their guilt, who arise with the same fearful apprehensions, and continue in that state for some days, perhaps weeks, before they receive comfort. I have conversed with many who fell under the influence of comfortable feelings, and the account they gave of their exercises while they lay entranced was very surprising. Their minds appeared wholly swallowed up in contemplating the perfections of God, as illustrated in the plan of salvation, and whilst they lay apparently senseless, and almost lifeless, their minds were more vigorous, and their memories more retentive and accurate than they had ever been before. I have heard men of respectability assert, that their manifestations of gospel truth were so clear, as to require some caution when they began to speak, lest they should use language which might induce their hearers to suppose they had seen those things with bodily eyes; but at the same time, they had seen no image nor sensible representation, nor indeed any thing besides the old truths contained in the Bible.

"Among those whose minds were filled with most delightful communications of divine love, I but seldom observed any thing ecstatic. Their expressions were just and rational, they conversed with calmness and composure, and on their first recovering the use of speech, they appeared like persons recovering from a violent disease which had left them on the borders of the grave. I have sometimes been present when persons who fell under the influence of convictions, obtained relief before they arose; in these cases, it was impossible not to observe how strongly the change in their minds was depicted in their countenances; instead of a face of horror and despair, they assumed one, open, luminous, serene, and expressive of all the comfortable feelings of religion. As to those who fall down under convictions and continue in that state, they are not different from those who receive convictions in other revivals, excepting that their distress is more severe. Indeed extraordinary power is the leading

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characteristic of this revival, both saints and sinners have more striking discoveries of the realities of another world, than I have ever known on any other occasion." -Quare? WESLEY.

[Lengthy Preaching and Love Feast.]

1806. "As the Caernarvon quarterly meeting was to be held in that town, and as our friends were persuaded that neither the old building we have to preach in, nor any other place that we could procure, would contain the people that would assemble on the occasion, therefore, although the season of the year was so unfavourable, it being the twenty-first of January, they built a stage for the preachers to stand on and preach in the middle of the town. When the appointed time came, all that could not be accommodated in the neighbouring windows, which it was judged were about two thousand, endured the inclemency of the weather for seven hours to hear the word of life, and that with the greatest composure of mind! Brother Parry and brother Williams, preached from ten till twelve o'clock, brother Davies and brother Jones, sen., from two till four. It was published for me and brother Jones, of Welsh Pool Circuit, to preach at six, in the preaching room; but a little before the time, our friends informed us the attempt would be dangerous in the extreme: that the place would not hold one fourth part of the people that would strive to get in: and that it would be the most prudent way to continue our meeting in the open air. As soon as we had acceded to the proposal, the stage and neighbouring windows were well illuminated, and, as if the heavens approved of the steps we were taking, the clouds withheld their showers, and the winds became so calm as not to extinguish a single light, or incommode in any respect the assembled multitude, which was greater than had been collected through the course of the day; for the country people had not returned home, and the novelty of the

thing had brought most of the inhabitants of the town together. There were twelve preachers on the stage, and about two thousand people before us! The darkness of the sky, and the stillness of the evening, the lights interspersed, together with so many faces lifted up towards us, eagerly catching the word as it dropped from our lips, made the scene truly affecting, and awfully grand; insomuch, that, to me it was one of the most pleasing sights my eyes ever beheld! Our meeting continued from six till nine o'clock, when about three hundred, from different societies, retired to our room, and held a Love Feast for about two hours."-Quære?

[Convulsive Faintings at Prayer.]

:

"WITH respect to the largeness of the assemblies, it is generally supposed that at many places there were not fewer than eight, ten or twelve thousand people :— at a place called Cane Ridge Meeting-house, many are of opinion there were at least twenty thousand; there were one hundred and forty waggons which came loaded with people, besides other wheel carriages. Some persons had come two hundred miles. The largeness of these assemblies was an inconvenience; they were so numerous to be addressed by one speaker, it therefore became necessary for several ministers to officiate at the same time at different stands : this afforded an opportunity to those who were but slightly impressed with religion, to wander to and fro between the different places of worship, which created an appearance of confusion, and gave ground to such as were unfriendly to the work to charge it with disorder. Another cause also conduced to the same effect: About this time the people began to fall down in great numbers, under serious impressions: this was a new thing among Presbyterians: it excited universal astonishment, and created a curiosity which could not be restrained when people fell even during the most solemn parts of divine service. Those who

[Sheep and Goats-What?]

