On

a general desire to please, which will commend him to the congregation and to occasional hearers, his election will end in failure. the other hand, he must not be too tame and yielding, or endless feuds and jealousies will arise, and the whole church be filled with discomfort. Here I may, perhaps, aptly quote my friend's description of his 'model deacon.'

'He is a man of a most amiable temperament, encased in a firmness which is not easily shaken. He thoroughly knows the different characters who make up the church and congregation, and never shocks John Jones by putting Thomas Price in the same pew, if not mutually pleasant and desirable. He collects the pew-rents in advance, and regularly on quarter-day I have a cheque on his bankers for the amount. Such is a brief outline of my deacon's business qualities, and I wish that every minister was blessed with such a man.'

Amen, say I.

My dear Spectator, it is really time that the useless deacons of the country should be swept out of office. When we have the right men in the right place, both as pastors and deacons, then we shall have flourishing churches, but in order to secure the latter, a little more discretion must be used in their election than that which is too frequently practised.

We want no more such deacons as those I have sketched. Mr. Coin must no longer be elected because of his money, nor Mr. Uncouth to spite a sister church, and Messrs. Fixture and Letseat must not even be thought of in connexion with the office. Let the church manfully take the Scriptural standard of what a deacon ought to be, and aim to keep closely to it. Let not the office be simply an honorary one, or given to attach two or three men of influence and respectability to a place of worship. Let no one be chosen who is not generally acceptable in the eyes of the people. Let no miserable little cliques be formed to bring in our man.' Let no one be chosen who is of a quarrelsome, factious disposition, and who has been known to be a troubler of the peace of Israel in other places.

Surely, my dear Spectator, the church is not quite so destitute of living men as to have no Stephen in it fitted for the work-a man full of faith and power, and of the Holy Ghost! When more care is exercised in the election of deacons, and more care and discretion practised in the acceptance of calls to the pastorate, we shall hear no more of sustentation funds.

PETER POOrparson.

The American Revival.

COLLOQUIE PERSONE.

MR. HABAKKUK MATHER, a Merchant of New York, on a visit to England. MR. HENRY ESTERLING, an English Gentleman.

SCENE-A Library in a Suburban Villa.

Mr. Esterling. And so Ben has gone to Texas? Well, he is one of the last persons that I should have suspected of possessing a roving disposition.

Mr. Mather. And I, although he was my brother. It was very sudden at last. He came into the store one morning, inquired if I could give him a commission for New Orleans or Galveston, and left two days afterwards. I believe the 'Revival' was at the bottom of it.

E. How? Surely he was not afraid of being converted?

M. No; not exactly that, although I think he would have kept aloof from such influences; but the fact is, he was engaged to a young lady, who has been carried away by the prevailing excitement, and from a fashionable Broadway belle has become apparently a most humble, earnest, and sincere follower of the Lord. And Ben, as you know, with all his hearty and genial disposition, is what would be called a thorough man of the world, and as some Scotch friends of mine and yours expressively said, he could not abide' the change. So he wrote Mary a letter, and left.

E. Is the engagement terminated, then?

M. No! oh, no; she will not have it terminated. She says he may escape for a time from her influence, but he cannot escape from God's. She prays for him at fixed hours every day, and he knows it. Besides this, she has publicly asked the prayers of one of the great city congregations on his behalf-sent up a slip of paper to the president, with names and circumstances-and, accordingly, special prayer was offered, and, without wishing to speak irreverently, I must say I believe she will win. In fact, I think Ben would have staid if he had not been of the same opinion. He was positively afraid of her, and ran away to get out of the reach of her moral influence. Ben, as you know, is gay, not much gayer than was Mary herself, perhaps, before this took place, but he has not the moral courage of Mary's sex, and was terrified at the idea of avowing himself a Christian. You see, therefore, how the matter stands. In his heart of hearts' I believe he wishes he could be like her, and depend upon it he will be before long. I shall be curious to ask him when he returns, how he felt at those times when he knew that Mary was praying for him. It will be an interesting and not uninstructive case of spiritual anatomy. There is very little false shame attending the expression of religious feelings amongst us just now, and Ben is peculiarly open-open as the day,' as Mary said of him just before I left.

E. I have been reading the newspapers you kindly brought to me, and am disposed to take a somewhat more favourable view of the character of the present great awakening than I have hitherto done; or, indeed, than most people have done in this country. You must be aware that 'Revivals,' as they have been carried on in America, are utterly foreign to the English character and habits, and I suppose I might appropriately add, the English taste and taste has a greater influence in such matters than most people would be willing to believe. We do not like much excitement. As a stock-broker said to me the other day, we cannot afford it. Naturally rather indifferent in our manners, and slow in feeling and perception, all our individual and national life, and all the institutions which express them, take it for granted that there will be nothing exciting to disturb them. We have our disturbances, but they are as the occultations of Jupiter-very small when compared with our whole orbit, and nearly always taken into the account. We reckon upon them now much as a tradesman reckons the per-centage of his bad debts, or the man of property the proportion of expenses he may incur for repairs to the rent he expects to receive. A' Revival' amongst us-supposing it could take place -would create as much surprise, and, I think I may say, consternation, as would a sudden deflexion in Jupiter's orbit to the astronomer, or a disastrous fire to a tradesman or house-owner.

