guides of the nation. In our love for liberty we forgot our hatred of infidelity; and in our ardent wishes for success in the cause of freedom, we forgot that our own freedom had been achieved under the guidance of other men than Voltaire, Diderot, and D'Alembert; and that we had acknowledged another Divinity than the "goddess of reason." And the result was what might have been foreseen. In the years that succeeded our revolution the nation was fast sinking into infidelity; and Paine's "Age of Reason" was fast supplanting the Bible in the minds of thousands of our countrymen. A conflict arose between Christianity and infidelity. The argument was close and long, and infidelity was driven from the field, and a victory was achieved not less important than the victories in our revolution. That intellectual warfare saved the churches in this land; and the result furnished a pledge that infidelity is not to triumph in this western world.

III. Yet it was not by argument only that this speculative infidelity was met. And this leads me to the third period in our religious history. The Holy Spirit sealed that argument and engraved that truth on the heart in the revivals of religion that characterized the close of the last and the beginning of the present century. Of the favoured agents in that time it is necessary only to mention the name of DwIGHT-a name that was a pledge that solid piety, sober views, elevated character, a brilliant fancy, high integrity, and moral worth, might deem itself honoured to be engaged in a revival of religion. Under a single sermon of his, it is recorded that no less than three revivals of religion commenced: and in Yale College-a place where least of all we should look for enthusiasm and fanaticism-no less than four revivals occurred under his presidency, resulting in the conversion of two hundred and ten young men, who, in their turn, have been the instruments of the salvation of thousands of souls. It was in such scenes that God interposed to save the churches of our country. And but for such works of grace at the fountains of intelligence and power, infidelity would have diffused its rank and poisonous weeds over the land.

IV. The other period in our religious history is more directly our own timestimes that have been eminently characterized for revivals of religion. I cannot go at length into a statement of the features of those revivals, nor of their influence. I can only say that in one part of our

land, and in the oldest seminary of learning in our nation, there had been a deplorable apostacy from the sentiments of our fathers; that the Deity and atonement of the Son of God were denied; that this form of pretended Christian doctrine advanced with great pretensions to learning, to exclusive liberality, to critical skill, to refinement, to courtesy; that it appealed to the great and the gay, and sought its proselytes in the mansions of the rich and the homes of the refined; and that it stood up against revivals of religion, and all the forms of expanded Christian beneficence. This scheme was met by argument and learning and critical power, equal to its own. But not

by that alone. It has been met by revivals of religion, and its progress checked by the work of the Holy Ghost on the hearts of men.

We

Another feature of our times. were fast becoming a nation of drunkards. We could ascertain that there were three hundred thousand drunkards in our land, and that from ten to twenty thousand were annually consigned to drunkards' graves. And this mighty evil has also been met by revivals of religion. Hundreds of churches have been visited by the Spirit of God as the result of their efforts in the temperance reformation ; and hundreds of thousands of our young men have been saved from the evils and disgraces of intemperance because God has visited the churches with the influences of his Spirit.

There was another dark feature in our religious prospects. The love of gain had become, and is still, our besetting sin. This passion goads on our countrymen, and they forget all other things. They forsake the homes of their fathers; they wander away from the place of schools and churches to the wilderness of the west; they go from the sound of the sabbath bell, and they forget the sabbath and the Bible and the place of prayer; they leave the places where their fathers sleep in their graves, and they forget the religion which sustained and comforted them. They go for gold, and they wander over the prairie, they fell the forest, they ascend the stream in pursuit of it, and they trample down the law of the sabbath, and soon, too, forget the laws of honesty and fair dealing in the insatiable love of gain. Meantime every man, such is our freedom, may advance any sentiments he pleases. He may defend them by all the power of argument, and enforce them by all the cloquence of persuasion. He may

clothe his corrupt sentiments in the charms of verse, and he may make a thousand cottages beyond the mountains re-echo with the corrupt and the corrupting strain. He may call to his aid the power of the press, and may secure a lodgment for his infidel sentiments in the most distant habitation in the republic. What can meet this state of things, and arrest the evils that spread with the fleetness of the courser or the wind? What can pursue and overtake these wanderers but revivals of religion-but that Spirit which, like the wind, acts where it pleases? Yet they must be pursued. If our sons go thus, they are to be followed and reminded of the commands of God. None of them are to be suffered to go to any fertile vale or prairie in the west without the institutions of the gospel; nor are they to be suffered to construct a hamlet, or to establish a village, or to build a city that shall be devoted to any other god than the God of their fathers. By all the self-denials of benevolence, by all the power of argument, by all the implored influences of the Holy Ghost, they are to be persuaded to plant there the rose of Sharon, and to make the wilderness and the solitary place to be glad, and the desert to bud and blossom as the rose. In such circumstances God has inter posed; and he has thus blessed our own land and times with signal revivals of religion.

