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MISCELLANIES BY DR CHEEVER.

to let him know what kind entertainment his prayer had, and that he was a man greatly beloved of God.-(Dan. ix. 23.) So in temporal mercies, haply thou art pleading with God for deliverance out of this trouble and that affliction, and it is denied thee, but a message with the denial that doubly recompenseth it: may be some sweet declaration of his love he drops into thy bosom, or assurance of seasonable succours, that shall be sent in to enable thee to charge through them with faith and victory. So God dealt with Paul: "My grace is sufficient for thee." I hope now thou wilt not say thy prayer is lost. When Saul sought his father's asses, was he not shrewdly hurt to find a kingdom instead of them? The holy women that went to the sepulchre to anoint the body of Jesus with their spices, did not lose their labour though they found him risen. What are all the enjoyments of the world to the spiritual mercies and comfort of the promises which thou findest in thy attendance on God? Not so much as the dead body to our risen Saviour. Thou findest not some dead creature comfort, but thou meetest with embraces from a living God.

MISCELLANIES BY DR CHEEVER.

I. THE LAKE AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.

THERE was once a little stream among the mountains, so small that it was lost in the first sand-bed across which it attempted to make its way. But God designed to make of this rill a great, wide, beautiful fake, that might, if need be, remain to all time majestic and glorious. Whereupon he hedged the rill about with high restraints, and threw across it an impenetrable barrier of mountains. Thus disciplined, it grew upon itself, and rose and expanded, till in process of time it did indeed become a deep, majestic water, into which the cliffs looked down with wonder to see themselves and the heavens so perfectly reflected, crystal clear.

But now the lake grew proud, and said within itself and to itself, I am too much shut up and confined. The restraint upon me is unworthy of so great a body, unworthy of a free state. I ought to have scope to exercise my sovereign will, and be governed by it. Beside, why be shut up in this basin, when I am worthy to spread all over the world? So grand a creature as I am ought not to be restricted within such narrow limits, but to go roaming, and admired in every continent. I will be free.

Now, the silly lake did not consider for a moment, did not even once think, that that very imprisonment was the cause of all its greatness and all its beauty, and all its usefulness too; so that ten thousand acqueducts might have been carried from it, if need be, to ten thousand cities; and, indeed, a beautiful river ran from it continually. Moreover, it forgot its origin, so weak and low, forgot the time when it was like an infant in the cradle, and would have been lost in getting across the first sand-bank. It had grown up, only because God had restrained it, and now it had got so large, that it threw off all humility, all

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thoughts of subjection, and became boisterous and proud.

But "pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall," as we shall see. The lake brooded upon these wicked thoughts, till at length it lost all patience and self-control, and began to beat madly against the mountain ramparts that hemmed it in, and preserved it in power and beauty. For some time its efforts were all ineffectual; the mountains remained steady at their post, and the overhanging cliff's looked down in amazement to see the calm and beautiful lake so ruffled and distorted, lashevil will, there is always an evil way. A desire after sin ing itself into such vain fury. But when there is an within us always finds tempting occasions without us. There were certain persons envious of the great! nions; and at the same time that these evil passions beautiful lake, because it was not in their own domiand causes of ruin were working within, they laid a plan to destroy all its greatness from without. They began to undermine the mountain barrier, and succeeded in producing a great avalanche from without, so that the swelling and pressing of the lake from within began to produce some impression. At length, one dark night, when a dreadful storm was raging, the lake burst impetuously through, and thundered down into the valley, carrying terrific devastation in its course. The next morning there was nothing to be seen of it but a bed of sand where it formerly rested, and a long pathway of ruins-rocks, sand, and gravel-where it rushed away. It had gained its freedom, but it had destroyed itself; it had burst through all restraint, but in doing so it had sacrificed the cause of its beauty, its grandeur, its life. It was all gone and perished.

Now this has two applications: the first, to every one of us as individuals; and the second, to our country. Let no man think that true freedom consists in deliverance from all restraint. Let every man think, that in order to be good and great, he must be restrained and hemmed in on every side. The providence and the word of God must encircle and confine) him. If he wishes to do great good to the world, let him be assured that the lake of his good intentions must be confined by the word of God, and that if he bursts this barrier, the cataract of his benevolence will only cover the earth ten feet deep with mud and ruin, and in the end will come to nothing.

