a more comforting or strengthening time. This pray. ing and praising aloud is a common thing throughout Virginia and Maryland. What shall we say? Souls are awakened and converted by multitudes; and the work is surely a genuine work, if there be a genuine work of God upon earth. Whether there be wildfire in it or not, I do most ardently wish that there was such a work at this present time in England." At Baltimore, after the evening service was concluded, "the congregation began to pray and praise aloud, and continued so to do till two o'clock in the morning. Out of a congregation of two thousand people, two or three hundred were engaged at the same time in praising God, praying for the conviction and conversion of sinners, or exhorting those around them with the utmost vehemence; and hundreds more were engaged in wrestling prayer, either for their own conversion, or sanctification. The first noise of the people soon brought a multitude to see what was going on. One of our elders was the means that night of the conversion of seven poor penitents within his little circle in less than fifteen minutes. Such was the zeal of many, that a tolerable company attended the preaching at five the next morning, notwithstanding the late hour at which they parted." The next evening the same uproar was renewed, and the maddened congregation continued in their excesses as long and as loud as before. The practice became common in Baltimore, though that city had been one of the calmest and most critical' upon the continent. "Many of our elders," says Coke, "who were the softest, most connected, and most sedate of our preachers, have entered with all their hearts into this work. And gracious and wonderful has been the change, our greatest enemies themselves being the judges, that has been wrought on multitudes, on whom the work began at those wonderful seasons."

Plainly as it had been shown among the Methodists themselves, that emotions of this kind were like a fire of straw, soon kindled and soon spent, the disposition, whenever it manifested itself, was encouraged rather than checked; so strong is the tenden

cy toward enthusiasm. But if Dr. Coke, with the advantages of education, rank in life, and of the lesSous which he derived from Mr. Wesley, when age and long experience had cooled him, could be so led away by sympathy as to give his sanction to these proceedings, it might be expected that preachers, who had grown up in a state of semi-civilization, and were in the first effervescence of their devotional feelings, would go beyond all bounds in their zeal.— They used their utmost endeavours (as had been advised in the third Conference) "to throw men into convictions, into strong sorrow, and fear,-to make them inconsolable, refusing to be comforted;" believing that the stronger was the conviction, the speedier was the deliverance. "The darkest time in the night," said one," is just before the dawning of the day; so it is with a soul groaning for redemption" They used, therefore, to address the unawakened in the most alarming strain, teaching them that "God out of Christ is a consuming fire!" and to address the most enthusiastic language to those who were in what they called a seeking state, in order to keep them "on the full stretch for sanctification"Benjamin Abbott not only threw his hearers into fits, but often fainted himself through the vehemence of his own prayers and preachments. He relates such exploits with great satisfaction,-how one person could neither eat nor drink for three days after one of his drastic sermons; and how another was, for the same length of time, totally deprived of the use of her limbs. A youth who was standing on the hearth beside a blazing fire, in the room where Abbott was holding forth, overcome by the contagious emotion which was excited, tottered and fell into the flames. He was instantly rescued, "providentially," says the preacher," or he would have been beyond the reach of mercy his body would have been burned to death, and what would have become of his soul!"When they preached within the house, and with closed doors, the contaminated air may have contributed to these deleterious effects; for he himself notices one instance, where, from the exceeding close

ness of the room, and the number of persons crowded together there, the candles gradually went out.But the maddening spirit of the man excited his hearers almost to frenzy.

