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them, and of themselves unable to escape it-they are as dry bones, as dead men in the valley of vision, and they are soon to awake to everlasting burnings!"..... It is thus, that receiving the figurative representations of scripture as literal, and forgetting those qualifications of its language which the reasonable interpreter must make,--he conjures up his fearful system of faith--fearful enough indeed, if it were really and universally believed, not only to plunge the world into an unheard of excitement, but to drive the whole world to absolute madness.

Such, I suppose, is the process by which the Revival commences in the mind of the Minister; and thence its progress among the people is not difficult to account for.

He first applies himself of course to the church, i. e. to the body of communicants. He appoints special meetings of this body, meetings for prayer, days of fasting, &c. He tells them that it mainly depends on them whether there shall be a Revival. He preach

es to them, often to the neglect of the congregation. In an excursion which I made last week, I spent Sunday at a small village in the interior, and attended church all day. Both sermons I observed were addressed to the church members, or at least related exclusively to their duties. I expressed my surprise to mine host at evening, and he said the same thing had been going on for several months," and you would think, said he, that the church members were the worst people among us." I asked him of how many the church might consist, thinking I might find some apology for this course in their numbers. He replied that there were less than fifty, and the congregation I perceived was large, consisting, I should say, of five or six hundred. By being thus singled out, and by the manner in which it is urged, and intreated, and warned, the church is at length aroused, and prepared to act on the body of the congregation. And when several neighboring churches are excited in this manner, the way is prepared

for a more extended system of exertions. The clergy induce the churches to appoint delegates, who, with themselves, visit the several townships in succession, hold meetings, keep fasts, and sometimes visit the people from house to house. You will easily see how much calculated this last procedure is to strike. an awe upon the people. Indeed, this system of domiciliary visitation is one of the most censurable things in the whole plan, and I shall take some other time to give you a further account of it.

To these causes which are general and may be relied on, some are to be added which are accidental. There are two or three Itinerant Preachers in this country who had a talent. and acquired a reputation for producing these excitements, and, now, from having this reputation, are almost sure to produce them wherever they go. The people among whom they come would account themselves guilty of the most awful obduracy, and ready to be forsaken of heaven, if they should refuse to be

aroused. The very fear of not being excited, excites them. This would seem to be the influence that attends these men, for I do not hear, that they have any pretensions to the powers of Whitfield, or even of Jonathan Edwards, the reasoner ;—and whose moral argument, too, according to tradition, was at times one of the most commanding power. Sometimes, these itinerant preachers find strong competitors for the honor of producing Revivals, in the feebler sex. I have heard lately of two or three instances, where converts of this description have thrown a population of several hundreds into the deepest agitation. One young female, (of whom I had had particular information,) only fourteen years old, having been converted, went out to exhort her neighbors, and eventually was carried over the whole township, from house to house, instructing, admonishing, and even praying. Indeed, my informant said, much as if he had been speaking of the competitors on the race

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course, that, "there was not a man in the town that could pray with her."

Advantage is sometimes taken of the extraordinary events of Providence, to produce an excitement. A sudden death, or the death of a young person, is often employed for this purpose. The whole process of the sickness, death, and burial, I have known to be converted to this use, with the most remorseless disregard of all the claims of relationship and private grief. A young and tender female, thrown into a violent sickness, half distracted with pain, or more than half delirious, will be visited by successive clouds of dark browed faces, which she scarcely recognises as acquaintances, and will be warned and prayed with, till she is brought into the most horrible state of fear and agitation, and till in fact, she is hastened out of the world, by the very means that are professedly, and, no doubt, designedly used, to save her soul. From the moment she has departed,-at the funeral and for weeks after--her awful example is held up;

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