M. You are very severe on your national character.

E. Stop a moment. Severe, not at all! But, of course, I look at the matter as an Englishman. I was going to add, that there are two vested interests in this country which, it seems to me, will always furnish sufficient ballast to prevent our good ship from going too fast, or getting unsteady-the Established Church and the National Debt. The Church dare not encourage excitement on any point. Excitement demands liberty, and liberty would have to be paid for at a very heavy sacrifice in the shape of money and social influence. Excepting Charles Kingsley, Frederick Maurice, and one or two others, every clergyman is a Conservative, and, if he wishes to better his position, as people say, must grow in years and Conservatism together. As for the bishops, I could, perhaps, imagine the Bishop of Oxford or the Bishop of London going so far as to say, 'he dared not, for conscience sake, oppose such a movement;' but I should as soon expect to see Lord Derby presiding at a Chartist convocation as a bishop at a Revival meeting. Besides, public extempore prayers are not allowed in the Establishment even to ordained clergymen, and a 'Revival,' without great prayer-meetings, would be like a Parliament without speeches. In addition to this, the hard, heavy mould which has been impressed by law and custom upon the religious worship of the Established Church, has now become so fixed, that it would be easier to break than to expand it, even in such a direction. On the whole, therefore, I think it extremely improbable that a Revival' of the American kind will ever take place within the Church. But if such should ever occur, the last days of the Establishment as it now exists will be at hand.

M. God hasten a 'Revival' then, my friend! You, such a-what do you call yourself?-Anti-State-Churchman, and with this belief, yet frown upon Revivals! I should have thought that you would have wished to live just long enough to see the birth of such a spirit in the Church, and that then, like Simeon, you would say, 'Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.'

E. Aye! I could say it then, at least I think so; but you have not heard me out. If I did not think Revivals to be altogether foreign to our national habits, I could hope for such a day; but they would be more unreal here than they are even in America, and therefore would contain a greater amount of alloy, and leave behind, after the roughest washing, a greater amount of earth-or if a spade must be called a spade, I will say "dirt-than they do in your country. I expect the Establishment to be destroyed by other means. But I was about to say a word concerning the influence of the National Debt on the Conservative feelings of the people of this country. That, too, is an influence altogether unfavourable to excitement, and therefore to 'Revivals.' There are three hundred thousand holders of Consols in England; they are the wealthiest people in the kingdom, and are directly interested in the cause of national order and quiet, and therefore interested against Revivals. This is not a far-fetched argument. I have no hesitation in saying that a Revival in London of the kind that is now going on in New York, would be attended by an immediate depreciation in the price of Consols. And that is the way that my friend the broker looks at it, and therefore honestly expresses his opinion that he cannot afford it. It is what Professor Newman would call one of the immoral influences of the National Debt.

M. So as we have our Almighty Dollar, as Mr. Dickens said, you have your Almighty Consols?

E. Exactly so, although I do not like the form of expression.

M. Well, notwithstanding all my love for the old country, a love which as you know has brought me to England, whether I have had business or not, almost every year for nearly twenty years, I would prefer to be in America, and if anything had been needed to decide my preference, this matter of the Revival' would have been sufficient. Since I have been in your country on the present occasion I have been astonished at the want of information and the indifference concerning the Great Awakening that is now being experienced throughout the Union. It is true that your people might have been more interested if they had been made acquainted, through their newspapers, with the real character and extent of the 'Revival,' but your newspaper editors are generally remarkably correct judges of public sympathies, and if they had been of the opinion that their readers would have felt much interest in the matter they would have offered their columns to information and discussion as quickly as they have done to the Norfolk Biffin, or Mr. Rarey.

E. Perhaps they do not get the New York daily papers?

M. Oh, yes, they do; at least they pretend that they do. You

have seen those I have brought over? In the 'Tribune,' there are every day six, and sometimes eight or ten closely printed columns filled with reports concerning the progress of the Revival. If the mother country had sympathized with us as it ought, the newspapers would have reprinted every word!

6

E. What? All about Awful Gardner' and Screeching Harry?' M. Don't you rile me! What I was going to say was this, that I bless God my country is open to Revival influences! You spoke just now about the present excitement being 'carried on;' there has been nothing of the kind. There has been no systematic carrying on of Revivals' in the States for more than a hundred years. During that period, in one part of the country or the other, there have been more than forty great Awakenings. In the first two or three there was, unquestionably, a great deal of fictitious and hurtful excitement-excitement of the kind that fills the mad-houses; that creates brain diseases of all descriptions, and that makes St. Vitus's dance almost an epidemic. That was in the time of the 'Revival-makers.' Public opinion, however, has since unanimously condemned this hurtful and artificial stimulus, and for some years past, as well as on the present occasion, the ablest ministers of all denominations have successfully exerted their influence in moderating and regulating the popular excitement. As far as I am aware, not a single Revival-maker has been engaged in the present awakening. The preachers who are now conducting the daily devotional services are men who are remarkable for their steadiness of character. I need only mention the names of Dr. Cheever, Dr. Spring, Henry Ward Beecher, Dr. De Witt, Dr. Sprague, and Albert Barnes,-names known to every cultivated English Christian,-to convince you that whatever there may have been on former occasions, there can be no fanaticism attending the present movement.

E. That I cheerfully grant you. After having read the daily papers, I have been compelled to arrive at the same conclusion. Indeed, I cannot adequately express my admiration of the strength of character evinced by your leading preachers. Not one seems to have been carried away by the excitement.

M. I am rejoiced to hear you say that. There has not been one who has lost his common sense, his reason, or his self-possession. I have an intimate knowledge of everything that has occurred, and I cannot help expressing my conviction that there is no body of clergy in the world who could have passed through such a trial with greater strength than have those of my own country. I should not have thought it was in human nature to do as they have done, nor, indeed, is it. Only Divine strength could have been sufficient. If they had not cried, Deliver us from temptation,' no power could have restrained them. But not only have they done nothing to excite the agitation: they have resolutely kept it within the bounds of the very strictest propriety. I know, myself, of only two instances in New York where they have been exceeded without meeting with an instant rebuke, and these occurred on only one occasion. It was at the largest religious meeting ever held in America, when the firemen of New