THE blessed Jordan (to give him his Catholic title) who was the second general of the Dominicans, made an odd use of this often used similitude in a speech to the friars of his order: "Mihi et veris Prælatis accidit, sicut pastori, qui magis gravatur custodiâ unius hirci quam centum ovium: sic magis unus insolens gravat Prælatum et turbat conventum, quam alii Fratres ducenti, qui sicut oves Domini Pastorem sequuntur, et sibilum ejus intelligunt, nec socios relinquunt, sed simul vadunt, stant, accubant, comedunt, bibunt, capite inclinato herbas colligunt in omnibus fructuose, in paucis tædiose. Sed aliqui, ut hirci turbantes pastorem et gregem, discurrunt, perstrepunt, in socios capita impingunt, ad alta saliunt, viam non tenent, sata aliorum lædunt, nec virgâ nec pastoris clamore cohibentur, et ad ultimum, brevem caudam, id est, curtam patientiam habent, et ideo quandoque fœda sua ostendunt. Pro Deo, carissimi, fugite hujusmodi mores hircinos, et estote ut oves Dei."-Acta Sanctorum, 13th Feb., p. 733.

[Ejaculations.]

“EJACULATIONS are short prayers darted up to God on emergent occasions.-The principal use of ejaculations is against the fiery darts of the Devil. Our adversary injects (how he doth it God knows, that he doth it we know) bad motions into our hearts; and that we may be as nimble with our antidotes, as he with poisons, such short prayers are proper and necessary. In hard havens so choaked up with the envious

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of water cannot come near, lighter and lesser pennaces may freely and safely arrive. When we are time-bound, place-bound, or person-bound, so that we cannot compose ourselves to make a large solemn prayer, this is the right instant for ejaculations, whether orally uttered or only poured forth inwardly in the heart.

"Ejaculations take not up any room in the soul. They give liberty of callings, so that at the same instant one may follow his proper vocation. The husbandman may dart forth an ejaculation, and not make a balk the more. The seaman nevertheless steers his ship right in the darkest night. Yea, the soldier at the same time, may shoot out his prayer to God, and aim his pistol at his enemy, the one better hitting the mark for the other."-FULLER'S Good Thoughts.

[Support of the Clergy.]

"Ir it be allowed," says DR. WHITAKER, (of Whalley, not of Manchester) "that this mode of providing for the Christian Priesthood is, strictly speaking, of divine institution, such a concession will supersede all reasoning, even in favour of the appointment. But waving for the present a point which I mean not either to affirm or deny, I would ask, whether at the foundation of parishes, and for many centuries after, it were possible to devise a method of supporting an incumbent equally wise and proper, with that of a manse, glebe and tithes. The pastor was not to be a vagrant among his flock; an house therefore was to be provided for him. He wanted the common necessaries of life (for it was held at that time that even spiritual men must eat and drink) and money there was none to purchase them; a moderate allotment therefore of land was also required. But the growth of grain, a process which demands much care and attention, would have converted the incumbent, as it has been well and frequently urged of late, into an illite

the glebe should be restricted within such limits as would suffice for the production of milk, butter, cheese, animal food, and such other articles as require little labour, while the bread-corn and other grain of the minister should be supplied by the industry of his parishioners. And if the minister fed the people, as it was his office to do, with the bread that endureth,' there was an harmony as well as equity, in requiring that they should feed him in return with that which perisheth.' But this primitive and pleasing reciprocation of good offices too quickly ceased to be universal; and the common corruption of our nature will supersede the necessity of enquiring, whether the evil began with a subtraction of tithes or teaching. The declension would be mutual; and law, not love, would soon become the measure both of the one payment and the other."-History of Craven, p. 6.

[Disrespectful Treatment of the Clergy in England.]

"UPON the whole matter, if we consider the treatment of the clergy in these nations, since Popery was driven out, both as to the language and usage which they find from most about them; I do, from all that I have read, heard, or seen, confidently aver (and I wish I could speak it loud enough to reach all the corners and quarters of the whole world) that there is no nation or people under heaven, christian or not christian, which despise, hate, and trample upon their clergy or priesthood comparably to the English. So that (as matters have been carried) it is really no small argument of the predominance of conscience over interest, that there are yet parents who can be willing to breed up any of their sons (if hopefully endowed) to so discouraged and discouraging a profession." SOUTH'S Sermons, vol. 5, p. 420.

[Difference of Ministrations.] "THERE are others of a melancholy, reserved, and severe temper, who think much and speak little; and these are the fittest to serve the Church in the pensive, afflictive parts of religion; in the austerities of repentance and mortification, in a retirement from the world, and a settled composure of their thoughts to self-reflection and meditation. And such also are the ablest to deal with troubled and distressed consciences, to meet with their doubts, and to answer their objections, and to ransack every corner of their shifting and fallacious hearts, and in a word, to lay before them the true state of their souls, having so frequently descended into, and took a strict account of their own. And this is so great a work, that there are not many whose minds and tempers are capable of it, who yet may be serviceable enough to the Church in other things. And it is the same thoughtful and reserved temper of spirit, which must enable others to serve the Church in the hard and controversial parts of religion. Which sort of men, (though they should never rub men's itching ears from the pulpit) the Church can no more be without, than a garrison can be without soldiers, or a city without walls; or than a man can defend himself with his tongue, when his enemy comes against him with his sword. And therefore, great pity it is, that such as God has eminently and peculiarly furnished, and (as it were) cut out for this service, should be cast upon, and compelled, to the popular, speaking, noisy part of divinity; it being all one, as if, when a town is besieged, the governor of it should call off a valiant and expert soldier from the walls, to sing him a song or play him a lesson upon the violin at a banquet, and then turn him out of town, because he could not sing and play as well as he could fight. And yet as ridiculous as this is, it is but too like the irrational and absurd humour of the present age; which thinks all sense and worth confined wholly to the pulpit. And many

excellent persons, because they cannot make a noise with chapter and verse and harangue it twice a day to factitious tradesmen, and ignorant old women, are esteemed of as nothing and scarce thought worthy to eat the Church's bread."-SOUTH'S Sermons, vol. 3, p. 429.

