y fear; and it is by the latter only that modern
revivals become at all effective. Bishop Hopkins says, very
truly--`Have we any example in the preaching of Christ and his apostles,
of the use of strong individual denunciation? Is there one sentence in
the word of inspiration to justify the attempt to excite the feelings of
a public assembly, until every restraint of order is forgotten, and
confusion becomes identified with the word of God." ["The Primitive
Church Compared," etcetera, by the Bishop of Vermont.] Yet such are the
revivals of the present day, as practised in America. Mr Colton calls
them--"Those startling and astounding shocks which are constantly
invented, artfully and habitually applied, under all the power of
sympathy, and of a studied and enthusiastic elocution, by a large class
of preachers among us. To startle and to shock is their great secret--
their power."

The same author then proceeds:

"Religion is a dread and awful theme in itself. That is, as all must
concede, there are revealed truths belonging to the category. To invest
these truths with terrors that do not belong to them, by bringing them
out in distorted shapes and unnatural forms; to surprise a tender and
unfortified mind by one of awful import, without exhibiting the
corresponding relief which Christianity has provided; to frighten,
shock, and paralyse the mind with alternations and scenes of horror,
carefully concealing the ground of encouragement and hope, till reason
is shaken and hurled from its throne, for the sake of gaining a convert,
and in making a convert to make a maniac (as doubtless sometimes occurs
under this mode of preaching, for we have the proof of it,) involves a
fearful responsibility. I have just heard of an interesting girl thus
driven to distraction, in the city of New York, at the tender age of
fourteen, by being approached by the preacher after a sermon of this
kind, with a secretary by his side with a book and pen in his hand, to
take down the names and answers of those who, by invitation, remained to
be conversed with. Having taken her name, the preacher asked, `Are you
for God or the devil?' Being overcome, her head depressed, and in
tears, she made no reply. `Put her down, then, in the devil's book,'
said the preacher to his secretary. From that time the poor girl became
insane; and, in her simplicity and innocence, has been accustomed to
tell the story of her misfortunes."

And yet these rev