his own lie; and having put on religion first for a formality, to believe at length that that formality is religion." Is it, then, my dear Sir, a matter of small importance to endeavour to undeceive such selfdeceivers ? If you refer to such characters in your charge, I must indeed plead guilty. The direct tendency of my "small preaching," is to disquiet such persons, and the sharp crack of small fire-arms may be attended with more serious consequences than the loud report of cannon, in the " far-away distance," especially when nothing more is contemplated than the eloquence" of the flash and the roar !

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your own

If you can point to many who are sick" of my preaching, "and who have been thrown into unnecessary distress by it," and some within "family circle," I could conduct you to many who have been lately cured of their sickness, by the instrumentality you affect to despise, and who would not now for all the world have avoided the knowledge of their sickness, which has been succeeded by a consciousness of a perfect cure! The medicine, therefore, that has made them sick, may, after all, have been best suited to the state of their diseased souls. "But it fares," as one has somewhere said, "with faithful ministers, as with honest and able physicians, that are many times ill thought of by the sick man, and foolish friends, when they put him to pain and trouble. They charge him with cruelty, in delighting to torment the poor man unnecessarily, and it may be, think of discharging him, and getting a physician that will deal more gently with him; whereas, indeed, he is the sick man's best friend, and many times, if he should not pain him, he should kill him."

I cannot continue this correspondence; I hope you will excuse me, but this is the last letter I can afford time to write. I fear our differences of opinion would be endless. I remain, dear Sir, your sincere friend, J. C.

"serious

PERHAPS the best way to combat your objections," is to place them at once in battle array! "These revival operations have a direct tendency to unsettle the members of other churches, and to render them dissatisfied with their own pastors." Perhaps so; and would not any good pasture-field, near to a neighbouring flock, starving through the negligence of the shepherd, upon a bare and barren heath, have this tendency? But would any man in his senses, present as a reason why that good shepherd should be indifferent about a luxuriant pasturage for his own flock, lest, otherwise, he might possibly unsettle the arrangements of his neighbours? Rather should he not turn his attention to the slothful shepherd, and urge the necessity of bettering the condition of his flock, as the only means of making them contented with their own pasturage? It is a silly sheep that would again and again exchange a good pasture for a worse! I was reading, the other day, of a minister who once preached the gospel successfully, in a certain part of Yorkshire, England; but he was the cause of great vexation to the minister of a neighbouring parish, who could not restrain his church from ning after" the faithful preacher. At length, he made the complaint to the minister himself, and received this reply: "Feed them better, and they will not stray."

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I have heard," you proceed,

run

"that since your ar

rival in Ireland, many, in consequence of your movements have withdrawn from their respective churches, and have joined the Methodists." A few have done so, but the majority of those who have been converted to God, during the revivals to which you refer, were sent back to the churches to which they belonged, and in a safer and happier state of mind than when they first visited the Methodist chapels. "When Jesus Christ healed the afflicted, his constant advice was, 'Go show thyself unto the priest.'" I reply, not always. Why not send them back to their own ministers, if they have received good? Why not let those who have laboured so long for their conversion, as they who mus give an account, hear from their own lips, what God has done for them? Why not send such converts back to their own churches, and let them declare to their fellow-Christians what they have received ?" I can assure you, dear Sir, we have frequently attended to this very thing; indeed, it is our general rule. That there have been cases, in which we have been compelled to take a different course, I freely admit. following sentiment, of a particular friend of mine, I consider a good apology: "It will be conceded that circumstances must, in every case, determine as to the propriety of this. In some instances, it would be compelling the defenceless lamb to approach a roaring lion; while in others, it would resemble the sending of a new-born infant to a mere unparental anatomist, whose only solicitude would be for the gust of its dissection." I Kings iii. 26, 27; Deut. xxvii. 18; 1 Thes. ii. 7, 8.

"

The

"During your proceedings, congregations have been deserted by a large number of regular hearers, and I learn they have never returned." Beware, lest you colour too highly. Where there has been anything of the kind, the ministers connected with such congregations have had none to blame but themselves. They

may

thank their own conduct, and their injudicious railing against the revival, for such humiliating results. People will, in such cases, judge for themselves, and when they hear men reviling what they consider a real work of God, and giving credit to reports which they know to be utterly false, it is not likely they will sit patiently to hear it; especially, when it is known that their minister has not been at one of those meetings, in order to hear and judge for himself.

had

"And that

"I have myself heard several of these religious emigrants declare, they had no religion previous to their going among the Methodists." And how do you know they did not speak the truth? If truth, was it wrong in them to acknowledge the fact? If so, they no cause for thanksgiving to God? they felt it to be their duty to remain among the people, who had been the means of what they term their conversion.'" But are you sure they were wrong, I will not say in the expression, but in their determination to remain where they had received so much good? "Not a few of them have imprudently insinuated, in the hearing of some of my friends, that their former pastor had never been converted." Perhaps this was wrong, at least, injudicious; but are you quite sure it was not, in some instances, a mournful truth? "I am sorry, indeed, to admit, that some of our clergymen do acknowledge, that they are not aware of any other regeneration in their own experience, than what they are confident did take place when they were baptized in infancy. But what of that? Even a blind man may hold a candle to enlighten others, though he himself may walk in the dark." Yes! but let him have a light, and not a candlestick without one, or a dark lantern; else he, and those he would guide may, eventually, "fall into the ditch" (that is, into hell) together. Matt. xv. 14. "The Sun of Righteousness may shine, through the meanest window,

upon the heart of a hearer, equally well as through one of the cleanest and purest material." Ay! but let him be a real window, not an imitation; not the mere semblance of a converted minister of Jesus Christ; not mere brick-work, and plaster, and paint, (to carry out your figure,) to avoid the tax, and yet keep up appearances! From such ministerial windows, good Lord deliver us, and all our friends ! Allow me to say, that just such a window is every unconverted minister. If the Sun of Righteousness should shine through such a man, upon the hearts of his hearers, it would be a greater miracle, than were the natural sun to send his beams through those tax-avoiding imitations, which amuse one in every street!

You say farther, “ A leaden pipe may convey the water of life' to the souls of the people, quite as well as a golden one." Yes, but let it be a pipe, and not a mere mass of lead. If a pipe, let it be connected with the Fountain; else it may as well be no pipe at all! Do you understand me? A sheet of lead may be converted into a pipe, and so may a minister, but let him be converted! "A man may see himself in a plain glass as well as in one with a gilt frame." Just so, and I have seen my likeness quite as well, in one that had no frame at all. But let it be glass, and let it be a clean and pure mirror, else it will show no likeness at all, or, at most, a false and incorrect one. The soul of a regenerated and sanctified minister of the Lord Jesus, is like his sermons,-a transparent mirror of eternal truth. I dare not enlarge upon your figure, lest my letter would extend beyond your patience, and the time I have at my command.

I remember reading the following sentiment, which I very much admired at the time, and which, I think, applies to what you consider an imperfect ministry: A pearl may be showed forth by a weak