in the room of secret prayer and of the Holy Ghost and even of personal religion. When I see them relied on to produce revivals without previous prayer, and a boast made that Christians were stupid when they began; when I see a revival of ten days produce its hundred converts, and the people, who were stupid before, relapse into the same stupidity at the end of the protracted meeting; I cannot but say, How different are these from the revivals of the last forty years, which were preceded by long agonies of desire and prayer, and which transmitted their spirit to many succeeding months. There is another difference I fear in many cases. In those revivals unwearied pains were taken to lay open the divine character in all its benevolence, holiness, and justice; to present the divine government in all its righteousness and purity, in all its sovereignty and covenant faithfulness, in all its reasonableness and benignity and awful terror; to lay open the carnal heart, festering with every evil passion, and the horrid nature of sin, with its infinite demerits, to explain the great provision of the atonement and the terms of acceptance with God; to bring out the mercy which melts in the Gospel and to press home the invitation; to show the reasonableness and sincerity of God in all his treatment of sinners, and the unreasonableness of their obstinacy in rejecting the Gospel. All these and many other topics furnished matter always new and always affecting to the conscience. It was all regarded as an exhibition of God, in his character, government, and relations to men; and if we could make a clear manifestation of God, we felt a confidence in leaving the issue in the hands of that Spirit whose office work it is to take of the things of God and show them to But now I fear that in many instances there is so much reliance on these newly invented means of impression, that the truths of God are but very imperfectly brought out or even studied; dependance being placed on a few topics of exhortation, without the reasons which the truths of the universe furnish. The consequence must be that the people will be left in ignorance, with a high susceptibility of irregular excitement, and exactly fitted, should more sober habits return, to fill the ranks of the most extravagant sectaries,-the same that happened in New England some eighty years ago. men. I have no fellowship with harsh or violent measures; such as abruptly telling a professor that she has no religion and is going directly to hell, (merely because she is cold ;) and when she is horror struck and begs you to pray for her, tearing yourself away and saying, I wont pray for you, and breaking out of the room, leaving her in agonies on the floor; all to shake her off from dependance on you, but really endangering her reason and life. Nor have I any more complacency in public personalities; such as calling people by name in prayer or preaching; holding up certain neighborhoods as subjects of public prayer on account of their special wickedness or neglects; and worse than all, deliberately laboring to make sinners angry, in order to show them how they hate God and his people and his truth; thus doing evil that good may come. "for "Let your women keep silence in the churches," says Paul; it is not permitted unto them to speak.-And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home; for it is a shame for women to speak in the church."* They may not even make public inquiries after truth. "Let the women learn in silence with all subjection; but I suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." The contexts will show that the church referred to was not a judicatory, but a common Christian assembly for instruction and worship; and the reasons assigned for the prohibition apply as much to public prayers as to public teaching, and certainly as much as to public inquiries after truth. And prayers are public in any assembly of men and women collected for devotion. It is not necessary, to make it public, that the assembly should be in the sanctuary or on the sabbath. The primitive Christians had no sanctuary, and often held those assemblies of which Paul speaks on other days of the week. Wherever the sexes are mixed up in an assembly for social prayer, there the prohibition applies. Nor is this against our mothers and wives and sisters and daughters. They will gain more respect and influence by keeping in the place which nature and nature's God assigned them, than by breaking forth as Amazons into the department of men. From these excesses two special evils are sure to follow; one among the ignorant, the other among the learned and refined. That among the ignorant is gross, palpable disorder. It is impossible that the local scenes of the last six years should have been enacted, and that the events of the last year should have given currency so wide to some of them, without producing among the ignorant outbreaking disorder somewhere. These fruits, I hope, have not yet extensively appeared; but a late scene which has been described to me as "a perfect revel of fanaticism," may serve as an example. Among other excesses, when the awakened were called out into the aisle, some women found themselves converted, and in the midst of a crowded assembly, and with a loud voice, began to pray for their husbands. And this was taken, by men hitherto deemed sober,-perhaps too sober,-as proof of the extraordinary descent of the Holy Spirit. Such disorders, and * 1 Cor: xiv. 34, 35. † 1 Tim: ii. 11, 12. worse than these, will infallibly spread themselves all abroad, if ministers and distinguished members of the church do not combine in earnest to check present measures. Human nature must cease to be human nature if this is not the result. The