If he wishes to be very large and free, let him remember that it is nothing but the truth can make him free, and that it was a great king who said, “I will run in the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart." A large heart keeps confined within God's commandments, and that is the only way in which it can be made and kept large; and then a perennial stream of goodness runs from it. If he chafes at the barrier, let him remember that without it he would be lost in the first sandbank. If he is disposed to be proud of his greatness, let him remember that it is only God who has built him up and can keep him. And, at all hazards, let him keep within the word of God.

The second application of the bursting of the lake is to our country; our country cannot be great and happy unless in obedience to God's word. They that are our enemies, would undermine our freedom and happiness by destroying the Sabbath, and nationally casting off the authority of God's word, so that they may make a breach in the great barrier of divine truth that protects our institutions. should succeed in doing this, then it will be very easy for wicked demagogues and infidels to raise such an internal proud storm, that the mountains would give way, and our great and beautiful lake of liberty and happiness would go to destruction.

And if they

11.-HEART-LEARNING.

It is a striking idiomatic phrase of our language in the lips of children, learning by heart. "I have got it all by heart, every word of it." Things got by heart are generally lasting. But there is a great difference between getting things by heart and getting them by rote. Some things may be learned by rote, others can be learned only by heart. Too much of our learning is mere rote learning, too little of it is real heart-learning. Heart-learning is the best; heart-learning stays by us.

Heart-learning is the only true learning in the school of Christ. There is head-learning, booklearning, word-learning, chapter-and-verse learning, system-learning; but if it does not come to heartlearning, it is all useless. Heart-learning is heaven's learning. The angels know all things by heart, and he head-learning of saints on earth, in proportion as they get near to heaven, is all changed into heartlearning. Heart-learning is that celestial geometry of which the Apostle speaks, the comprehension of the breadth and length, the height and depth in the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge. Heartlearning is the book of faith's natural philosophy, whereby we can understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, and can hear their music,

"For ever singing as they shine

The hand that made us is Divine." Heart-learning is the origin of true lip-learning, for "with the heart man believeth unto righteousness," and then with the mouth confession is made unto salvation, and the conversation is with grace, seasoned with the salt of heaven. But, on the other hand, "if any man seem to be religious and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart," that man's religion is vain. He has no heart-learning.

True scriptural-learning, and true theologicallearning is heart-learning. Many things may be gotten by the head, and there are many head-theologians very subtle and speculative. But theology must be gotten by heart, or it is worthless. Headlearning may be other men's learning; heart-learning is our own. Head-learning is second-hand and imitative; heart-learning is original. Head-learning is dry study; heart-learning is experience. Head-learning is often filled up without prayer; heart-learning is gotten on one's knees, and with sighs and tears.

The lessons which are learnt by heart, without prayer, have to be unlearned, for they are mostly the lessons of our depravity. If not unlearned and repented of, they are lessons of misery. The lessons of God's grace, learned by heart, stay by us to eternity, and bless us for ever increasingly. The lessons of divine grace, once learned, are never forgotten. Happy are they in whom the lessons of the word are lessons of grace, lessons got by heart. "Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I may not sin against

thee."

III. MORAL DAGUERREOTYPES.

One is struck with amazement at the endless variety of expression fixed by the sun, and every instant there may be a new one. Now there is a moral in all this. It shows what a record there may be, when we little think of it, of what we do and what

we are.

The sun takes our likenesses by the process of the Daguerreotype. No matter what the expression may be, there it is. There is neither concealment nor flattery. The sun takes exactly what he finds. If it be beauty or deformity, a noble emotion or a vile one, it is all the same to this impartial painter. He will not heighten the one, nor diminish the other, but brings out every feature, with every touch of character. All this without our intervention, at

least without our will. There needs but to be given a face, and the sun will take it.

And what if this process were going on, invisibly to us, through some medium interfused in all nature? What if every play of emotion, every attitude, every design revealed in the countenance-every revela tion, in fine, of the character in the face and deport ment were thus unalterably taken down, to be reproduced before us? What if every image of our s-lves is kept a copy of it, for the judgment? Suppose that a man could thus have his past laid before himself in a succession of impressions from childhood' to manhood, and from manhood to old uge. Would any one find any difficulty in deciphering the whole

character from such marks?

Nay, sometimes a man would need to have only a single expression of countenance brought before him, a single attitude, in order to wake up conscience, and throw open the door to a whole gallery of evil doings and feelings in his past existence. But such a series of Daguerreotypes will doubtless be among the materials in the book of judgment at the last day; and, with more accuracy than that with which the most perfect series of maps or views present the face and scenery of a country, men will find their whole past being reproduced before them.

