upon the brink of an active volcano. Dear brethren, let us pause, ponder, and pray over the emphasis which we are to place upon this "how," with reference to the state of our own cherished Methodism. CHAPTER XIV. INFRACTIONS OF THE LAW OF KINDNESS CONSIDERED. LAW OF KINDNESS VIOLATED IN SPIRIT THE PULPIT SCOLD- THE WE spoke in the last chapter of the power of kindness as a potent element in the work of winning souls, keeping them wedded to our holy altars, and nurturing them for the skies. We promised, by way of illustration and warning, to point out what we regarded as some of the departures from the law of kindness. The law of kindness may be violated in spirit. By the spirit of a man we now mean those social, intellectual, and moral impressions, which, either as a writer, preacher, or private companion, he makes upon us, and which are more or less agreeable to us, and which we so readily feel to be in accordance with candor, truth, goodness, and charity, or their opposites. A right act may be done in a wrong spirit. The spirit in which men say and do things is, in fact, one of the great powers of life in the promotion of good or ill. A good act done in a bad spirit, might often better not have been done. A sermon preached in the spirit of the scold, had, we believe, generally, better have remained unpreached. There are those who pique themselves on what they call "whipping the Church into the harness," and all this under the shield of that great truth in the work of revivals, that the Church must first be set right. Nor is it to be denied that some successful revivalists are greatly given to a censorious, denunciating, dogmatical, harsh, and acid mode of presenting the truth. We have often heard them, in their preliminary lectures, picking out what they called the sins of Church members, as if they had brought the Church to judgment, ex cathedra, and then, in a seemingly commingled spirit of harshness, egotism, and self-satisfaction, they de cided upon each one's fate. We have said that such preaching is not always wanting in marked And here let it be borne in mind, that we have long settled it as a fact in the economy success. of God's grace, that sermons often quite as deficient in the right spirit, as a sermon well could be in intellectual merit, is often made the means of great good. We are not speaking, then, of a style of preaching that does no good, but of one which always fails seriously of doing the greatest good. A revival, originated and matured under the type of pulpit labor which we have here so imperfectly described, is very apt to be wanting in deepness of earth. In all revivals, the spirit of the preacher is preeminently catching, and if he be given to censoriousness, denunciation, and a right-angled-sometimes acute-spirit, this same spirit will take possession of the Church and the young converts. And when the rains come, and the winds blow upon such a moral structure, if it do not always all fall, we have always noticed a great falling away. Every zealous member and young convert must needs be as urgent, extreme, and peremptory in his demands upon a brother, or the sinner he would reform, as was his late spiritual model. But, in such cases, resistance follows, feelings are hurt, heart-burnings occur, and the further consequences need not be detailed. We maintain, that in this case there is a sad departure in spirit from that law of kindness described in our last chapter. The law of kindness may be violated in the tones of the voice. This, perhaps, is often accidental. In the former case, the importance of the subject may have been never considered. Bad practices may have become chronic, by time and the power of habit. Not a few, however, are to be found who seem to delight in a gruff, surly, and austere-toned address. There is no power in nature more mysterious, none that operates with greater certainty, than that of the innumerable intonations of which the human voice is capable. In a tone, grief becomes irresistibly eloquent, hate suggests the deadly poison of the dreaded basilisk, love unmans, and beauty transports. It is not the words of the mother, for many long months, that make her babe feel that the heart of love is its cradle, and the lessons of discipline its lot. "Not so much what my mother said to me, as the way she said it," was once remarked to the writer by a despairing young man, who had sadly strayed from the precepts of the parental roof. "O," said he, as the great tears coursed down his cheeks, "the way my mother said that last thing to me! The tones of her voice murmur this moment in my ear!" Is there, then, no moral power in the tone of a word? As well deny to |