pastors too often
come short of their duty. Carelessness, worldliness and godlessness
hold sway in too many of the congregations, homes and families. There
is a spirit of love of pleasure, greed for gain and haste to be rich,
that has taken hold of the heart and life of too many professedly
Christian parents. There is no time for God's Word or earnest prayer
with and for the children. There is often little if any religious
instruction or Christian example. The little ones breathe in a
withering, poisonous, materialistic atmosphere. The germs of the
divine life, implanted in baptism, either lie dormant, or are blighted
after their first manifestations. They grow up with the idea that
the great object of life is to gain the most, and make the best of
this world.

In the Sunday-school the teachers are often careless and
trifling. They do not live close to Christ themselves, and how can
they lead their pupils nearer to Him? They scarcely pray for
themselves, much less for their pupils, and how can they instil into
them a spirit of prayer?

Many pastors, also, are not as earnest and consecrated as they
should be. They are not burning with a desire for souls. They go
through their ministerial duties in a formal, lifeless manner, and
their labors are barren of results. These things should not be so, but
unfortunately they are. As a result, children grow up ignorant of
their covenant with God, or soon lapse therefrom, and are in an
unconverted state. The communicants of the church lose their first
love, and become lukewarm. An awakening is needed.

If then we admit that, owing to man's imperfections and faults,
_times of refreshing_ are needed, why not have them after the manner
of those around us? Why not adopt the modern system, have union
meetings, evangelists, high-pressure methods, excitements, the anxious
bench, and all the modern machinery for getting up revivals?

We will briefly state our objections to this system.

_First._ We object to the modern revival system, because it
rests on an entire misconception of the coming and work of the Holy
Spirit. The idea seems to be that the Holy Spirit is not effectively
present in the regular and ordinary services of the sanctuary; that He
came to the Church as a transient guest on the day of Pentecost, then
departed again, and returned when there was another season of special
interest. That He then left again, and ever since has come and worked
w