IV. AN EVENING'S CONVERSATION AND REFLECTION.

We were reading concerning Joseph of Arimathea, how he hewed a new sepulchre out of the rock, for himself. He little thought, when he was doing this, that he was preparing a place for the body of the Saviour. So those who are Christ's shall often have the privilege of labouring for him, even when they see no further end than their own necessities or death. As "all things shall work together for good to those who love God;" so all things they do shall work in the end for God's glory. Hewing tombs or building houses, if the heart is right, they shall de "all for Christ."

But a great many men do good without wishing it, and then they have no more concern in it than the wires of the telegraph have with their transmitted tidings. The heart must be right. Angry men, that swear at God, do not mean to glorify him; and yet God makes even the wrath of man to praise him. A great many men do some good in their lives, without knowing it, without intending it, at random and by accident; just as squirrels plant acorns for their own eating, which afterwards grow up into oaks. A great many of the oaks, which God takes to build the ships of his providence, and the highway of the gospel. are thus planted and grown by the care of human selfishness. But only good men have a heart as well as a hand, in accomplishing God's purposes. wretched thing it is for an immortal soul to be used in a great enterprise, and afterwards, by the necessity of its own selfishness, to be thrown away.

A

Again, we were reading concerning the young ma in the gospel, who came to Christ running. Mer that expect to be saved by their works, sometimes move quicker in what seems to be the right way than others, but the heart is not right. He came running though his heart was filled with this world, becaus he expected to be saved by what he had done and would do. He came running, because he intended to have the gospel and the world together. But if he had to give up the world and his great riches before beginning to come, he would have set out slowly. He would have walked first, and afterwards, ran. It would have been difficult first, but easy afterwards. Now it seemed easy first, but was difficult afterwards. He had to go back, and get through the eye of needle. But no man either can run through it, or jump through it, nor can there be a railroad through!

THE HERO OF RORA.

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it, nor indeed can any thing get through it but a bro- dwelt. With a small band of armed companions, he ken heart, and that goes through by faith.

THE HERO OF RORA.

A TRUE TALE OF THE VAUDOJS.
BY PROFESSOR ALDEN.

THE twenty-fourth of April 1655, was appointed
as the day for executing, in the valley of Lucerne,
the cruel orders of the council for the propagation
of the faith and the extirpation of heretics. This
council had its seat at Turin, and the officer com-
manding the troops which were to execute its decrees
was the Marquis Pianezza.

By professing friendly intentions, this officer succeeded in allaying the suspicions of the Lucernese, and entered their valley with an army of ten thousand men. For a time his soldiers were restrained from acts of violence, but when the twenty-fourth of April arrived, a tragedy was enacted unsurpassed in the annals of inquisitoría! cruelty. The following extract from the testimony of one who was an eyewitness, and whose credibility has been fully attested, will give some idea of the dreadful scene.

The signal having beeu giving on the eminence near La Torre, called Castelus, almost all the innocent creatures who were in the power of these cannibals had their throats cut like sheep in a slaughter-house. Children cruelly torn from their mothers' breast, were seized by the feet, and dashed or crushed against the rocks or walls.

The sick and aged, both men and women, were either burned in their houses, or literally cut in · pieces, or tied up, stripped of their clothes, like a ball, with their head between their legs, and thrown over the rocks, or rolled down the sides of the mountain. Others they empaled, and in this horrible position placed naked as crosses by the wayside; others were mutilated in various ways.

The valleys resounded with such mournful echoes of the lamentable cries of the wretched victims, and the shrieks wrung from them by their agonies, that you might have imagined that the rocks were moved with compassion, while the barbarous perpetrators of these atrocious cruelties remained absolutely insensible.

The sun went down upon that work of blood, and the silence of desolation reigned throughout Lucerne except in the small community of Rora. It consisted of twenty five families, occupying a retired mountain glen exceedingly difficult of access. It had received repeated promises of protection from its lord, Count Christophe of Lucerne, in the name of the Marquis of Pianezza. But promises made to heretics were not regarded as binding. On the day some of whose incidents have been described above, four or five hundred soldiers were ordered secretly to climb an unfrequented path which would enable them to surprise the dwellings in that lonely district. This they would have accomplished but for Joshua Janavel, a plain, God-fearing man, who had left his residence near Lucerne, and had retired with his family to Rora. He had wached the conduct of the soldiery, and had no confidence in the promises of protection made to the community in which he now

hung upon the heights, ready to give the alarm upon the approach of a foe, and to make all possible efforts to arrest his progress.

