The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-14 00:00:00

Revival Meetings—Extraordinary Scene,

In the end of last week meetings of this kind took place
in Elgin. The first was held at the Morayshire Station—
the services being princil ally conducted by females—a Mrs.
Tenant from Banff being at once chief and leader. Daring
the prayers (such as they were), a chorus of voices might be
heard chanting out—" Oh yes he'll do it," "He'll do it,"
" Yes, do it Lord," &c. As the services advanced, the ex-
citement increased ; but the freedom and familiarity of the
speakers with "things divine," we do not venture to cha-
racterise. On the two succeeding evenings, the meetings
were held in the Baptist Chapel—granted, we under-
stand, on the express condition that the pastor
(Reverend Mr. Macfarlane) should preside—with one
view, no doubt, of preaerving something like common
decency, and checking those irregularities in which the
leaders seemed to delight. The meetings in the chapel
were much the same in character as those at the station
waiting-room. Mr. Macfarlane's own address was unex-
ceptionable, and with some of the prayers offered up no
fault could be found. But everything like good sense and
proper feeling, and respect for sacred things, were completely
overborne by the fiery spirits from the east; and the general
proceedings were more like those of bedlamites than of
rational men and women. " Revival hymn" of all possible
variety were sung, and to all possible airs—including
those of " When the kye comes hame," " The bold sol-
dier boy," " The captain with his whiskers, " The
second Alice Waltz," &c.—all excellent airs in their way,
but rather out of place in what professed to be religious
worship. And as if to make the irreverence more conspi-
cuous, while those within were singing what they called
hymns, some young men outside were chiming in with the
words of the songs to which the airs are generally sung 1
Mrs. Tenant—the Banff lady— and a young man from the
east, wore particularly conspicuous in the services—one or
both praying with great vehemence for the unconverted
ministers of Elgin, and giving the Almighty thanks for
the conversion of the one minister present. In the course
of one of those rodomontades, which sue called prayers,
Mrs. Tenant exclaimed that she cared not for any man
or devil, church, or minister I One young man present was
peremptorily ordered "Down on your knees, sir, the devil
is in you." There were occasionally a loud clapping of
hands; and sometimes one would strike up a hymn while
another was engaged in prayer. At one tim,) a gentleman
walked along the passage of the church, clapping his hands,
and crying out, " We've got the victory—we've got the
victory I" Matters went on in this style on the two even-
ings. It is proper to say that the meetings had got entirely
beyond the control of Mr. Macfarlane. About twelve
o'clock on Friday evening he pronounced the benedic-
tion, and declared the meeting at an end. No sooner
had he done this than a man got up, and declared " that
neither man nor devil would put him out of that house,"
Mr. Macfarlane, however, left—no doubt disgusted with
the vulgarity, irreverence, and folly of the proceedings.
Matters then got worse than ever. All restraint seemed
gone ; the excesses had reached a pitch which no descrip-
tion can convey to the reader. This went on for a short
time, when a young man, determined to put a stop to this
Babel of confusion, turned off the gas—and thus the scene
of disorder was most fittingly brought to a close in dark-
ness I—Elgin Courier.

BOGS.—The number of cattle lost in the Irish
bogs is said, by a competent authority, to be quite
incredible; and though travellers would be better able to
avoid this kind of danger, they would often fall victims to
it, especially in those numerous cases in which the bog 1S
covered with a dry crust, giving no indications of the
treacherous layer of hidden peat, which yields to pressure
like a wet sponge under brown paper. Of this kind was
Solway Moss, where a troop of Scotch horse were said to be
destroyed under Oliver Sinclair, at the battle of Solsvaboutyt
.e
,iin
1512. The legend was received doubtfully, but a
middle of the last century skeletons of a wan
and horse,
th in
complete armour, were discovered by peat .diggers a
traditional scene of the event, to the confutation of all
sceptics.—Macmillan's Magazine.
A woman about fifty years of age went on Satur-
day morning to the office of the Commissary of
Police for the quarter of the Porte-St.-Denis, and, when
one of the clerks asked what she wanted, she gazed at him
intently for a moment and then threw her arms round his
neck, kissed him fervently, called him her dear father, and
said that she would never leave him again. As the clerk
was evidently some twenty years her junior, this scene at
first produced a burst of laughter among all present, but it
soon became evident that the poor creature was insane, and
as she could give no account of who she was or whence she
came, she was removed to the prefecture of police, with a
view to procuring her tubainion to a luaatio &Om.