ness, lukewarmness, and formality, that grow so rapidly in a Church, in the absence of occasional, special, and protracted religious effort, and for which such efforts seem the only specific.

CHAPTER X.

PROTRACTED MEETINGS.

EXTRAVAGANT DEMONSTRATIONS

RELIGIOUS RESPONSES

66

AMEN

CORNERS

66

OBJECTIONS

CORRECT TEACHING NEEDEDLET ALL METHODISTS SAY AMEN ALL CORNERS SHOULD BE ANSWERED-THE INVETERATE FAULT-FINDER NOTHING HUMAN PERFECT APOSTASIES IN REVIVALS—THEIR OCCURRENCE CONSIDERED THE MORAL STATE OF THE BACKSLIDER-NO ONE EVER MADE WORSE BY CONVERSION THE BACKSLIDER THE FIRST TO BE RE-CONVERTED.

PROTRACTED meetings have been objected to, because many of the worshipers have often lost sight of religion, and religious decorum and order, and been betrayed into extravagances, both of speech and "bodily exercise," unbecoming the house of God. Our answer is, that, in the matter of spiritual manifestations, as there is a diversity of gifts," we would set ourself up as a judge of these extravagances, with very great caution. Our judgment of order, in the house of God, under such circumstances, may be very erroneous. Nature, in numberless instances, presents to the eye nothing but a scene of confusion and havoc, where the most perfect order reigns,

and the greatest good is to be the result. We will venture to say, however, that extravagances have occurred at such meetings, that might easily have been prevented by the right kind of teaching. Somehow or other, some have confounded the disciplining of the emotions with the "quenching of the Spirit." The pulpit, at times, has very erroneously taught, that when the Christian's spiritual emotions are struggling for vent or expression, it is never safe not to cry out or shout, whatever the surrounding circumstances may be, lest, by so doing, the Spirit be grieved. Now, weak and nervous persons, taking the advantage of such a sentiment, have been often found annoying fellow-worshipers, and seriously interfering with the edification of the meeting, by the untimeliness and obtrusiveness of their demonstrations of joy. The brother or sister that must needs shout aloud for an hour, and that hour the hour of preaching, and who has been indulged in doing so under the pretension that it was eminently his or her duty to do So, and that neither could help it, is simply to be pitied more than to be blamed. That such can help it, every reflecting person has come to believe. That they think they cannot or dare not help it, no one for a moment doubts. But this

is the result either of erroneous teaching, or of the absence of all teaching upon the subject. Let us be understood. We doubt not for a moment that the power of the Holy Ghost may, sometimes, prompt involuntarily to a momentary shout, and when of this type, we love to hear it at any time. But the idea that it will urge involuntarily to a continuous squall for half an hour, is simply ridiculous. We are not "opposed to shouting" at religious meetings, but we are opposed to unnatural and fanatical shouting. And as to the hearty "Amen," (the frequent religious response,) when these manifestations of warmth and earnestness shall have ceased in the M. E. Church, then will her pure gold have become very dim, and her glory, if not departed, be departing. We regard such responses as a duty, and as necessary to keep up the proper sympathy between the pulpit and the people. They bespeak the earnest, social, and simultaneous character of our worship. They reveal our Protestantism. They show that the congrega. tion has no faith in that worship in which the people's business with their Maker is "done up" by priests and proxies. They have been regarded thus by the Church in all ages, and even the prayer-book of the self-styled, the Church, truc

to this fact of history, provides for these responses. Let all Methodists, then, say "Amen” in the great congregation. Give us the people to preach to, who convert all corners of their church into "Amen corners," and who both live, as well as respond or shout "Amen." As for the preacher whom a good hearty "Glory to God," or other devotional ejaculation, throws entirely off his equilibrium, we hope that if such be a Methodist preacher, the brethren will shout him out of the pulpit, and clear back to Jericho, where he may tarry until his beard be grown, and he endowed with "power from on high." As to the extravagances mentioned, then, they have, indeed, been the abuse of a good thing among us, which will yield at once to intelligent instruction. And even these ex travagances have, as yet, done so little harm, in proportion to the immense good that has been the result of our revival demonstrations, that they constitute but a very feeble objection to them. Imperfection, more or less, enters into all our plans, and their execution. It is not given to man to secure to himself, in this world, an unmixed good. "If I say I am perfect, it shall prove me perverse." God may perfect his gracious work in us, and this is spiritual