On the day above mentioned, as Janavel with six well-armed companions occupied a station upon a ledge of rocks, he saw a movement of the troops in the valley of Lucerne. He rightly judged it to be directed against the hamlet which the Marquis had repeatedly promised to protect. Onward the soldiers moved towards the concealed path which was to conduct them, as they supposed, to a scene of unresisting slaughter. Janavel was familiar with every feature of the mountains, and knew at what point the foe could be met with the best advantage. Bold by nature, and firmly relying on the protection of Heaven, he raised no note of alarm, but resolved to beat back the invaders, five hundred in number, with the six sturdy mountaineers who stood by his side. He placed them at the head of a precipitous ledge, whose narrow ascent could be climbed but by few at a time, and in situations which enabled them to fire upon the invaders with perfect security.

In silence they awaited the approach of the murderers of fathers, and mothers, and children. At the brought down its mark. Not dreaming of an enemy proper moment the word was given, and each ball ignorant of the number of their invisible opponents, near, unable to advance except in small numbers," the invaders commenced a precipitate retreat. They were followed by rapid and effective discharges of the weapons of Janavel and his associates. In their

terror and headlong haste, they pressed upon each other, trampling some to death, and causing others to fall from frightful precipices. Before they reached a place of safety, sixty of their number had perished. |

When the inhabitants of Rora learned the danger hereditary lord, and to the Marquis of Pianezza, to they had escaped, they sent a deputation to their complain of the infraction of the pledges given them. and to excuse themselves for the blood which hac been shed by their defenders. They were coolly told. that no division of the army had marched agains them; that the party routed were Piedmontes: robbers, who well deserved the chastisement he had received. They were again assured that stric orders should be given that no one should trouble them in future.

The very next day furnished another illustratio: of the Popish principle, that no faith is to be kept wit! heretics. Six hundred chosen men were ordered t take another route to Rora. They did not escape the vigilance of Janavel. At the head of twelve com panions furnished with fire-arms, and six other equipped only with slings and flints, which they wel knew how to use, he chose his position and poured on the head of the column a shower of balls and stones. Unable to reach their assailants amid the thickets and rocks where they were most skilfully posted, and each attempt to advance through the narrow defile being met with instant death, the sol diers soon sought safety in flight, with a loss of be tween fifty and sixty.

Again complaint was made to the Count of Lu

cerne,

and he had the unblushing impudence to affirm that the attack originated in a mistake, and solemnly assured his people that the like thing should not occur again. But on the following day from eight to nine hundred men were dispatched against the devoted hamlet. They succeeded in reaching it, and commenced firing the houses, and dispersed themselves for plunder. Janavel with a small band, watched their operations, and at a favourable moment made a vigorous attack upon them. They were struck with fear, and commenced a hasty retreat, leaving their booty and cattle-the principal cause of their defeat.

Pianezza now ordered a fourth attack, and, in order to secure certain and signal vengeance, he ordered all the troops in the vicinity to assemble at an appointed day. The day came. Mario, an impetuous and cruel officer, reached the rendezvous before the rest, and, desirous of reaping the glory of the expedition, he set out at once at the head of his detachment, which consisted chiefly of Irishmen. They were met by Janavel with seventeen comrades at a point of defence so well chosen, that, after an obstinate conflict, they were obliged to flee, leaving sixtyfive dead upon the spot. When they had reached, as they supposed, a place of security, and paused to take breath, Janavel suddenly fell upon them from another quarter, and completed their rout. In the narrow pass by the stream Lucerne they pressed on one another, and fell from rock to rock into its waves. Among those who thus perished was Mario himself. Soon after this combat, as Janavel and his troop were seated on a height, they saw a small body of soldiers approaching from another quarter. They immediately placed themselves in an advantageous position. The approaching soldiers mistook them for Papist peasants belonging to the expedition, and pressed forward. Many thus came within reach of the death-shot. Those who escaped, fled to the main body, to which they communicated their terror. All oined in flight without taking time to notice the number of their pursuers.

Three days after, the Marquis of Pianezza summoned the people of Rora to attend mass within twenty-four hours. "We prefer death to the mass," was their reply. The marquis then assembled an army of about ten thousand uen to reduce a community of twenty-five families! He divided his army into three bodies, and ordered them to approach Rora in three directions. One of these divisions was arrested in its progress by Janavel and his devoted troops, while the other two reached the devoted hamlet, and inflicted upon the inhabitants all the cruelties above noticed as inflicted upon the inhabiters of the valley of Lucerne. One hundred and twenty-six persons met with an agonizing death. The wife and three daughters of Janavel were reserved for prison. Every dwelling was destroyed, and every thing valuable carried off by the conquerors.