The remarks thus far made conduct us to this conclusion, that we owe most of our religion in this land to revivals; that the great and appalling evils which have threatened us as a people have been met and turned back by revivals; that every part of our country has thus, either directly or indirectly, felt the influence of revivals. Scarce a village or a city smiles on all our vast landscape that has not been hallowed in some parts of its history by the deep-felt presence of Israel's God. And he who loves his country, who looks back with gratitude to those periods when the God of salvation has conducted us through appalling dangers; or who looks abroad upon our vast land and contemplates the mighty movements in the pursuit of gold and pleasure and ambition; who sees here how inefficacious are all ordinary means to arrest the evils which threaten us, will feel the necessity of crying unto God unceasingly for the continuance and extension of REVIVALS

OF PURE RELIGION.

REVIVALS OF RELIGION.

By the late William Orme. THESE revivals, during the early and middle part of last century, were not limited to America; they took place in several parts of Scotland, in precisely the same way, and were carried on by the same means. Robe's "Narrative of the Work of God at Cambuslang, Kilsyth, and other places;" his Defences of that work against the Seceders of that period who opposed it; his “ Monthly History, or Account of the Revival and Progress of Religion abroad and at home;" Prince's "Christian History of the Revival and Propagation of Religion in Great Britain and America," which was published at Boston, in New England, in 1743 and 1744, are full of the most valuable and authentic information on this subject. These works are all in my possession; but as they are now of rare occurrence, the reader will find the substance of much that is contained in them in a valuable work by Dr. Gillies, of Glasgow, "Historical Collections, relating to remarkable periods of the success of the gospel, and eminent instruments employed in promoting it," Glasgow, 1754. 2 vols. 8vo. To this an Appendix was published by the Author in 1761, 12mo, and a Supplement was subsequently added by Dr. Erskine, of Edinburgh.

I refer to so many authorities because I conceive the subject to be one of great present interest to the churches of Christ in this country, and which calls loudly for the attention of all who are engaged in the ministry of the gospel. I am afraid many mistakes and prejudices exist respecting it. From the manner in which revivals have been talked about and promoted among the Wesleyan Methodists, I am afraid that a revival is considered by many something necessarily connected with fanaticism and extravagance, and that means to promote such a thing would be regarded as altogether absurd or improper. The information which has been published is, I think, calculated to remove these groundless jealousies and misappre

hensions.

It is a fact that in Britain, as well as in America, remarkable success attended the preaching of the gospel in particular places many years ago. It is a fact that such occurrences still take place in America, to the great delight of the people of Christ and of the ministers of the gospel.

If it be the fact that such awakening

do not now occur in England, either in the endowed or unendowed churches in which the gospel is preached, I should like to see a faithful and satisfactory explanation of the cause. Are we for ever to satisfy ourselves by resolving all into the sovereignty of God? Has the Spirit of God taken his departure from us, and taken up his abode in America? Does God refuse to bless our labours, or are those labours withheld? Because such revivals have been attended with partial or occasional evils, are we more disposed to shun than to welcome them? Are we so disposed to contend for order and stillness and imperceptible progress, that everything which would be likely to disturb our routine and monotony frightens us? In short, is there not a cause in ourselves, which, if removed, would be attended with an abundant blessing from on high.

These are questions which appear to me to call for serious consideration. While I am not disposed to speak despondingly of the state of religion at home, I cannot but express my conviction that it does not keep pace with the abundance of the religious privileges which have been so long enjoyed. I apprehend that the preaching of the gospel in public is not blessed to the extent that might be, because it is not followed up by other appropriate means, vigorously and perseveringly applied. It is not that divine truth is kept back in the pulpit, but because it is counteracted or neutralized by surrounding and accompanying circumstances, that its power is not more generally felt.

The single fact, that in Great Britain, the land of wealth and of liberty, and the boasted abode of light and religion, it is scarcely possible on any other than a Lord's day, to get a decent meeting for religious exercises, unless under circumstances of extraordinary excitement, affords of itself the most powerful evidence, that religion, on the part of a vast number of its professors, is little better than a name. Their assembling in crowds on the sabbath, to hear a popular preacher, or to occupy their stated pews, to go through the routine of public service, is no proof of real religion. They put on the garb of a religious profession, as they put on their Sunday clothes; while, in many instances, they enjoy it less than they do their Sunday dinner.