[Christians looking to the Sun-rising.]

"THE Primitive Christians used to assemble on the steps of the Basilica of St. Peter, to see the first rays of the rising sun, and kneel, curvatis cervicibus in honorem splendidi Orbis."-S. LEO. Serm. 7. de Nativit.

The practice was prohibited as savouring of, or leading to Gentilism.-BERNINO, vol. 1, p. 45.

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[God's Witness of Himself.]

"I HAVE been ever prone to take this for a principle, and a very safe one too, viz. That there is no opinion really good (I mean good in the natural, beneficent consequences thereof) which can be false. And accordingly, when religion, even natural, tells us, that there is a God, and that he is a rewarder of every man according to his works; that he is a most wise Governor, and a most just and impartial Judge, and for that reason has appointed a future estate, wherein every man shall receive a retribution suitable to what he had done in his life time. And moreover, when the Christian religion farther assures us, that Christ has satisfied God's justice for sin, and purchased eternal redemption and salvation, for even the greatest sinners, who shall repent of, and turn from their sins; and withall, has given such excellent laws to the world, that if men perform them, they shall not fail to reap an eternal reward of happiness, as the fruit and effect of the fore-mentioned satisfaction; as on the other side, that if they live viciously, and die impenitent, they shall inevitably be disposed of into a condition of eternal and insup

portable misery. These, I say, are some of the principal things, which religion, both natural and christian, proposes to mankind. "And now, before we come to acknowledge the truth of them, let us seriously, and in good earnest examine them, and consider how good, how expedient, and how suitably to all the ends and uses of humane life it is, that there should be such things; how unable society would be to subsist without them; how the whole world would sink into another chaos and confusion, did not the awe and belief of these things (or something like them) regulate and controul the exorbitances of men's headstrong and unruly wills. Upon a thorough consideration of all which, I am confident, that there is no truly wise and thinking person, who (could he suppose that the fore-cited dictates of religion should not prove really true) would not however wish at least that they were so. For allowing (what experience too sadly demonstrates) that an universal guilt has passed upon all mankind through sin; and supposing withall that there were no hopes, or terms of pardon held forth to sinners, would not an universal despair follow an universal guilt? And would not such a despair drive the worship of God out of the world? For certain it is, that none would pray to him, serve or worship him, and much less suffer for him, who despaired to receive any good from him. And on the other side, could sinners have any solid ground to hope for pardon of sin, without an antecedent satisfaction made to the Divine Justice so infinitely wronged by sin? Or could the honour of that great Attribute be preserved without such a compensation? And yet farther, could all the wit and reason of man conceive, how such a satisfaction could be made, had not religion revealed to us a Saviour, who was both God and Man, and upon that account only fitted and enabled to make it? And after all could the benefits of this satisfaction be attainable by any, but upon the conditions of repentance, and change of life, would not all piety and

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holy living be thereby banished from the societies of men? So that we see from hence, that it is religion alone which opposes itself to all the dire consequences, and (like the angel appointed to guard Paradise with a flaming sword) stands in the breach against all that despair, violence, and impiety, which would otherwise irresistably break in upon, and infest mankind in all their concerns, civil and spiritual.

"And this one consideration (were there no farther arguments for it, either from faith or philosophy) is to me an irrefragable proof of the truth of the doctrines delivered by it. For, that a falsehood (which as such, is the defect, the reproach, and the very deformity of nature) should have such generous, such wholesome, and sovereign effects, as to keep the whole world in order, and that a lye should be the great bond or ligament which holds all the societies of mankind together; keeping them from cutting throats, and tearing one another in pieces, as (if religion be not a truth, all these salutary, publick benefits must be ascribed to tricks and lies) would be such an assertion, as, upon all the solid grounds of sense and reason, (to go no farther) ought to be looked upon as unmeasurably absurd and unnatural."-SOUTH's Sermons, vol. 4, p. 406.

[Meditation.]

"In meditation, strive rather for graces than for gifts, for affections in the way of virtue more than the overflowings of sensible devotion; and, therefore, if thou findest any thing, by which thou mayest be better, though thy spirit do not actually rejoice, or find any gust or relish in the manducation, yet choose it greedily. For although the chief end of meditation be affection, and not determinations intellectual; yet there is choice to be had of the affections; and care must be taken, that the affections be desires of virtue, or repu