festations of spiritual life, of holy living, more common?

Is not this the answer: That while, on the part of men, respect for the Church has not been diminished, and even confidence in the great principles of Gospel morality, in the certainty with which these principles follow their tendencies, has actually been on the increase in the popular mind, there has actually been going on, at the same time, a sad reaction in another direction? Has not the public mind, in respect to Christianity, been like two counter currents; like a suddenly-swollen river, which runs down stream on one side, and up stream on the opposite bank? What we mean is this: there is a sadly-increasing want of confidence in the popular mind in such truths as regeneration and sanctification by the Holy Spirit; pardon and purity, by faith in an atoning Saviour, accompanied by the witness of the Spirit, which Spirit is to continue to take of the things which are Christ's, and reveal them to the apprehension of the renewed mind, and constitute the atmosphere of the soul in that hidden life, that kingdom of Christ which is not of this world. Is there not an increasing skepticism to the experimental verities of the Gospel? Does not the

popular mind, everywhere, tacitly look upon the spiritual essentials of a heaven-descended evangelism, as dogmas about which it is not called to concern itself? This, we think, is that form of infidelity, the united product of many other forms, and the careful nursing of many other modern things, that constitutes the very Alp and Apennine ramparts that now lie before the Church, in her attempts to promote revivals. The fruitful causes of this colossal obstacle, and the course to be pursued in order to overcome it, may constitute the theme of future chapters. In the meantime, we close this by an exhortation to our brethren, to "strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die." 3

CHAPTER IV.

HINDERANCES TO REVIVALS.

THE PROTEAN CHARACTER OF UNBELIEF THE VERY ELECT MAY BE DECEIVED INFIDELITY ASSUMING TO BE AN ANGEL OF LIGHT IT FINDS APOLOGY FROM THE CONDUCT OF CHRISTIANS AN EXAMPLE GIVEN THE PREVALENCE OF PERVERTED SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY FALSELY SO CALLED- MARVELOUS MATERIAL PROGRESS - MAN'S ABUSE OF BLESSINGS AND MISINTERPRETATION OF THE PURPOSES OF THEIR BESTOWMENT— THE PULPIT SHOULD ADAPT ITSELF TO THE POPULAR MINDTHE LOGICAL ELEMENT MORE PREDOMINANT THAN THE EMOTIONAL OUR SUFFICIENCY OF GOD.

In the last chapter we mentioned, as the great obstacle in the way of the Church's access to the outsiders and sinners, the existence of popular infidelity in regard to the experimental verities, the spiritual truths of the Gospel. This type of infidelity is not outspoken, it hides itself in silence; we would that it existed in another than tacit form. Like Satan, from the time that he entered the serpent until he went into the swine of the Gadarenes, so does infidelity assume all shapes. It has as many incarnations as the Brahmin god Vishnu; like Satan, too, one of its oldest tricks is to conceal its preser ce. It

may be that the devil's power is greatly increased because he keeps himself invisible. The form of infidelity we are considering, also, is so subtle, that it may even deceive, and often does, its own possessor; he may not always be conscious of the vital extent to which he is a hell-exposed unbeliever; like as the odors of the fabled upas, may the dreadful conclusion which he has settled in his own mind, rest in his own consciousness, and yet, like it, its subtle virus is fatal. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye must be born of the Spirit."

Every form of infidelity has its own particular epoch, in which it flourishes best; certain social phases of the age are more or less congenial to its growth, and determine the particular type which it may assume. Infidelity, in these days, does not denounce the Bible by wholesale. Contrariwise, it professes for it a great reverence, as Judas said, "Hail, Master! and kissed him." Every form of infidelity now quotes Scripture in its support.

We come, then, to name summarily a few of the principal elements that are now in active occupancy of the popular mind, and admirably calculated, if not of necessity, by ready abuse, to foster the form of infidelity we are deploring.

We first name the sectarian polemical element. What we mean is this: the evangelical Church exists fragmentarily, and these fragments are called sects or denominations; naturally enough, then, do sectarian rivalries, contests about doctrines and dogmas, arise. And now, let us ask, and it will be quite sufficient to ask, What is the spirit, as a general thing, with which these contests are carried on? So far from it being an occasional exception, it rather amounts to the rule, that the religious controversies of the pulpit, but more especially of the press, are carried on with almost as much of the spirit of bitterness and sarcasm, though, we admit, with much improvement of diction, as are the battles of party strife in the political world. How many painful examples might here be adduced; how much is here suggested, that we have neither space nor desire to say; how sickens the heart imbued with that spirit of gentleness, meekness, love, and long-suffering, at what we have said. If the spiritual man possessed by the Christian, manifest all those moral phenomena in temper, words, etc., that are manifested by men who make no pretensions to regeneration, the former, at the same time, contending with "apostolic blows and knocks," that the