Janavel, with his heroic companions in arms, effected their escape. Pianezza wrote to him offering him his life, and that of his wife and daughters, on condition of renouncing his heresy and becoming

reconciled to the Church of Rome. In case he refused, he threatened him with the loss of his head, and with the death of his family at the stake. The hero of Rora replied, "That there were no torments so cruel, no death so barbarous, which he could not prefer to abjuration; that if the marquis made his wife and daughters pass throngh the fire, the flames could only consume their poor bodies; that as for their souls, he commended them to God, trusting them in his hands equally with his own, in case it were his pleasure that he should fall into the hands of the executioners."

Those who had escaped from Rora, and other places destroyed by the persecutors, joined themselves together, and with a few brethren from the other valleys, formed a little army, and from time to time rushed down from their mountain fastnesses upon detached bodies of their foes. Several battles were thus fought by the Vaudois, and considerable success obtained under the conduct of Janavel and a valiant comrade named Jayer. On one occasion, Janavel occupied the heights of Angrogna with three hundred men. He was there attacked by three thousand of the enemy. He repulsed all their attempts, and compelled them to retire with the loss of five hundred men. Just as they were retiring, Jayer drew near with his troops. The Vaudois then rushed down to the plain and fell on their retreating foe. In the midst of the fierce conflict which ensued, a ball passed through the breast of the heroic Janavel. He sent for Jayer, who succeeded him in the com mand, gave him some advice, and was carried from the battle-field. Before he recovered from his wound, an end was put to the military operations of the Vaudois by a truce, and afterwards by a treaty brought about by the interference of Protestant powers.

"REVIVAL MEETINGS."

BY THE REV. J. A. JAMES, BIRMINGHAM,* THIS is a most difficult practical subject, and requires the greatest caution in treating it. A prejudice, founded partly on observation, and partly upon report, but rarely upon experience, against any efforts beyond the ordinary course of ministerial and pastoral labour, exists in many minds; and, if some instances of revival efforts were made the example or the standard of what is here meant by special services, they are to be dreaded and deprecated by every lover of sobriety of mind, and every friend to the credit of our holy religion. Scenes more resembling Bedlam than the solemnities of the house of God, have been set forth under the name of "revival meetings," to the disgust of the wise, the grief of the good, and the scandal of the bad. Nor is it any justification of such frantic orgies to allege that souls have been converted. Very likely. But how many have imbibed invincible prejudice against all religion, how many more, after the excitement has passed off, have become increasingly hardened, and how many have received a distaste for the ordinary and more sober ministrations of the gospel. There is, no doubt, a power in the eternal truths of the Word of God, that will exert itself, under God's Spirit, in defiance of all the revolting and inharmo nious adjuncts with which they may be sometimes associated. It is not, perhaps, to be questioned that From his last work, "The Church in Earnest."

"REVIVAL MEETINGS."

if some of the monstrosities of the Church of Rome, such, for instance, as dramatic exhibitions of the Saviour's passions, were united by some popular and energetic preacher of the gospel with a vivid appeal to the conscience, in the statement of evangelical truths, souls might be converted from the error of their ways; but would this authorise and justify us in representing the scenes of Calvary upon a stage? We eschew then, at once and for ever, all attempts at revival which offend against the majesty and sobriety of divine truth,--which violate the proprieties of public worship-produce an excitement of the passions that amounts to a kind of mental intoxication and render tame, tasteless, and insipid, the ordinary ministrations of the sanctuary.

