the law of Christ, and so love
_the_ Church and its Head as to love ourselves and our sections of the
Church less,--that we shall so love our brethren of every name,
that their sins shall be our grief, and their well being our
blessing,--that we shall be willing to decrease, if Christ only
increases, by whatever means He may in His sovereign wisdom select?
In one word, can it be that Christian ministers and people of every
church shall, in any town or district, come to love one another with a
pure heart fervently, because loving the Lord? Who would not long for
such a blessed consummation! "But, behold, if the Lord could make
windows in heaven, might this thing be!" So we exclaim in our
unbelief. But, unless we have lost all faith in the power of God's
Spirit, why should we not believe that God _can_ open the windows of
heaven, and pour forth such showers of His grace that ministers shall
believe what they know, and act as they teach, and be what they
profess, and that thus the parched places shall rejoice and blossom as
the rose. Then, indeed, would be fulfilled the gracious promise made
to a renewed Church:--"For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth
with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you
into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the
brier shall come up the myrtle-tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a
name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off."

II.

OBJECTIONS TO REVIVALS.

It cannot be denied that very strong prejudices are entertained by
many of our most intelligent, sober-minded, and sincere Christians
against revivals. It is both unjust and untruthful to allege that
their real objection is against all vital godliness and genuine
Christianity. Such persons as those we allude to love both, and desire
the advance of truth as truly and sincerely as any "revivalist" in the
land, and much more so than many who bear the name. But from their
education, their temperament, their views of truth, and from what they
have seen or heard regarding the "revival movements," they have been
led to question the reality of sudden conversions, the evidence of the
instrumentalities and means ordinarily employed to effect them, and
the correctness of the teaching imparted, either to awaken or build
up; while other things which appeared always to accompany "a revival,"
as if essential to it,