stab the fairest reputation-and there are cruel and shocking liberties taken with private feeling, from which a man with any high tone of moral delicacy, would revolt, if his moral discrimination were not whelmed in this flood of excitement.

The true conscience--and in this it differs from that of Revivals--is not an empassioned emotion, the offspring of fear, nursed by agitation, and guided by agonies and raptures. It is a sober, calm, severe, self-controlling power, the image of the tranquil and undisturbed Divinity, the development of the moral nature, unfolded by reflection, directed by wisdom, and chastened by a holy caution. It is the fearing to offend, not the fearing to suffer. It is this last feeling that awakens so much excitement; the former does not. And I am apt to think that conscience holds but an insecure position amidst the stirring of the passions. Even remorse, which is conscience putting forth its utmost power-even remorse is terribly calm.

There never was a teacher that dealt so closely with the conscience as Jesus Christ; and yet there never was a teacher so devoid of passion, so devoid, I might say, of fervor, and of all that the world calls eloquence. Now, who would not feel, that if our Saviour had adopted the Revival method of teaching, if he had labored to throw the people into a great and overwhelming agitation, if he had taught them to expect immediate and supernatural impressions from heaven, and to resolve almost the whole of religion into these impressions-who would not feel, I say, that such a course must have been unfavorable to a sober and severe, to a gentle and refined morality. He would have found enough of Jewish pride and caballistic mystery to enlist in his cause-and that, too, without passing through any great change. He would ha e found Pharisees enough to boast, and Essenes to speculate, and Scribes to expound, and Rabbis to dispute, and a populace ready enough for tumults, but he would scarcely

have found the sober and self-denying, the peaceable and patient disciples of the cross.

I fear, it must be added, that this system is not less unfriendly to intellect than it is to morality. Indeed it is quite obvious that the system is not at all designed to promote intellectual improvement, nor, in fact, to promote religious knowledge. The same set of ideas is repeated over and over, with various illustrations, for months together. The great object is not to enlarge and perfect these ideas, but to impress them. To conduct a Revival requires no range of thought; to experience it, forbids the calmness of inquiry. Men of the least talent and reflection are often the most successful in promoting them, and the most ordinary persons in these scenes, may rise to the highest consequence. The great appeal is made, not to the intellect, but to the imagination and the passions. The ordinary means of mental and social improvement are made to give way before the progress of a Revival. Those who yield to its

influence, can think of nothing else. They cannot read any thing like history, or books of general knowledge and literature; they cannot attend a course of philosophical lectures; they cannot join a Mechanic's Institution; they cannot do any thing for the improvement of the mind. Even schools are sometimes broken up, for a season, by these excitements. I was conversing lately with a very intelligent gentleman from the western part of the state of New York, who appeared to talk with the most serious apprehensions for the prospects of society in that quarter. He said that all social improvement was at an end where one of these Revivals came-that people lost their interest in all intellectual pursuits, that the courtesies of life declined apace, that the rudest liberties. were taken with private character and feeling; men had less respect for each other, and less respect, even, for the ordinary and established services of religion, and it seemed to him, that if this system should be extended and

consolidated, it would overshadow the moral and social prospects of that whole country. Indeed, if the same zeal was manifested, the same time given, the same number of evenings spent, for the acquisition of knowledge and the general improvement of society, it is easy to see, that the social and intellectual progress of the people would be altogether unexampled. As it is, I presume that no one will pretend, that there is any such progress of the public mind, during one of these seasons of excitement. In fact, the intelligence of the country generally stands aloof from it.

In estimating the effects of religious excitement, it is common, and is indeed a part of the very excitement itself, to overlook the evil that it does. The effect upon the converts themselves, questionable as it is, seems to be thought the only thing worth considering. As to those who are passed by and reprobate, they can but be destroyed; the conversion of others, cannot, it is thought, make their destruction any more sure, and