tute another needle than that of the truth as it is in Jesus.

A time of revival is necessarily to some extent, a time of excitement. But excitement is of two kinds. One is that of the soul rezeiving nourishment from the meat of the word, which quickens its affections, strengthens its desires after holiness, and promotes a healthy state of spiritual life. This is the genuine excitement of a revival of religion. But there is another resembling it very deceitfully in colour and temporary sensation, but differing ftom it very widely in permanent consequences. It is the fever of the mind, to which human nature is exceedingly prone. Some of it is probably unavoidable in revivals, because revivals have to do with a diseased nature; as powerful medicines, while working together for the good of the body, produce a feverish excitement, not by their own fault, but the morbid condition of the patient. But how unwisely would a physician act, should he mistake the hectic of the fever for the glow of health, and endeavour to increase it because accompanied with warmth and apparent strength! Delirium and prostration would ensue. This is precisely the mistake not unfrequently made by friends of revivals. It is extremely dangerous. They mistake disease for health. They seek excitement. It is well. The dead heart must be excited. But let them be cautious. There is an excitement which, like that of electricity upon a corpse, will open the eyes, but they will not see; stir the heart, but it will not love; throw the whole body into violent action, only to remain when the machinery is withdrawn, a more melancholy spectacle of death than before. Excitement that does not proceed from the influence of truth on the heart, and lead towards the obeience of truth in the life, is the ver of a diseased soul, and not

the evidence of increasing life. To stimulate this is as much to hinder grace, as if you should attempt to make a dying man well, by filling him with alcohol. The fever may look and act exceedingly like healthy religion-but it will either mount at last to wild derangement, or pass off and leave the subjects more perfectly prostrate and helpless than ever. I conceive that clear conceptions of the nature and genuine means of real, spiritual excitement, as distinguished from every counterfeit, are much needed, in order that revivals may be protected against the weakness of the flesh, and the forgeries of Satan.

Now let me again suppose a revival in progress. In consequence of the ignorance, inexperience, sinfulness, indiscretion of the promiscuous mass of minds and hearts concerned in it, we must expect more or less of diseased excitement, though the work be full of holy fruits. The labour of the minister is to protect the good work, as much as possible, from abuses to which it is liable from this cause. Let me therefore suggest, that a season of revival is one in which special care should be had in the regular keeping up of all the rules of the church. Old modes of doing things are apt to seem worn out, and decrepid, and dry, to minds under new excitement. A sudden flood in the river not unfrequently opens new channels, but never without desolation. Let the springs of the river of life be revived and swollen with the rains of heaven; but that the streams thereof may make glad the city of God, let them be kept within the banks which the ordinances of the gospel have established, and the wisdom of all ages has been content with. Let the novelty consist in newness of life, in an unwonted spirit of prayer, and faith, and love, rather than in new devices and novel modes.

How far should meetings be multiplied during a revival?—This question must be answered according to circumstances, but requires much wisdom. The appetite of excitement is for meetings. The tendency of an animated minister is to feed it with meetings. How far may he go? Not beyond his own strength in their vigilant superintendence. He must have meetings enough to be able to meet and feed the people with as much bread as they can profitably receive; but the dangers to be guarded against are in the idea that the love of meetings is religion; that the chief element and nutriment of religion in the heart is the influence of meetings; that the frequent renewal of their excitements may be substituted for habitual watchfulness and diligence; that secret devotion and the study of the word are of comparatively little importance; that when circumstances require an abridgment of the number of the meetings, the revival is done, a season of coldness must ensue, and the people may be content to wait in sloth and exhaustion, till the next season of the outpouring of the Spirit. Whoever has seen much of man and of revivals, must know, that on these points, much wisdom and much firmness are required.

Who shall officiate in the meetings?-Some seem to imagine that any body with a warm heart will do to speak and pray in public, during a season of revival. On the contrary, it is just the time when the work of exhortation and leading in meetings for prayer should be confined to the steadiest heads. A raw hand may steer the ship with a gentle, fair breeze, in open sea; but when the wind is high, and the channel narrow, and false lights abound, and new lights are ever appearing, let experience alone be entrusted with the helm. Many of the abuses of revivals have arisen from a multiplication of meet

ings beyond the ability of the minister and his most experienced assistants to superintend them; so as to call up persons having more zeal than knowledge to the lead, sometimes to the misguiding of the young, and the indiscreet offending of many.

How should inquirers be treated? With light as well as heat; with instruction as to the way; its cost; its temptations, &c., as well as exhortation to walk therein. Bunyan put the wicket gate too far off, and made a Slough of Despond too directly in the road. Many do worse, saying nothing of any dif ficulties to be avoided, and leaving out the entire dependance of the sinner on the Spirit of God to be able to reach the straight gate.

