quaintances, and tens of thousands had been. Judgment and eternity were beyond the grave, and was I prepared for them? No; I had not religion, and this I must have or be eternally miserable. I understood by religion, the renouncing of gay amusements, a solemn gravity of demeanor, the making of prayers, and joining the church.

How often have I wished that I knew just how long I should live, that I might postpone the gloomy work till the last years or even days of my life. I had the idea that a death-bed repentance would save me. But, alas! the uncertainty of the future was alarming. Still, how could I renounce the joysomeness and the frolic of my boyhood? And then my young acquaintances-must I separate myself from them, when at school? must I never visit them at their homes, lest I might not maintain the due solemnity of a religious deportment? I could not make these sacrifices. I tremblingly preferred to hazard my soul by living as I had done. I might continue to old age, and then have time enough to prepare for eternity. Or sickness might give me ample warning of the mortal event, so that I could repent and be saved. Sudden death was only one chance out of a thousand; I was willing to risk this chance, although it was with an abiding anxiety. One thing, however, I did, which I supposed might be accounted a merit, and serve, in some measure, to secure the favour of heaven. I prayed. On retiring to rest, I at first repeated the Lord's prayer. At length I used language of my own. A form was gradually arranged in my mind, from the constant recurrence of the same ideas in my devotions. And often in the day-time, when particularly affected by my meditations, I would steal away to some retirement and make my prayer to God. But the sole cause of my seeming piety, was a slavish fear, an abject shrinking spirit. I used also to read the Bible. This exercise I supposed to have some virtue and saving efficacy in it. I resolved to read the large volume through, from the first word to the last; and this I accomplished. How many times have I re-perused chapters of hard names, and to me unintelligible matter, from not being absolutely certain whether I had read them before in my course. When my task was completed, scarcely a deeper impression remained, in respect to very much of the sacred volume, than if I had turned over the leaves with my eyes shut.

There was at one time an unusual religious excitement in the town where I lived. Conferences were held, and some individuals who had hitherto been of dubious reputation, were convinced of their evil ways, and became pious and prayerful. These regenerate ones exhorted their fellow mortals to a like repentance. I attended some of these meetings. And when I beheld the once free-thinking and profane scoffer earnestly exhorting, and quoting Scripture with surprising fluency, and this, with a look and tone which made my blood run cold; when I also beheld the tearful eyes, and woeful countenances, and heard the heavy sighs of many of the audience, my heart throbbed strangely, and my eyes filled, and I felt, as I thought, symptoms of that conversion, of which I had heard so much said. But the work with me ended in these slight symptoms, and it went not much farther with most others. Our prudent pastor was averse to these extraordinary excitements. He attended conferences, because some of his people would have them, and he must watch his startled flock, lest they should scatter to the sectarian folds in the vicinity. He explained the perplexing Scripture, and spoke forth the words of truth and soberness, in his mild, persuasive tones. The good man had the religion of Jesus sincerely at heart, but in imitation of the Apostle he would show his people a more excellent way. He inculcated that charity without which all pretended gifts of the spirit are nothing. Thus the revival, as it was beginning to be called, soon died away; and I escaped a conversion, and a zeal without knowledge, which, perhaps, would have effectually hindered my mind from that calm and simple and beautiful Christianity, in which I now have faith, hope, charity, and joy.

I have reflected much on the feelings I entertained at this time, and on the causes which led to them. I have watched the operation of other minds, when under religious excitement. From these reflections and observations, I think that I pretty well understand the nature of revivals. A digression on the subject may not be found useless, at least to those who are just beginning to judge for themselves, what is right. The majority of those educated in the Christian faith, have received impressions respecting God and religion, similar to those of my early years. They have read in the Scriptures before they were able to interpret them aright. They have read of the awful

power and the burning vengeance of God. They have dwelt upon the dreadful scenes in the Revelation, have trembled at the final judgments from the great book of account. Their religious reading and instruction, in general, are such as to fasten in their minds the most terrific images. In short, they possess in a greater or less degree, associations similar to those which darkened my own mind, as has been related. These associations arise in the mind whenever God or religion is thought on, and cast a shadow and a chill over the spirits.

