got it. He had not to take his religion on faith, and be uncertain whether he had it. He did not, like others, seek attainments so shadowy as to be hardly perceptible, but he got something which made him intensely conscious of its presence, and whose loss he tragically felt as a "fall." It was so sure that he knew the date of its arrival, and so powerful that he often shouted on receiving it. As long as he possessed it he was said to "enjoy religion." In its exercise there was a constant seeing or feeling of God - a perception of Him, and not merely a thought about Him. In trying to enter a religious life he" sought the Lord," and in succeeding he became conscious of a contract with the Deity assuring him of salvation. The hopes of other Christians were made certainties to Methodists, and they had nothing less than God's word for their assurance. The "witness" or "testimony" of the Spirit was a common experience. Methodists are descendants of Enoch, who walked with God, rather than of Abraham, who. Presbyterian-like, only had faith. They were in close intimacy, and enjoyed personal familiarity with, the Deity,communing" instead of merely praying. God talked with them as well as they with Him, and religion was mutual throughout. The religion of the Methodist was a felt relation to God, in which he was taken consciously into His purposes.

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With all this assurance men had a powerful motive to look into and test religion. There was something definite and important to attain; and the preacher, like the vender of patent medicines, asked men to come up and try it. Each was to judge for himself. Men "experienced religion," or made it a matter of personal acquaintance. The converted thousands gave their testimony; and every class-meeting and love feast was an "experience meeting." To "give your religious experience," was an expression in familiar use. Methodism was an inductive religion, established on experimental observations. Men having made the experiments, became witnesses for the result. They told "what the Lord had done for them"; and these observations and gatherings of fact were collected into an inductive theology, which is the philosophical faith of Metho

dism. The religious inquiries and tests of Methodism are all akin to those of the inductive scientist. The religious experiences of Christians in revivals and praise meetings, experiences of faith, trust, the witness of the Spirit, and the consolations of prayer, are taken as the data for a science of

religion, which Methodism embodies as a system.

But while all these peculiarities of Methodism have made it a sensational power in the past, they are not calculated to make it such for the future. They were new once, and therefore striking; and they had to exert an influence. Now they are old and men are used to them. The appliances of Methodism were an immense amount of energy to fling on the world at once. The new doctrine, new methods, and new country in which they worked, gave to the early Methodists an exceptional chance. Rarely does so much concur to make a great movement; and a great movement was the result. Some of their agencies, however, were not of permanent force. Their power consisted in their newness; and now that they are old, they are spent as a force. Powder once shot off cannot be exploded again. A cannon that scares with its first report makes less impression with a second, and soon causes no attention. The secret of a sensation's success is in its being the first; and the old appliances of Methodism are not now calculated to attract the attention they once did. Revivals are not sensational now, but have grown tame through familiarity; and the indifference reacts from the sinners on the Church itself. Few of the old scenes are re-enacted. Shouting is only a remembrance; jerks are unknown; the excitements of revivals, when they occasionally appear, do not draw, but are denounced as a warmned-over enthusiasm. The novelty of open-air preaching, so powerful in the times of Whitfield and Jesse Lee, has given way to the tame familiarity of street evangelists. The fact that Methodists have abundant good churches stamps open-air services as useless. The intense camp-meetings have given way to the respectable summer resorts. Class-meetings reveal nothing new to a people satiated with their trite utterances. Lyrics and popular mel

odies have become as common out of churches as in them, the Devil having taken back the songs which Wesley took from him. The quaint costumes and peculiar observances of early Methodists, where not discarded, are regarded as indifferent eccentricities. The power of the peculiarities of Methodism is gone, and Methodism stands to-day as an unpeculiar religion. Something new is needed,-as new as Methodism was a hundred years ago. The power of Methodism must ever be in its novelty; and when it can no longer keep new it must decline. It came to the world with something which the world had not, but wanted. It now comes with something which the world wants, but has. It therefore produces no sensation with its offers. The question accordingly now is, Can it rejuvenate its energies? Methodism was admirably organized to keep up sensations. The class-meetings were calculated to keep alive the revival fires through summer, and start them again in winter. The periodical love-feasts, and quarterly meetings helped toward the same end. The organization of Methodism was largely the organization of the revival, — an institution to perpetuate the fires of religion. Its ministers stood like vestal virgins to keep the light aglow which was to be the life of Christianity. For a hundred years official Methodism was mainly engaged in fanning a flame.