Let care be used as to who shall be put to the work of conversing with inquirers. Every Christian is not fit for this work in a time of excitement. Especially new converts are not fit. They have not learned sufficiently to separate the wheat from the chaff. They often confound feelings with affections; fears with desires; and require an experience like their own, rather than like the rule of the word. They are apt to (6 compare themselves among themselves," and encourage too soon, or expect too much; so that sometimes they break the bruised reed and quench the smoking flax.

Inquiry meetings have, I believe, been much perverted from their original object. The great use of an inquiry meeting is to enable the minister to converse with those whom it would be better to see more privately, but who are too numerous to allow his seeing all of them often enough at their separate houses. It should be strictly an opportunity for him to inquire of them, and they of him. But this important object is often nullified, and the meeting rendered an entire misnomer, in consequence of numbers. It is so large that to make

any real inquiry into each case is impossible, unless many agents are employed, and then a painful and deleterious publicity is given to the inquiry and the answer. An inquiry meeting should be a retired meeting, involving as little exposure to others besides the conductor, and as little profession of religion as the object may allow; if the number desiring to attend be greater than can be profitably and individually conversed with, there should be more meetings than one. The object should be to get as much as possible of the individuality of a quiet conference from house to house, and yet effect an important saving of time and strength. I much fear that instead of this, there have been meetings under this name, in which inquiry was a very secondary matter on the part of the conductors, and the fanning of excitement and the inducing of those who felt a little, to commit themselves, in other words, to make some profession, were the engrossing objects.

I have dreaded much from perceiving an inordinate disposition in some friends of revivals to get inquirers to "entertain a hope," as if hope were always the offspring of a living faith. New minds very naturally acquire the idea that if they can only get comfort, they shall do well. They thirst for hope more than holiness. The work seems done when consolation begins. By and by when tribulation ariseth, they are offended. The phraseology of revivals needs reform. The tendency of much of it at present is to set the sinner to seeking hope and joy rather than faith and love. Deliberation with hearts which by nature are 66 deceitful above all things," is of great moment at all times, and especially in a season when, however good the work, Satan finds so many means of producing hurry, and confusion, and presumptuous hope.

Is there not much evil to be apprehended from the plan of having a meeting restricted to those “who have obtained a hope”—another for inquirers merely, so that as soon as one of the latter expresses a hope that he has found peace, he is passed into the company of the former, and is thenceforth numbered with those who profess to be in Christ? Does not the commonest acquaintance with human nature, the well known infirmity of the infant state of a new convert, and all experience warn us, that by such measures we are tempting the weakness of incipient seriousness to seek a hope for other motives, and cherish it on other grounds, than those of the Spirit of God? The inquiry meeting is very naturally regarded as the lowest degree-the other a second and more honourable. A hope will elevate the candidate from the noviciate to the grade of the initiated. Vanity and love of distinction are not dead in the hearts of inquirers. How insidiously and easily may they animate the candidate, to think well of his evidences and blind his eyes to their suspicious aspects, that he may be said to entertain a hope, and may be introduced among those who are rejoiced over as converts rejoicing in Christ. That hope is often helped exceedingly by this address to human weakness, there is great reason to fear. But let it be considered that when an inquirer is thus passed into the company of those who profess a hope of salvation; or when he is induced to stand up in a more promiscuous assembly as having found peace through faith, it is on his part a public profession of religion; those who encourage him to do so are regarded as having set their seal to his evidences and pronounced them good. It is nothing to say that he has not yet approached the Lord's Supper. There is more than one way of making a public profession of religion. Christians

and the world consider the individual described as having openly called himself a Christian. But is it not too soon for such a profession? Has he had sufficient time; has he obtained sufficient knowledge to search and try his heart? Is not the consideration that he is regarded as having publickly professed a hope, a dangerous motive to go on in hope, without that cautious self-examination which the newness of his spiritual state demands? Is it not thus that too many, after having crossed the line of profession, and feeling themselves committed to the entertaining of hope, continue crying peace, peace, after every thing but the form of godliness, and the melancholy features of spiritual pride, has passed away? But do we not bring the cause of religion and the character of revivals into great disrepute by such measures? When a number of newly awakened persons rise up in a public assembly, or appear in a special meeting as professing a hope of being in Christ, they are noted as professors of religion by the world. We can neither correct the view taken by worldly people of this public appearance, nor find fault with it. But can it be expected that some of these, so new, so untried, will not fall back? Are we prepared to set them out before the world as converts, to whose steadfastness we challenge the attention of the ungodly? On the contrary, we expect that some, by and by, will be offended and go back, before they shall have come to a meetness for the supper of the Lord. But when this takes place, it is necessarily regarded as the backsliding, not of inquirers -not of persons merely under serious impressions; (we cannot expect the world to distinguish carefully between a profession of serious concern about religion and of religion itself) but as the backsliding of persons who have once

