Or if amid the stillness drear
They felt the drowsy death-chill creep,
Then stretch’d them on their snowy bier,
And slumber’d to their last long sleep;
He only knows, whose Word of Hope
Was with them in the closing strife,
And taught their spirits how to cope
With agony that wins to life—
He only knows, whose Word of Might
Watch’d by them in their slow decay,—
Sure pledge that Death’s long, polar night
Should brighten into endless day:
And when the sun with face unveil’d
Was circling through the summer sky,
With silent words of promise hail’d
The symbol of Eternity.
Welcome, dear relique! witness rare!
Faithful as if an angel wrote:
Though Death had set his signet there,
The Lord of Life was in the boat.
REVIVALS.
One of the most striking subjects of the day is the Irish revival, which appears to have originated like a great many ordinary subjects. In spite of the efforts and anticipations of many excellent persons, I may be allowed, perhaps, the expression of my own opinion, which is, that there will be no revival, or at least none to speak of, in this country. Of course I have my reasons. Englishmen, on the whole, are not a demonstrative race; if not altogether in a state of religious torpor, they have, for the most part, rosy cheeks and regular pulses; they are fervent in business and rather slothful in spirit,—in cases of importance peculiarly disposed to refer to a committee, or to call in the aid of an eminent opinion. Besides, the country scarcely affords space enough for the thing, not to say that the Enclosure Act is dead against it; and although many well-disposed persons might like once in a way to see a revival, or allow it to take place on their property, yet there is a manifest inconvenience in having a revival settled on one’s estate, and something terrible in the supposition that it might become a permanent institution. The aloe, to which attention has been lately directed at Kew, is a wonderful production certainly, but a candid spectator must allow that it is not particularly pleasing. In favour of the revival, it may be urged that it has happened at a very convenient period of the year. If it had been a matter of deliberate arrangement, no season could have been more suitable. Observers of these peculiar phenomena cannot fail to have noticed that they always do happen at a slack time of the year. About the autumnal equinox there is nothing much doing either in town or country. What is more interesting then to a well-intentioned, though not greatly occupied class of persons, than to hear of a revival as occurring at a sufficient distance, and to have the excitement of travelling to it, or returning from it, or the delight of being listened to by an audience that is anxious to have our latest opinion upon the occurrence. The present “awakening” or “time of refreshment” in Ireland, is therefore interesting. Yet how happens it that Erin has hitherto never been looked upon as drowsy or torpid, but has been thought to need a dose of political and religious anodyne, rather than the administration of any sort of “awakening?” The proper locality for a revival is not Ulster, or Galway, but evidently the opposite side of the Atlantic. The backwoods or prairies offer capabilities for revivals, such as neither Ireland nor Wales can hold out. The earliest revivals were, as most people know, American, and exhibited, though most people do not know the circumstances, many of the same striking appearances now reported in Ireland. A century ago Northampton, in the state of Connecticut, was the scene of a great awakening which took place under the preaching of the pious though over-strict Jonathan Edwards. The deadly sin of a bright ribbon, the display of a pretty foot, the glancing of a white hand, the over-raising of an eyelid, an ungodly giggle, afflicted the heart and ruffled the dreams of the gay young things of Northampton.
There was a great awakening. “Showers of Divine blessing” quickened the human fallow field in New Jersey and Connecticut. The mirth of jig and fiddle ceased. The lights of taverns died out. Men’s breasts were full of awful apprehensions; their lips exercised in continual lamentation, repetition of texts, exhortation, and prayer. Religion, in fact, had become a distemper, and instead of being a daughter of activity and gladness, was converted into a lady of darkness, the mother of dismay and “leaden-eyed despair.” Morning and noon and night, nothing but praying and preaching and records of conversion. There was a great refreshing: abundant tears were shed in New Jersey, Rhode Island, and in Philadelphia. The journals announced the closing of theatres and dancing halls, and recorded collections in churches and the progresses of preachers. Far and wide men travelled, never minding blistered feet or bad weather, content to sit under preachers.
“Field-preaching! field-preaching for ever!” cried the prince of field-preachers.
The rain of righteousness, as Mr. Trumbull informs us, descended so copiously upon New Jersey and Connecticut, that the excellent Edwards became alarmed. The preachers were loud and passionate; some of them even clapped their hands—swang themselves to and fro in the pulpit—gesticulated and bawled, and shed floods of tears. The Rev. J. Davenport, of Long Island, was a remarkable instance of success. “He came out of his pulpit and stripped off his upper garment, and got into the seats, and leaped up and down some time, and clapped his hands, and cried out in these words: ‘The war goes on!—the fight goes on!—the Devil goes up! the Devil goes down!’ and then betook himself to stamping and screaming most violently.” Women and children then preached and testified—silence being reckoned a sign of sin, and clamour an evident token of conversion. “Little children of five, six, seven, and eight years old, talked powerfully and experimentally of the things of God.” Ever since 1730, these movements have recurred and been expected with more or less regularity. Sensible persons regard them as a “religious flurry,”