other evil referred to is, that these excesses, (I speak not of the disorders,) prejudice men of learning and taste against revivals, and arm the influence of society against them. And thus while they throw discredit on the most precious of God's works and obscure his glory where it was chiefly to be shown, they lay stumbling blocks before the blind over which millions will fall into hell. Let the attention of the world be aroused by every hallowed means; let the imagination and passions be wrought upon as far as the most sweet and solemn and awful truths of God can move them; let every knee be pressed to the earth in prayer, and every authorized tongue be strained with entreaties to dying men; let the whole operation be as impressive, as irresistible, as love and truth and eloquence can make it: but O, for the honor of Christ and his Spirit, and in pity to the cultivated millions of our race, let revivals be conducted with order and taste, and shun every thing by which our brethren may be offended or made to fall. I am, dear sir, With every sentiment of affection, Your friend and brother. REV. W. B. SPRAGUE, D. D. E. D. GRIFFIN. LETTER XX. FROM THE REVEREND HENRY DAVIS, D. D. REVEREND AND DEAR SIR, Clinton, N.Y., Aug. 25, 1833. It gives me pleasure to learn that a second edition of your Lectures on religious Revivals is called for. I cheerfully comply with your request to furnish you with an account of some of the revivals which have fallen under my observation; and of those especially which I have witnessed in those seminaries of learning with which I have been connected. This I felt a desire to do before, in the letter with my signature, found in the appendix to your Lectures already published. But owing to circumstances, which it is not now necessary to mention, I judged it, at that time, inexpedient. It is a fact, not unknown to you, that I have never sustained the office of a pastor of a church. My labors have been mostly devoted to the services of colleges. My experience on this subject has been chiefly within their walls. It has not, therefore, been as diversified as that of a pastor of a church in different circumstances, whose duty leads him to an immediate intercourse with people of various ranks and conditions, and of all ages. But in the limited sphere in which it hath pleased God that I should move, it hath also pleased him in mercy to grant me the privilege of bearing testimony to many wonderful displays of the power and riches of his grace. The first revival of religion which came within my observation was in the place of my birth-East Hampton, Suffolk county, on Long Island, in this state. This town has been highly favored. It was selected by God as a theatre, on which he was marvellously to display the conquering power of his grace. Its three first ministers (James, Hunting, Buell,) were all learned, able, and devoted men; and the period of their united ministry was one hundred and fifty-four years. The first considerable revival of religion in the place occurred in 1741-2, apparently through the instrumentality of Davenport. Not withstanding the many untoward and ever to be lamented circumstances attending this revival, about sixty were added to the church soon after the settlement of Dr. Buell, 1746. By his efforts and faithful preaching, harmony was in a good degree restored, and as was believed by those then living, consequences lasting and most disastrous prevented. In 1749, God again revived his work to some extent, principally among the young. But the year 1764 was signally distinguished as a season of God's gracious visitation. Many more than one hundred, it was believed, were made alive from the dead. Ninety-nine were admitted to the communion of the church on one Sabbath. The revival which I witnessed took place in 1785; a few years subsequent to the close of the struggle of our fathers for independence. After such a long and alarming season of religious apathy as had prevailed throughout our country, it was a novel, and could not but also be an affecting, scene. I was then in early youth-at the age of fifteen-and the impression of the passing events upon my mind is still well nigh as strong and fresh in my memory as the events of yesterday. Dr. Buell was eminently a man of God. The subjects, which evidently were uppermost in his thoughts, and which lay with most interest on his heart, were the glory of God and the salvation of souls. He entered upon the public service of his Master about the commencement of the memorable work of 1740-1. He was the intimate friend of Brainard, and acted a prominent part in the transactions of that day. He has related to me events which then occurred, and in which he was personally interested, which filled me with surprise, I might almost say, with astonishment; and which I could not then have believed, had not my information come from a man whose veracity could not be questioned. He was one of the very few of those foremost in that work, whose subsequent labors were so much blessed in the proper sense of the term. At the time of entering Yale college, it was said to me by Dr. Stiles, after reading a letter of introduction to him from Dr. Buell, "This man has done more good than any other man who ever stood on this continent." Whatever may be thought of the opinion of Dr. S., no one well acquainted with the history of Dr. Buell will hesitate to say that his labors were eminently useful. He was a man of ardent temperament, and a laborious student. With the history of the church and the writings of the Fathers he was intimately acquainted, and although not distinguished by a talent for discrimination, or by argumentative powers, he was a thoroughly read and learned theologian. He embraced cordially and |