But while Methodism has been so admirably organized to keep up sensations, it should be organized to get up new ones. There is a limit beyond which old materials will not serve. The radically new must occasionally be introduced, and the questions for Methodism are, what can it discard? what repair? and what introduce? It requires almost as much heroism to discard its old machinery as it did to introduce it, to throw awa a worthless thing after it has become worthless, as to introduce a useful one before it became useful. Early Methodism was a prospect; present Methodism is a retrospect; and we want to get back more of the prospect. Methodism looking forward will always be a power; Methodism looking back will always be a weakness. Methodism should not cease its work of getting up new agencies, or startling the

world with unheard-of things. It is a religion that was meant to be kept going, and forever adjusting itself to the new world in which it is to operate. When it ceases to effect changes by changing itself into effects, and becomes a worker of the past instead of the present, we must class it among the effete. Can Methodism, like a newspaper, keep up to date, and appear now and then in a new issue?

Other churches are doing something to create sensations which are to perpetuate their life. The Episcopalians have taken largely to ritualism, and many are arrested by its appeals to the dramatic in men. Processions, variegated costumes, gongs, lively music, and other theatrical displays attract the listless by an æsthetic sensationalism. This lively acting is new to Episcopalianism; and its newness strikes the class for which it is intended. The infusion of extreme highchurch doctrines also adds to the curiousness of Episcopalianisin. A class who profess to have Christ's body present on the altar, and to effect great changes by saying words or making signs over objects, like the old witches, will always attract attention from some. In their discussions over the right use of symbols, pots and kettles, there is an endless opportunity not to agree; and the issues are so simple that every one can understand and argue them. The Roman Catholics create like sensations by going still farther and attracting men by their very irrationalism. The incredulous challenges attention, and has a certain fascination for belief when boldly persisted in. The claim of infallibity and demand for the surrender of the intellect to authority is powerful from its audacity. The doctrines of Romanism are in general a contempt for sense and reason, and if a church claimed that there was no earth. there would be men who would covet the faith to believe it. The very despair of men feeds a large religious hope, and the Catholic Church reaps a rich harvest from the startlingness of its paradoxes. Sceptics who can believe nothing in Christianity will often accept something out of it, if it can be found more incredible than what we now have. Mormonism makes a like sensation by its polygamy; and its decided newness

keeps it before the world. It is a religion about which everybody must think; and in thinking about anything some will become fascinated with it. Mormonism offers gratification,competence and power, and makes promises unknown in any other system. It comes with pretensions to a new revelation, and an ever-present Divine direction. It sets its devotees apart from the world, and has in its new Zion all the elements of a permanent sensation.

The independent churches have a like capacity for sensation in their heresies. They are the only bodies that can with safety start anything new in doctrine; and they are digging up and throwing upon the world much that is startling. Nearly all progress in theology comes from this class; and, while maintaining no great organization, they keep themselves before the world by their investigations. They are, perhaps, the most influential class in theology, modifying all the churches, and working changes beyond their limits rather than within them. Heresy is newer than the Gospel to most, and attracts attention where Orthodoxy will not. And so every other body that is making headway in religion is a getter-up of sensations, either of intelligence or ignorance, of wisdom or folly, of virtue or vice.

And so it has been in the past. Sensations have accompanied all great movements. Christianity itself was a sensation when it first struck the earth; and its newness carried it till it swept the civilized world. It had a new God, a new heaven, a new hell, a new worship, and a new social life, something new to believe and to do. It was not unlike early Methodism in the number and variety of its interest-creating agencies. The Papacy was similarly sensational when it first arose with its ambition to rule the world, and construct an empire within an empire that should outlast all governments. The elaboration of a grand ritual, and the wedding of Paganism with Christianity, became a power when the primitive religion of simplicity had ceased to attract as a novelty. Mohammedanism came with a still greater sensation, wedding the more primitive licentiousness and warfare of Asiatic barbarism with