called themselves Christians, and on whom the judgment of experienced Christians did once set the seal of deliberate approbation. Thus "it is impossible but that of fences come." But let us take heed by whom or how they come. Some publicity to the fact that an inquirer has been enabled to hope in Christ is unavoidable; when judiciously managed, it is useful; but the individual should not be the instrument of making his spiritual state a matter of publicity, and should have his mind as free as possible from the idea that he is in any sense before the community, until he has had time to get somewhat beyond the extreme delicacy of a babe in Christ. Religion, in a sinner's heart, is like a tropical plant amidst the snows of Siberia. Great protection and tenderness, and a cautious attention to cherishing temperature, are of the last importance, till it is acclimated. It may remain, but not grow. It may shoot out a sudden growth of half formed leaves, while dying at

the root.

These remarks apply with more force to the dangerous practice, (I hope very limited in extent) of encouraging those who profess conversion, to come forward, almost immediately, to the table of the Lord. The ambition of numbering the people; the desire of an exciting spectacle may adopt this plan. Shallow views of religion and of human nature may approve of it. Satan will subscribe to its wisdom, in the signature of an angel of light. The winnowing of the last day will show that a large portion of such ingatherings were fit only to be cast into the fire, to be burned.

I have already written so much more than I anticipated, when I began, that I have no room to dwell upon two points of great interest in themselves, and rendered specially so by the present times. One is the measure of prominence

We

and work that may safely and usefully be given to new converts. The other is the necessity of seeing to them vigilantly, "reproving, rebuking, exhorting them," while as yet they are new, inexperienced, and self-ignorant. As to the first, wisdom is greatly needed. ought not to take a green sapling and set it up for a pillar in the church. The weight would bend it down and make its branches grow into the earth. We ought not to take a new recruit, untried, undisciplined, however zealous and brave, and set him to drill a company, or lead the advance, when skill and coolness, as well as enthusiasm and courage, are the order of the day. By such measures we may engender much boldness with great indiscretion, and show an undaunted front with a flank exposed to all the fiery darts of the wicked. How to give the new convert enough exercise for his own health and growth, without taking him too much from himself, and laying him too much upon his weakness, and exposing him too much to the snares of vanity, spiritual pride, and censoriousness, is a question which I hope your book will well determine.

I must now conclude. The dangers and cautions I have suggested, arise out of the power and eminent value of the spirit of genuine revivals. I owe too much of what I hope for as a Christian, and what I have been blessed with as a minister of the gospel, not to think most highly of the eminent impor⚫tance of promoting this spirit, and consequently of guarding it against all abuses. Whatever I possess of religion began in a revival. The most precious, steadfast, and vigorous fruits of my ministry have been the fruits of revivals. I believe that the spirit of revivals, in the true sense, was the simple spirit of the religion of apostolic times, and will be, more and more, the characteristic of these times, as the

day of the Lord draws near. May the Lord bless us with it more abundantly, and purely, and use your work eminently in its promo

tion.

I remain, very truly

and affectionately, yours, &c. CHARLES P. M'ILVAINE. REV. W. B. SPRAGUE, D. D.

From "The Friend."

COWPER AND HIS BROTHER.

From my first acquaintance with the writings of this amiable man, and sweet poet, I have felt an indescribable interest in all that related to him, and have gleaned up with pleasure every little scrap of his private history. It was not until recently that I was acquainted with the fact of his having written an account of the last illness of his brother, when I accidentally met with it; and the pleasure and profit with which I perused it, have induced me to hope that the republication of some parts of it may be acceptable to the readers of "The Friend." It exhibits the poet in a new sphere of action, presents his Christian principles and feelings in strong relief, evinces the fondness of his attachment for his brother, the anxious concern he felt for the welfare of his immortal part, and sheds additional lustre on his own amiable and excellent character.

But it is not in this point of view only that the narrative is valuable; it contains much religious instruction, and exhibits the emptiness and vanity of a mere profession of Christianity. His brother was a minister of the established church, and had received a liberal education. Of strict moral habits, and regular in the observance of the external duties of religion, he imagined himself, and was thought by others to be religious. He had little idea of regeneration, or of the sanctifying in