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    president ; persons have been called on by name in prayer , both private and public , and this was voted by the convention to be proper in small social circles ; there have been audible groaning , violent gestures , and boisterous tones , and unusual postures , in prayer ; ministers have been spoken against

    as cold , stupid , dead—as unconverted , or enemies to revivals of religion ; as heretics or disorganizes , as deranged or mad ; persons have been received as converted merely on the ground of their own judgment , without examination and time to afford evidence of real conversion . This last allegation reminds us of the words of Butler :

    Wbate ' er men speak by this new light , Still they are sure to be i * th * right ; "Tis a dark-Ian thorn of the spirit Which none see by but those who bear it ; A light that falls down from on high For spiritual trades to cozen by .

    Both in prayer and preaching , language has been used adapted to irritate on account of its manifest personality , such as describing the character , designating the place , or any thing which will point out an individual or individuals before the assembly as the subjects of invidious remarks . —Irreverent familiarity with God has been indulged in , such as men use towards their equals . —Young men have been introduced as preachers whose sole recommendation was their ardour , and the value of education has been

    depreciated ; things not true have been stated , or not supported by evidence , ( this we knew—now it is acknowledged by the orthodox themselves , ) for the purpose of awakening sinners ; the condition of sinners has been represented as more hopeless than it really is ; acknowledged errors have been connived at for fear that enemies should take advantage of them . —Unkindness and cjisrespect have been shewn to superiors in age and station—proceedings have been adopted which those who have followed them are unwilling to have

    published—nay , which are not proper to be published to the world , —Evening meetings have been prolonged to an unseasonable hour—accounts of Revivals have been exaggerated . Such are some of the acknowledged evils that have attended revivals in America . Yet , notwithstanding the hlameable character of most of the particulars adduced above , and the numerous pious

    frauds there recorded , the Rev . Mr . Beman , one of the contending revivalists in the convention , had the impudence to move , among other motions calculated to encourage rather than to check these acknowledged enormities , the following : *« Attempts to remedy evils existing ia revivals of religion , may , through the infirmity and indiscretion and wickedness of man , do more injury , and ruin more souls , than those evils which such attempts are intended

    to correct . " Thua frauds are committed , tolerated , justified , and that , too , by professors of religion ! Yet this audacious justification of acknowledged " Evils" was passed in the convention , nine persons—notice , reader , nine religious teachers—teachers of his religion who said , " I am the way , the truth , and the life "—nine ministers of the gospel voting in favour of the motion , and eight merely declining to vote . What a state of things , iu which all the virtue found in a convention of divines consisted in declining to > vote in

    reference to a measure that went to j ustif y falsehood I Why , they ought to have moved heaven , and earth in opposition to such a dereliction of dutyappealing from tlpe convention to the people , and calling on every enlightened and honest man to reprobate such delinquency . Yet these meetings of this dishonest convention were opened and interspersed with singing and prayer , as if in solemn mockery of the most sacred engagements and the most imperative obligations .

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    The Watchman . 335

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1829, page 335, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2572/page/39/