Now, the secret of the revival I conceive to be this. These associations or remembrances are powerfully excited, are brought before the mind's eye with a renewed and startling vividness. A preacher addresses an audience on the subject of religion. He pourtrays their sinfulness in the darkest colours, and the consequent wrath of an offended God. The torments of hell are set forth, the danger of delay is urged, and all in that peculiarly dolourous tone which has become an established characteristic of religious fanaticism and superstitious fear. No sooner are these topics thus touched upon, than a host of awful images start up in the minds of the hearers. The preacher generally presents them directly himself. To their kindled imaginations, the last trump now sounds, the end of the world is come, the dead are raised and assembled before the terrible glory of the Infinitely Just. The guilty are condemned, and cast into the burning lake. But I need not further describe; the reader has only to consult his own memory, or cast his eye upon hundreds of religious publications within his reach, and he will have the picture, as true and as terrible as I can make it.

At these conceptions, the audience are stricken with dismay. They have not reasoned much on religious subjects, and all this material imagery, this figurative representation of the Deity and his judgments, has the same effect as if it were literally true. Perhaps the subject may be illustrated by something of a similar nature. Many persons have their memories stocked with frightful stories about ghosts and other strange sights. Now let these be repeated at night, and how will they close round the fireside, and cast fearful glances behind. In this state, it requires but some little uncommon sound to produce pale consternation. Even the intelligent and the philosophic experience something like the same effect, in reading tales

of horror. It is imagination that produces the terror. presents the images of the objects described, to view. The ghost or the assassin seems to be lurking in the very vicinity of the hearers or readers; and they almost expect to see strange shapes on looking round. Just so it is with the subjects of revivals.

Imagination presents the images of the things described, with a distinctness almost like that with which realities stand before the material eye. The omniscient Judge seems present, on the throne of his glory, pronouncing the irrevocable doom; and the terrific agents and instruments of his will, seem to appear also, ready to execute the endless tortures that may be adjudged. These ideal forms, when once conjured up from the repose of memory, are, in the time of the excitement, abidingly present to the mental sight. They are still more horrible in sleep; for now, reason has no control. What the wretched beings simply feared, when awake, they seem actually to experience in their dreams. The visions of the night are as new warnings, and create a tenfold alarm. Oh, what if my dream should be fulfilled, is the agonizing thought. A gentleman once told me, that after having attended a fanatical meeting, he dreamed that he was writhing in the flames of hell, and his own loud, piercing shrieks awaked him from his seemingly real torments.

Besides these figurative representations appearing as real, another powerful aid to revivals, is that sympathy which always prevails in a community, during any unusual excitement of feeling. On the subject of religion, there are many peculiar circumstances, which give to this sympathy an almost resistless influence. All classes of society have an interest in the solemn concern. Differences in rank and age and sex, so important in time, are forgotten in view of those spiritual distinctions, which shall separate one from another, in eternity. Accordingly, when the great body of minds are all furnished with the predisposing notions, sympathy runs, like the electric fluid, through all of one common nature. Hundreds are often closely crowded into one apartment. Each one not only sees, but often feels the tremblings of his neighbours, in contact. Then there is the sigh, and the tear, and perhaps the groan. Each one perceives, in some at least, the moving tokens of the same feelings with which he is beginning to be affected. Thus sympathy, as it were, passes and repasses

from one to another, like an invisible spirit, of restless agency, in the wonderful excitement.

Were I not afraid of digressing too long from my own private experience, which I have set out to relate, I might go on to speak of those principles in human nature, by which a hope is obtained, and rapture rises out of despair. And how the convert, thenceforth, either goes on his pious, peaceful way, rejoicing, or in a little while becomes more desperately wicked than before. But I must pass these things by, for a few more important considerations, and then return to myself.

It is said that the most hardened and godless sinners are smitten, and become as new creatures. No doubt that many times this is the case. These persons have the same associations with all others. They are excited in the same manner, and with double effect, as they feel themselves to be more wicked, and in more danger than others. They feel that if these things are so, for them indeed it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. And what if they should be snatched immediately to judgment by sudden death! They are wrought up by imagination and sympathy, to the highest possible pitch of terrific excitement. Under these strong impulses, they break the chain of evil habit, and are reformed, to the astonishment of all. But the causes of the change are perfectly natural, as I trust has been made clear.

Almost all the inhabitants of Christian lands have their minds filled with the images and the associations of which I have spoken. But very few of these reason much on religious opinions. The majority receive the figurative representations of Scripture as the literal truth. No wonder that revival preachers produce such tremendous results, with all the poetical machinery of the Scriptures, of religious hymns, of creeds and catechisms, of Milton's Paradise Lost, and of their own invention besides, to wield in their cause. The same preaching would be in vain among the heathen.

As a proof that revivals are produced in the way I have mentioned, I ask the reader to look at the Hindoos of the present time. How little effect has the preaching of Missionaries, on their minds. They have preached for years concerning this awful God, and his infinite punishments of the unbelieving and the wicked, to very small