Year: 1875

Inc SCAt6S VI IcNlNdi meetings WHICH are 10
begin to-day in Brooklyn will afford an op-
portunity for judging whether these noted
evangelists are as well fitted for awakening
religious feeling in their own country as
among the people Of England. They will
have the great advantage here of the reputa-
ton they gained abroad, which alone will
draw crowds Of people who are merely
curious as well as people who are religious
Every meeting will be made up chiefly of
these two classes, and there will be large
section of each who will receive but little
improvement from their attendance. That
part of the merely curious who leave the
meetings without having resolved to lead a
new life will not be benefited, nor will that
part of the already religious who attend only
to judge of tho movement, and these to-


gether will form the bulk Of every meeting.
The whole value of the meetings will depend
on the small minority of religious people
who 60 to lend their influence in support OF
a revival and a small minority OF curious
people whose conversion in the course
of the meetings will be the tro-


phies of success. To the majority


the Brooklyn Rink will be merely place of


entertainment, though an entertainment OF
better kind than is furnished at most


places Of popular resort The real benefit


will be confined to such religious people as
find their own zeal quickened, and to such
careless people as surrender themselves to
the spirit Of peace and dedicate their lives to
a new service. This line of remark is in
tended to show that the real value of the
meetings is not to be measured by the
thronging multitudes that attend, but by
their practical effect on individual souls.
vast concourse of curious people will be
merely personal tribute to the remarkable
preacher and singer, whose success in Great
Britain has created an interest in them in
their own country. But in proportion as
they succeed in awakening the careless and
bringing souls to Christ the value of their
labors will be recognized by the Christian
churches. Such converts as do not fall
away and backslide will be monuments not
merely Of saving grace but of the Christian
usefulness of these fervid evangelists and
their methods. by their fruits shall ye
know them"


But until these singular meetings shall
be vindicated by practical results there will
be difference Of opinion among Christian
men as to the utility Of such sensational
efforts in behalf of religion. There are many
good Christians whose sympathies do not
easily 90 with movements which they regard
as spasmodic. They think, with the old
prophet, that God is not heard in the storm,
or the whirlwind, or the earthquake, but in
the still small voice. They observe that in
the works of the Divine Hand the most
powerful influences are the gentlest in their
operation. The great annual miracle by
which the earth is clothed with the wonder
full beauty of spring, and the seasons
crowned with the rich harvests of autumn,
is SO still, so gradual, 50 gently progressive,
that we can fix no date which marks q sudden
transformation. The sustaining air con-
tributes to animal and vegetable life in q
way SO silent that it attracts no observation;
but how infinitely more important is this
mild agency than when it bursts forth in
tempests and gathers the desolating
force of tornadoes A wise physician
shrinks from prescribing violent remedies
and trusts more to the recuper-
ative forces Of nature aided by
correct hygiene than to the drugs Of the
apothecary 1t is only quacks that promise
sudden and wonderful cures by their nos
trums Now, if we admit that the physical
world is type Of the spiritual view
accepted by many pious people who recog-
nize both as the work Of the same Divine
Hand-there is as little reason to expect good
results from spasmodic efforts in the one as
from great conyulsions in the other.


The whole tenor Of the Gospels, as many
Christians understand them, is inconsistent
with spasmodic violence in the great work Of
religion. They think it not more true that
a plant necessarily springs from seed and
is gradually developed by the silent agencies
of nature than that the beginnings and
growth of healthy Christian character fol-
low a similar order Of progress. All truly
great things are calm all things in nature
which are destined to long life are Of slow
growth. The Divine Founder Of Christianity
habitually inculcated this view. He likened
the klIi5uOH VI pOu ~ q muSLdIu Secu,
which He called the smallest of all seeds,
''and it grew and waxed q great tree, and the
fowls Of the air lodged in the branches Of it,
He likened it to little leaven which
a woman "hid in three measures of meal till
the whole was leaycned !" still referring to
the silent and gradual operation Of the work
Of grace. And again. He said, in the same
vein Of instruction $50 is the kingdom Of
God as if a man should cast seed into the
ground, and should sleep and rise night and
day, and tho seed should spring and grow
up, he knoweth not how" All these para
bles bear in one direction they all inculcate
that the growth Of religion in the human