We profess to meet together monthly, to pray for the spread of the gospel; but what an appearance do we usually pre

sent! Can we reasonably lay claim to the credit of sincerity, when we profess an entire dependence on the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, for all the success of our labours and contributions? Have not these meetings, in too many instances, a discouraging instead of an encouraging effect on those who attend them, and on spectators? A stranger stepping into the greater part of such meetings in the metropolis, if he thought of the thousands by which he is surrounded, might be tempted to ask whether ten righteous persons were to be found!

Making every reasonable allowance for the circumstances of individuals, this is surely not a state of things which any Christian can look at with satisfaction. It is impossible to doubt, that if people were in earnest, a very different aspect would be presented. Religion, when it is in life, (and if it be not, it is of little importance) will operate in a very different manner. Trifling and even considerable difficulties will be made to give way; and excuses which are repeated usque ad nauseam, will cease to be heard.

INTERESTING RELIGIOUS SERVICES IN
HEXHAM, NORTHUMBERLAND.
For the Christian Witness.

A SERIES of meetings for the revival of religion was held in the Independent Chapel, Hexham, Northumberland, commencing on sabbath the 6th October, 1844, and terminating on Tuesday the 22nd instant. Much anxiety was previously felt by the pastor and others, that the great Head of the church would grant his richest blessing to those labourers who had kindly agreed to leave their own charges for a little, and "come to the help of the Lord against the mighty." Accordingly prayer meetings were held through the evenings of the previous week, (as well as every morning and forenoon during the series,) to supplicate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the contemplated public services.

From the first commencement of the meetings on sabbath morning the 6th inst., they assumed a most promising appearance, and continued to increase every successive meeting. On sabbath the 13th inst., the numbers which thronged to the chapel were so great, that after the chapel and vestry in every place were crowded to excess, it was found necessary to obtain in addition the use of the Scottish Presbyterian Chapel for those who

could not obtain admission to the Congregational Chapel. On Monday evening, the intelligence of the services having spread through the surrounding country, many came from the neighbouring hamlets and villages, some of them ten or twelve miles distant. From this time to the conclusion of the services, the chapel was every evening full to the overflowing, and many were unable to obtain accommodation. On sabbath the 20th, the Wesleyan Chapel was kindly offered to the ministers conducting the meetings. Services were accordingly held in it, in the afternoon; and in the evening both chapels (Independent and Wesleyan) were completely thronged with deeply attentive congregations. The concluding service took place on Tuesday evening the 22nd inst., in the Independent chapel, which was crowded in every part, (and many listening outside the windows,) while the entire audience remained to the close of the meeting (upwards of three hours) without the slightest appearance of fatigue, and while the most solemn impression appeared to rest on every

hearer.

The meetings were conducted throughout by the Rev. E. Cornwall, of Jedburgh, Scotland, who was successively assisted by the Rev. Thomas Pullar, of Gateshead (late of Glasgow), by the pastor of the church, and by four young missionaries (members of Mr. Cornwall's church), who are sent out by James Douglas, Esq., of Cavers, to labour in various destitute parts of England and Scotland.

The services were solemn and deeply impressive. The chief doctrines of the gospel; the entire depravity of the human heart; the various refuges of lies by which men obtain a false peace; the aspect of God to every sinner, through the atonement of Christ; with the absolute necessity of the saving operations of the Holy Spirit to accompany the truth, (which obtained a prominent place in the prayers and instructions,) were presented in their simple grandeur. No appeals were made to the imagination. The simple aim of each minister, as he addressed the assembly, was, to inform and enlighten the understanding, to awaken the conscience, to expose false refuges, and thus to affect the hearts of the people. But while there was an evident adaptation in the preaching to gain the end in view, namely, the revival of God's people, and the conversion of sinners, the great secret of the success manifestly appeared to be, the entire dependence of

the preachers on the accompanying blessing of the Holy Spirit, without which they expected nothing. Never were services conducted with greater sobriety. No indications of extravagance were exhibited. The ministers of different evangelical denominations expressed their deep interest and spiritual gratification in what they heard. The conviction of every reflective hearer must have been, 'Surely the Lord is in this place;" for so powerful were the representations of saving truth, that every thought of the speaker appeared to be lost in his solemn and affecting theme; and the time spent in the house of God was felt by many to be a season of the richest spiritual enjoy

66

ment.

