for the promotion of that true and genuine revival of religion, which shall enter into and pass through every walk of human industry, occupation, and enjoyment; which shall make heaven begin on earth; purifying the very fountains of human action; rendering the worldly, devout; the censorious, candid; the avaricious, liberal; the rich, humble and benevolent; the poor, contented and virtuous; and all, holy; which shall spread over the face of human society harmony, and peace, and love, and waken up everywhere in all their energy and warmth the loftiest faculties of the mind, and the finest affections of the heart, that are the legitimate results of a divine and ennobling faith. For this, let us pray; for this, let us labor. But let none expect to see it coming on amid terror, and gloom, and heart-rending agony. Religion, true, deep, fervent religion, is too holy a principle to be drawn from its high and pure heaven by the earthly machinery which men of the lowest minds may easily put and keep