the pride and vanity of the human heart, has taken this method to humble and abase me, and I bless his holy name for this reproof. If my ministry might but be rendered useful, I had rather serve the Lord with all humility of mind and with tears, than have merely the approbation and applause of my fellow men.

Mr. Hall took the stranger home with him after the evening service, and was charmed with his animated conversation. Next morning they enjoyed several hours together in the study, talking over the state of literature in the new and old world. In the afternoon a friend or two was invited to join the company, and to spend the evening. Dr. Mason showed himself a very lively and facetious companion, full of animation and theatrical effect, abounding in anecdote and historical detail, learned and acute, possessing very general information, and afforded, as the representative of American independence, an excellent specimen of physical and moral greatness.

In answer to some enquiries proposed by Mr. Hall, in reference to the state of religion in America, Dr. Mason acknowledged his inability to go much into detail. He had endeavoured, but found it impracticable, to obtain any statistical account, from which he could derive any satisfactory information of the actual encrease of christian professors, which however he believed to have been considerable. The Baptists are numerous in several of the States, and bear a full proportion

to other denominations; but as to the camp meetings and great revivals, of which so much had been said in the different periodicals, he was of opinion that they had contributed very little to the cause of vital christianity. In many instances they were encouraged by persons who endeavoured to produce strong effects upon the passions, and had been followed by such a desolation of religious principle, that in those places where the greatest revivals had prevailed, little else was to be found than the briars and thorns of heresy and schism. In one instance in particular, a preacher of the name of Forrester, sent to Dr. Mason an account of a great revival and outpouring of the Spirit in his congregation, to be inserted in a religious journal; but before this exhilirating intelligence had time to circulate from the press, the writer of the article sent word that the wonderful work was all at an end, and that its effects had unhappily disappeared in the course of a fortnight.

Dr. Mason might possibly be misinformed in some instances, or might be too incredulous of the good really effected by these revivals; but this could hardly be the case as to what transpired in his own neighbourhood, and came under his own immediate observation. Yet he affirmed that a certain class of labourers in the production of sudden and extensive conversions, who had acquired celebrity in several of the American towns and cities, created an alarm by their approach, among all serious and well informed persons. For when

it was known that they were about to erect a chapel and collect a congregation, the inhabitants of the vicinage hastened to quit their dwellings, and retired to a distance, to avoid the nocturnal annoyances which followed the thunders and gesticulations of the orators and principal performers. In New York particularly, one of these newlyerected chapels was actually indicted as a public nuisance, and the interference of the magistrates demanded; so exceptionable and extraordinary was the enthusiasm that had been mixed up with those revivals. Property sunk in value, the adjoining tenements were uninhabited, and the surrounding scite became abandoned to these religious reveries.

Mr. Hall and the rest of the company heard this statement with surprise and pain, hoping at the same time that it applied only to the particular period referred to by the narrator; that some good might nevertheless have been accomplished, and that more would follow upon an enlightened ministry. It was then added by the visitor that the gospel had for a number of years been progressive in the United States, as in other parts of the christian world; and that while several of the revivalist congregations had become extinct, after their inflammatory materials were all evaporated, others of a more sober and genuine character had encreased and multiplied. On the whole it did not appear from this verbal communication, that the state of religion in America was at that time much

more prosperous than in England, but that similar variations attend its general aspect.

Dr. Sprague, pastor of a presbyterian congregation in New York, in his interesting volume on American revivals, has shown that the failure in numerous instances was owing to the precipitance and incompetency of the agents employed, and the encouragement given to transient and injurious impressions. Many of the abuses he says, arose from the multiplication of meetings, beyond the ability of the minister and his most experienced assistants to superintend them, so as to call up persons having more zeal than knowledge to take the lead, sometimes to the misguiding of the young and indiscreet, and the offending of many. Much evil had also been occasioned by inducing persons too soon to make a public profession, and to possess a comfortable hope of their state, so that they thirst more for hope than for holiness, and seem to think the work to be done as soon as consolation begins. There is reason however to believe that the late revivals in America are of a more substantial character, and that much real good has been effected. It would be an enquiry highly worthy of a christian philosopher, how it has happened in the order of secondary causes, that America has so often been favoured with revivals of religion, while the rest of christendom has been left like Gideon's fleece, without any of those copious dews from above; and whether some solution might not be found in the fact, that the

United States have not at any period formed any part of the antichristian ten-horned beast, on which the curse of prophecy is denounced, but became the place where suffering piety found a refuge, and where the immortal Puritans were nourished and protected from the face of the serpent.

Following up the conversation, Dr. Mason said that the parochial clergy were in many places what they are with us. Where religion is either supported by the state, or blended with secular interests, it soon degenerates, and worldly men will gain an ascendency wherever a worldly sanctuary is erected. The professed followers of Edwards and Bellamy, more recently of Hopkins, were said to have turned aside to vain jangling and endless disputation. Assuming it as a fundamental principle, that the moral system of the universe is of all supposable systems the best, seeing it is that which infinite wisdom has suffered to exist, they went on to assert that as the prevalence of moral evil forms an integral part of that system, it was as necessary to it as any other ingredient, and shall ultimately be rendered subservient to the greatest good; and that therefore it is not improper to consider the supreme Being as indirectly the author of sin. The Hopkinsians were also for reducing the doctrine of atonement to a mere expedient for the honourable exercise of mercy, a statement to which some socinians would not object, denying at the same time that the sacrifice of Christ was vicarious or substitutionary, and