The results of the services will not be fully known in time; but as far as they can be ascertained at present, with the most cautious judgment, they are very encouraging. Considerably upwards of a hundred persons, variously impressed by the truth, remained for personal conversation with the ministers, after the services were concluded. A proportion of these afforded satisfactory evidence (as far as the time and circumstances would allow) of their genuine conversion to God; while it is to be feared others, whose impressions, like Felix's of old, were transitory, will return again with deeper relish to the world. The church itself has experienced (at least in many of its members) the quickening dews of the Holy Spirit. A spirit of hearing has been greatly increased amongst the careless and indifferent. Many now attend the ministry of the word, who formerly were unconcerned about the salvation of their souls. These services have been beneficial to all the evangelical denominations in the neighbourhood; and, more or less, a new spirit appears to animate all the churches.

How long these favourable appearances may continue, is known to the Lord. But however great may be the anxieties of Christians in regard to the issue with some, one thing is certain, that the means by which the present work has been effected, WERE SOLID AND SCRIPTURAL. And, again, by its obvious effects on Christians of different names, it has been delightfully shown, that a revival of religion in any place cannot be confined to one church. In such seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, the great and saving truths of the gospel rise in our estimation; while denominational peculiarities dwindle into

comparative insignificance. It is not so much an increase of knowledge, as of Christian love, which is wanted to effect the union for which the Redeemer offered his last intercessory prayer. Oh may all the friends of Jesus unite now in presenting his dying prayer; that being, at length, manifestly one in him,-"the world may believe that he was sent of the Father.

Believing that a brief statement of the facts as they occurred, might be beneficial in other places, the previous statement has been drawn up by the pastor of the church, and is now earnestly commended to the blessing of God, to whom all the glory belongs.

JOSEPH WALKER,

Pastor of the Congregational church. Hexham, November, 1844.

DRS. HERMAN BOERHAAVE AND JOHN

ABERCROMBIE.

NEVER, perhaps, since the day which recorded the decease of Dr. Boerhaave, has the removal of an individual brought along with it so heavy a loss both to science and religion as that which they have unitedly sustained in the death of Dr. Abercrombie. Among the wise and good each was, in his own age and country, equally an object of love, of admiration, and of reverence. In their respective eras their individual examples supplied a lesson of high instruction, while it likewise administered a severe rebuke, to the majority of their professional brethren, who, to a fearful extent, "did not choose the fear of the Lord, neither desired they the knowledge of his ways." They gloried in their shame, and by those studies which ought to have led them to prostrate themselves in profound adoration before the footstool of the Almighty, they were too generally borne into the dreary regions of scepticism, and not seldom into those of atheism itself! The histories of such men as Boerhaave and Abercrombie serve to show that high attainments and splendid powers are not incompatible with simple faith and humble discipleship in the school of Christ, and that true piety, conjoined with intellectual eminence, tends, not to obstruct, but to promote, a true, a wide, and a lasting fame. The deceitful glare of unsanctified genius has already very much subsided. Not a few of the most distinguished medical practitioners of the present age, both in Great Britain and America, not only rank among the most exemplary Christians, but among the ablest advocates both of natural and revealed religion. The records of each succeeding generation yield additional

proof of the great fact that true science is the handmaid of true piety, and that the atheist is not merely not a philosopher, but is absolutely a fool!

Boerhaave was born on December 30, 1668, at Voorhout, a village near Leyden, where his worthy father sustained the office of a Christian pastor. Abercrombie was born at Aberdeen, on October 11, 1781, his father also being a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They both owed everything, under God, to the principles and character of their respective parents, who bestowed the utmost pains on their education. Both were very early brought under the influence of the gospel, and both continued to adorn it to the close of life. We must now glance at them apart.

The career of Boerhaave was, in some respects, the more brilliant; his celebrity was the more extended, and his medical fame will, perhaps, be the more permanent. This superiority he owed partly to the times he lived in, partly to his continental sphere, and partly to certain peculiarities connected with his genius and situation. In the preparatory schools of Leyden, he shone with a splendour rarely equalled, never surpassed; and in the University he carried everything before him. While laboriously traversing the whole field of science, he was an eager student of languages, and intensely devoted to the pursuit of divine knowledge, chiefly through the medium of the original Scriptures. While, for a considerable period, his studies were mainly conducted with a view to the ministry of the gospel, in the meantime, as a pleasing diversion, he turned his thoughts to medical science, which possessed such charms for his peculiar genius that he resolved, before entering the ministry, to take his