But is there no middle course between wild extravagance and dull formality? Between the performances of the actor, and the somnolence of the sluggard? Shall no stimulating treatment be adopted by a judicious phyician with a collapsed patient, because some ignorant quacks have carried it so far as to bring on epilepsy or madness? I know it is the opinion of many, that all attempts to keep up, or to increase, the spirit of vital godliness in the Church, and to multiply conversions by special services, tend to relax, on the part of both ministers and their flocks, their diligence in the use of such as are stated; and to teach them to rely on occasional and spasmodic exertions, rather than on such as are habitual. Our object, they say, should be to produce a constant and well-sustained earnestness, rather than a fitful and transient one; just as in regard to our bodies our aim is habitually to keep up robust health rather than to neglect it, and trust to occasional and extraordinary means for restoring it. This is true. But surely if in the latter case it be well to resort to special means of cure when the health is impaired, and the strength is reduced, and in the best constitutions this will sometimes take place, it must be equally proper, so far the analogy holds good, to follow this rule in reference to religion. In the best and the most watchful Christians, piety, alas! will occasionally decline; first love will abate; and vital godliness be among the things that remain, and that are ready to die." Who does not feel this, and lament it too? Have not all, in whose soul is the life of God, and who are anxious to maintain that life in vigour, found it necessary occasionally to observe special seasons of examination, humiliation, and prayer? Is there a volume of religious biography of any eminently good man extant, that does not give us an account of his days of fasting and devotion, which he observed to obtain a revival of religion in his soul? Is there a Christian in real earnestness for salvation, one of more than usual piety, that does not feel it necessary to add an occasional season of devotion to his accustomed duties, in order to recover lost ground, and to advance in the divine life? And does this practice take him off from his usual and regular duties of meditation and prayer? On the contrary, does it not rather lead him to supply defects, to correct negligences, and to pursue his course with fresh vigour and alacrity. Surely, if this be the case with the individual Christian, the same thing may be affirmed of a Christian Church.

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By special services are not meant fixed periodical ones, such as yearly fasts, or a regular annual repetition of continuous preachings; for such cease to be special, and become a part of the ordinary means, and are themselves liable to sink into the same dulness of routine, and deadness of formalism, as the more frequent and ordinary means.

What is meant by special services are some such exercises as the following. An occasional day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, by a religious denomi

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nation, to which all the churches shall be invited bv the committees that manage their affairs, or which shall be determined upon by the churches themselves at their general gathering.

An occasional meeting for solemn prayer by the directors of our public institutions, when all business shall be excluded, and nothing else done but invoking the blessing of God upon their plans, their counsels, and their objects; and thus a devotional spirit be infused into all their operations. It is true they gene. rally commence every meeting with prayer, but who has not felt how perfunctorily this is often done?

How much would it tend to keep up a right feeling and a fervent spirit in the ministry, if the pastors within a district of twenty or thirty miles diameter, were occasionally to meet and spend a couple of days together in solemn prayer, unrestrained conference, and mutual exhortation? What solemn discoursewhat deep utterances of the heart-what intercommunion of soul-might not then take place! As it now is, we meet only for business, business, business, till we return to our homes, revived a little, perhaps, in body, for the journey, but not one whit better, sometimes even worse, in our spiritual state.

Single churches could by voluntary resolution of their own, determine to keep occasionally a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer. In the olden times of our forefathers, this was by no means uncommon ; but alas, in our busy day we find little time, and have less inclination, for such exercises. True, it might be difficult to command a week-day for such a purpose: what hinders, then, that a Sabbath should not sometimes be thus appropriated, and the services of that day all be made to bear on the object?

Where whole churches do not set apart such seasons, why may not a few of the members, who are likeminded in their devotional habits, in their yearnings after a higher tone of spiritual feeling, and their longing for the outpouring of the Spirit, agree to gether to meet at particular times for special prayer? How blessed an invitation is it to issue from some spiritually-minded Christian to his fellows, “Come let us set apart a season of special prayer for a revival of true piety in our church, in the denomination, and the whole Church of God.”

But there is another kind of special services which, for the purpose of conversion, might be resorted to with great advantage, if conducted with propriety: I mean, continuous preaching, carried on for several successive days, and accompanied by earnest prayer on the part of the members of the Church. As already intimated, this plan has been lamentably abused, not only by certain men called "revivalist preachers," whose outrageous rant, "pious frauds," and solemn trickery, have done so much mischief, and have furnished the lukewarm with an apology for formalism; but by others, who have made such services a mere pretence to call attention to a partially deserted place, or to puff an unknown minister into notice, till one almost loathes the very name of "revival meetings." But how different from all this "bellows' blowing," as Mr Jay called it, are the sober and solemn services which have been, and still are, carried on by some ministers, to call by special efforts the attention of the careless to the awful verities of eternal truth. When a minister perceives that little good seems to result from his preaching, that souls are not converted, and that professors are lukewarm and worldly, is there any thing contrary to sobriety, to reason, to revelation, to the laws of propriety, or to the mental economy of man, in determining by a continuous series of services, sustained through the evenings of a whole week, to keep religion before the minds of the people, and rouse their slumbering attention to its high import? Is not this per

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