One day this itinerant went to a funeral, where many hundreds were collected. "The minister," he says, "being of the Church form, went through the ceremonies, and then preached a short, easy, smooth, soft sermon, which amounted to almost nothing. By this time a gust was rising, and the firmament was covered with blackness. Two clouds appeared to come from different quarters, and to meet over the house, which caused the people to crowd into the house, up stairs and down, to screen themselves from the storm. When the minister had done, he asked me if I would say something to the people. I arose, and with some difficulty got on one of the benches, the house was so greatly crowded; and almost as soon as I began, the Lord out of heaven began also. The tremendous claps of thunder exceeded any thing I ever had heard, and the streams of lightning flashed through the house in a most awful manner. It shook the very foundation of the house the windows shook with the violence thereof. I lost no time, but set before them the awful coming of Christ in all his splendour, with all the armies of heaven, to judge the world and to take vengeance on the ungodly. It may be, cried I, that he will descend in the next clap of thunder! The people screamed, screeched, and fell, all through the house. The lightning, thunder, and rain, continued for about the space of one hour in the most awful manner ever known in that country; during which time I continued to set before them the coming of Christ to judge the world, warning and inviting sinners to flee to Christ." He declares that, fourteen years afterwards, when he rode that circuit, he conversed with twelve living witnesses, who told him they were all converted at that sermon.

One day, when Abbott was exhorting a class to sanctification, and a young Quakeress was "screaming and screeching and crying for purity of heart,”

her father, hearing her outcries, came into the room, and with a mild reproof to this director of consciences, reminded him that the Lord is not in the earthquake, nor in the whirlwind, but in the still small voice. The passionate enthusiast readily replied, "Do you know what the earthquake means? It is the mighty thunder of God's voice from Mount Sinai; it is the divine law to drive us to Christ. And the whirlwind is the power of conviction, like the rushing of a mighty wind, tearing away every false hope, and stripping us of every plea, but-Give me Christ, or else I die!" On another occasion, when a young Quakeress was present at a meeting, and retained a proper command of herself while others were fainting and falling round about her, Abbott regarding this as a proof of insensibility to the state of her own soul, looked her full in the face, and began to pray for her as an infidel, and called upon all his hearers to do the same. The young woman was abashed, and retired; but as she made her way slowly through the crowded room, "I cried to God," says the fiery fanatic, "to pursue her by the energy of his Spirit through the streets; to pursue her in the parlour, in the kitchen, and in the garden; to pursue her in the silent watches of the night, and to show her the state of the damned in hell; to give her no rest day nor night, until she found rest in the wounds of a blessed Redeemer." He relates this himself, and adds, that in consequence of this appeal she soon afterwards joined the Methodists, in opposition to the will of her parents.

"Oh," said Wesley, in one of his sermons, "the depth both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! causing a total disregard of all religion to pave the way for the revival of the only religion which was worthy of God! The total indifference of the government in North America whether there be any religion or none, leaves room for the propagation of the true scriptural religion, without the least let or hindrance." He overlooked another consequence, which the extravagance of his own preachers might have taught him. Wherever

the prime duty of providing religious instruction for the people is neglected, the greater part become altogether careless of their eternal interests, and the rest are ready to imbibe the rankest fanaticism, or embrace any superstition that may be promulgated among them. A field is open for impostors as well as fanatics; some are duped and plundered, and others are driven mad. Benjamin Abbott seems to have been a sincere and well-meaning enthusiast, upon the very verge of madness himself. From the preaching of such men an increase of insanity might well be expected and accordingly it is asserted, that a fourth part of the cases of this malady in Philadelphia arise from enthusiastic devotion, and that this and the abuse of ardent spirits are principal causes of the same disease in Virginia. But the fermentation of Methodism will cease in America, as it has ceased in England; and even during its effervescence, the good which it produces is greater than the evil. For though there must be many such fierce fanatics as Abbott, there will be others of a gentler nature: as the general state of the country may improve, the preacher will partake of the improvement; and, meantime, they contribute to that improvement in no slight degree, by correcting the brutal vices, and keeping up a sense of religion in regions where it might otherwise be extinct. At their first general conference, the American preachers made a rule respecting spiritous liquors, the common use of which has greatly tended to brutalize the people in that country. They decreed, that if any thing disorderly happened under the roof of a member, who either sold ardent spirits, or gave them to his guests, "the preacher who had the oversight of the circuit should proceed against him, as in the case of other immoralities," and he should be censured, suspended, or excluded, according to the circumstances. The zeal with which they made war against the pomps and vanities of society was less usefully directed. "Such days and nights as those were!" says one of the early preachers. "The fine, the gay, threw off their ruffles, their