e extraordinary and degrading spectacles
are scarcely to be seen.

But the disease still lurks among the superstitious Christians of Tigre
in Abyssinia; in Siberia; among the revivalists of Ireland and America;
and (in a very mild form), among the ignorant Welsh Methodists,--who are
on this account popularly called "Jumpers." Now it so happened that
these poor hysterical French refugees had arrived in great numbers in
London, and had also visited Bristol, shortly before the critical year
1739,--when the excitable George Whitfield landed from America, and John
Wesley returned home from Germany. Men's thoughts were then full of the
(so called) "French prophets." A new religious enthusiasm was floating
in the atmosphere, and it only needed the impulse of some exciting
preaching, and the mental tension which is always produced among
expectant and heated crowds, to generate infallibly an outbreak of this
unaccountable and infectious malady. Such an occasion soon presented
itself. In February, 1739, Whitfield, for the first time, preached in
the open air, at Kingswood, near his native place, Bristol, to the wild
and lawless colliers of the then _Black Country_ of England. In the May
following he persuaded John Wesley to join him there, and to imitate his
example. And then, for the first time, _religious hysteria_ began to
manifest itself in England. Men and women of all ages fell down in
convulsions, and cried aloud for mercy. And honest John Wesley said, "I
am persuaded that it is the devil tearing them as they are coming to
Christ."--_Wesley's Journals._

THINGS HARD TO BELIEVE.

BY D.H. PATTERSON.

"For myself I still live and doubt. You know I can't believe everything.
There are so many things hard to believe--I can't see them."

So wrote an honest, intelligent young man, who was standing on the verge
of infidelity. Nor is he alone in his doubts. Many persons will not
accept the Bible on account of its mysteries _or miracles_. To doubt
seems to be as natural as to believe. Sir Wm. Hamilton says:
"Philosophers have been unanimous in making doubt the first step in
philosophy." When Paul says, "Prove all things," he tells us doubt a
thing until it is tested. To doubt is not necessarily a fault, but to
continue in doubt is blameworthy. If we are doubtful about a thing it is
our duty as intelligent beings to examine the testimony concerning it,
and so end our doubt. But shall we reject a thing because it is hard t