the depths of paternal, maternal and filial hearts; the sentiment of approval for one portion of a family, and of condemnation to another; the parting scenes; "these never again to weep,-- those never again to smile;" the father and mother ascending to regions of eternal joy, and all hopes of safety or delay of damnation, to children left behind, forever departing with them! O, there are elements of thought, just here, sufficient to break down and melt very hard hearts! But, when one comes to describe the coming in the clouds of heaven, and every eye beholding, tears cease. Why should sublimity of description have the same effect upon the eyes of an audience that cold weather or dry weather has upon the streams? The waters disappear, and the streams forget to flow; so, I have noticed, the domestic sympathies would be an antidote, hard to carry them so high; they are like clouds,- cannot rise above a certain height in such sublimities, perhaps; "all things are possible with God; "must make this a matter of prayer and thoughtfulness. However, conviction for sin may be just as deep and penetrating as if tears flowed, more so, perhaps, and more painful, and impressions more lasting. But I like to see the tears flow; —could not be put to a better use than to weep for sin, or weep over our Desire and Hope, -Jesus, my Love, my Life, my All! Nor is it easy to climb those sublimities to which the text invites; to where a fine writer would lead the daring thought, to where "the VAST PROCESSION is sailing on the bosom of the troubled air, filling the concave of the sky, and flanked with the thunder-clouds of wrath, and opening its front on an astonished world!" There is wanted, just here, in one's soul, a combination of natural and supernatural power. Philosophers speak of the "dew-point," a certain -that precise state of the atmosphere essential to the formation of dew. So the mind needs a DEW-POINT,divine temperature, a stand-point, a position of power, a point d'appui, as a Frenchman would say; a point of support, a coalition of the divine and human; the spiritual and intellectual and physical giving a rallying-point and a base of strength, where ideas rally and form like troops on a battle-field, condense into language, file off from the lips in squadrons of fit words, to do battle for the King of kings and Lord of lords! Well, after all due preparation, I did attempt the sublime, with a single eye and pure intention. The Lord enabled me to take sure footing,-not, indeed, upon the sublimities of airy speculations, upon which sinners are not unwilling to gaze, nor where the Lord would not walk with me. No; but high amid the strong-holds and "mountainous fastnesses" of Jesus Christ and his apostles; I found them like the tower of David, where are hung a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men!- Cant. 4: 4. And the Lord enabled me to lay them about me,—not as one beating the air, but upon the souls of the people,- scores and scores of whom were the slain and the saved of the Lord,- husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants, all knocking at Mercy's door, and none of them rejected. CHAPTER XXV. NOTES OF THE HUDDERSFIELD REVIVAL, CONTINUED. THE following chapter continues the record of the great revival in Huddersfield, which is interspersed, after Mr. Caughey's manner, with meditations, reflections and suggestions, which cannot but be profitable to candid and spiritual readers. One thousand souls had found Christ at the date at which this chapter commences. Feb. 11.- What a glorious work of God among the young people, many of whom were saved on Sabbath and last night! Not the world's leavings! not Satan's remnants, depreciated by his iniquitous clippings! No. Drygoods merchants have what they call remnants,— ends of webs, leavings of whole pieces, sold cheaper than the rest. OLD sinners are but remnants of their former selves. Numbers of such saved, but the devil had nearly used them up, body and soul. But these young souls, from seventeen years to twenty-five old,— fresh, vigorous, beginning their day's work for eternity in the prime of life's morning. O how much good they may accomplish, if faithful, before they enter their rest above! Mr. Wesley used to say he loved and venerated a young man, because of the good he would be doing in the world when he was sleeping in the dust. The work advances with To look around and see Feb. 15, Saturday morning. amazing swiftness and energy. one hundred new faces in the audience, saved within a few days past, many of whom are heads of families, melts the heart and the eyes. "The trembling gates of hell" seem to be shaken. The strength of the mighty is given to those who turn the battle to the gate.— Isaiah 28 : 6. Our troops seem as fresh, when they "stack their arms for the night, as in the beginning of the fight. Abraham had his "trained servants," or soldiers, Gen. 14:14,born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen of them; with them he obtained a great victory, and returned from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and brought back the souls and the goods he and his army had carried away captives. The Romans also had their Fabricii,- brave warriors of a high order, who graced their battle-field, and who had never learned to spell the word retreat! Well, Methodism has in Huddersfield her trained soldiers, born within her ramparts, who never fail, in their encounters with the old Chedorlaomer of hell, to come off victorious, bringing all the souls back with them for which they fought, and which he had led into captivity; the brave Fabricii, who are determined never to spell, define nor illustrate, retreat! Amen. -- Monday, Feb. 17. Faithfulness and tenderness in preaching yesterday ;-truth and sympathy. O, may my preaching never be wanting. in either! They are the life and soul of an effective ministry; truth colonizes truth, and sympathy begets sympathy,—as love begets love; and fair PERSUASION becomes what the ancients assigned to eloquence, queen-regent of the affections. This seems a gift of grace. I have no power to persuade sometimes, but my words are light and uninfluential as floating feathers. It was not so yesterday. My soul was filled with God. Persuasion, with sympathy, as a gushing, overflowing tide, passed over, reaching even to the neck, filling the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel, Isaiah 8: 8,- not; indeed, with the desolating rush of the Assyrian, but refreshing and fertilizing as the waters of Shiloah, that go softly.-Isaiah 8: 6. There were few eyes that refused the waters, few hearts that did not feel; hearts bowed unused to bow, and eyes wept not apt to weep, -willing tears, as if they would not part with them "for all the smiles that dance about the cheek of mirth." How tears do follow some appeals to the natural affections, as water followed the rod of Moses! Hallelujah! A sweet sight! The seal of truth stamps deeply through tears, and "The rainbow tints are only made, When on the waters they are laid ! " That was a sweet text for all this,--Psalm 103: 23, 14, -"Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him: for he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust." Fathers! mothers! How the sentiment moved them, that all the parental tenderness that has ever existed in the bosom of parents towards their offspring, from the days of Adam till now, is but as a drop to the ocean, when compared with the tenderness of God towards those who truly FEAR him, and who are in any sore trouble. Brothers, sisters, children! How sweet to watch the effects of those words of Jesus," Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto |